“Sentire come” e “sentire con”: comprensione ed esperienza degli altri in Wittgenstein

This contribution pays homage to Sandro Mancini by investigating the affinity between themes that concern the question of others in Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty. First, it is argued that in Wittgenstein the understanding and communicability of meanings have a sensitive and aesthetic basis, and are therefore strictly connected to the primitive and corporeal-based character of the relationship to others. Wittgenstein criticizes both the myth of interiority, that is, the models of the mind as a hidden activity that founds external manifestations (thus assuming the metaphysical opposition between inside and outside), and the formulations of the problem of inter-subjectivity as a problem of knowing other minds. Wittgenstein thus elaborates a conception that has many points of contact with Merleau-Ponty's notion of inter-corporeality as corporeal-based acknowledgment.