Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology provides a philosophical foundation for the rearticulation of situated learning theory

The central idea of the present essay is to emphasize that situated learning theory is, at its core, a philosophical theory formulated on the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodied perception. According to Merleau-Ponty, the body constitutes the pivotal locus of the human relation to the world and the primary medium through which lived experiences and everyday interactions are apprehended. Beyond its biological structure, the body is a field of possibilities and capacities that continuously reconstitutes itself in the face of experience. In his account, learning is not confined to the subject’s mastery over nature; rather, it is the embodied perception of the world. Propositions, from Merleau-Ponty’s perspective, bear an embodied dimension that is rearticulated in relation to the situation or context in which the individual’s experience unfolds. Thus, body and world, in their reciprocal interaction, shape the overall structure of cognition, which is the key concern in situated learning theory. Situated learning is therefore a socio-corporeal theory whose fundamental orientation lies in examining the profound interrelation between mind and practice—an effort to transcend the dualism of subject and object. Learning is not a merely mental, individual, or socially disembedded activity; rather, it is inherently a social process constituted within the reciprocal encounter between mind and world. Accordingly, in the framework of situated learning—interwoven with Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception—education is inseparable from the embodied existence of the subject, the concrete situation, and the social context.