This essential fluidity of our boundaries further implies that we also know our boundaries as such—first the individual and then in general. For only whoever stands outside his boundary in some sense knows that he stands within it, that is, knows it as a boundary. Kaspar Hauser did not know that he was in prison until he came into the open and could see the walls from without.

XREF: Parallels the ship/water paradox and the idea that systems can only be observed from a position external to them, echoing General Systems Theory and Bateson's 'map-territory' distinction.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 787