Correct judgment requires being simultaneously close and distant to its object

Evidence

Only where we are close, are on the inside, are equals, do we know and understand; only where distance precludes immediate contacts in every sense of the word do we have the objectivity and detachment which are as necessary as knowledge and understanding. This dualism of nearness and distance is necessary for our behavior to be consistently correct. It inheres, so to speak, in the fundamental forms and problems of our life. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3206

Categorization

• XREF: The nearness-distance dualism recurs in Simmel’s sociology of the stranger and in Shapiro’s observers/institutional guardians; the reviewer’s witness triad (Porfiry, Sonya) could map here.
• QUESTION: How exactly does Simmel’s nearness-farness dualism license the credible judgment of an intermediary like Porfiry — close enough to Raskolnikov’s psyche yet institutionally distant?