In-betweenness

  We perceive the skin as a boundary, a container, and a point of contact between ourselves and the outside world. Skin not only brings us into contact with everything outside, it is also what separates us from everyone and everything else. It is a living membrane that works on both sides, inside-out, outside-in, an abstract and physical border at the same time.

   ''Where are we to put the limit between body and world, since the world is flesh?'' Merleau-Ponty asks. The concept of flesh in his philosophy can simply defined as the principle of unity not only between consciousness and the body, but also between the subject as a body and the world. To him,  ''perception is not a channel that simply filters in information from a separate environment, but rather it is a kind of interconnected interaction of body and environment. Consciousness is the result of this interaction.'' So, to answer his own question, that limit is the skin, which is not a limit, but rather a constant contact between inside and outside.

   Skin has a great importance in Michel Serres' philosophy. Serres rejects the metaphor of the skin as a surface, for him, skin is an entire environment. Serres uses the word mileue to describe it, skin is a place of minglings, a mingling of places. ''Through the skin, the world and body touch, defining their common border. Contingency means mutual touching: world and body meet and caress in skin.'' The Latin word for touch, contingere, is the root of words like contact or contiguity, but also contingency which refers to not only possibility, coincidence, but also "a natural affinity between two things'' as Jennifer M. Barker puts it.

   Unlike other organs, the skin is not concentrated in one part of the body. It provides a milieu for all the other senses, becomes a kind of common sense. It is bound up with everything and binds everything together, although it is very important for skin to be experienced as entire, one cannot feel the whole skin all at once. Skin is elusive on its own, as Paul Schilder says, ''the distinct surface of our skin is perceived only when we are in touch with reality and its objects.''