ABSTRACT
Drawing from Nagel, we outline the subjective character of human experience, and how human beings can also possess an objective point of view when it comes to understanding the world. Since our understanding of the world starts from the subject’s point of view, it only makes sense that a natural starting point is the status of first-person or subjective accounts of experience. Although my own first-person or subjective point of view may appear to be private, we argue that the intersubjective nature of subjectivity entails that the nature of our experiences, actions, and our understanding of the world to be open to public comparison. We then turn our attention to the emerging area of embodied subjectivity, in particular Merleau-Ponty’s theorising on the importance of embodiment in relation to the body as a lived, experiential structure that shapes cognition. We argue that there is much that can be learnt from Merleau-Ponty that can benefit first-person methodologies of embodied subjectivity that link subjective accounts of experience with objective explanations. In order to bring this about, we clarify the use of phenomenology in the study of first-person events or the lived experience of human beings, and also highlight the importance of using three forms of validation (i.e. first-, second-, and third-person) when pursuing first-person investigations, particularly in education and educational research.
