Understandig others: Theodor Lipps as philosopher of gestures

The paper, after outlining the role Lipps attributes to gestures, bodily movement and expressions, aims to show in what sense Lippsian theory is able to enhance the immediate and instinctive dimension of our relationship with the other. His reflection on gesture makes it possible to restore theoretical relevance to a type of relationship that precedes and grounds the cognitive and conscious one, in which the self and the you are fully distinct and separate. The instinctive and immediate dimension is, in fact, essential not only for understanding the characteristics of intersubjectivity, but also for rethinking - in comparison with Husserlian phenomenology - the role of others in the constitution of individual identity. Lippsian philosophy is proposed in the following pages as a true philosophy of gesture capable of delineating a reversal in the usual point of view: in order to talk about the self and the relation to the other, it is necessary to look closely at the potentially fusional and vague dimension set in motion by the mimesis and gesture of the other.