Introduction

In much of our previous critical research, we have individually and/or collectively considered how an enhanced focus on habit and embodiment could contribute towards a more upbeat and vibrant account of educational aims and pedagogical futures (see for example, Stolz 2015; Thorburn 2018; Thorburn and Stolz 2021, 2022; Stolz and Thorburn 2022). Until; now, the pragmatist-informed writings of John Dewey (1859–1952) have only occasionally merged with the phenomenological writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) in evaluations of habit, embodiment, and education (Thorburn 2021). This is to some extent expected; for while the careers of Dewey and Merleau-Ponty did partially overlap, there is little (if any) evidence that Dewey was widely read by Merleau-Ponty, and Dewey would certainly have been in his late senior years before publications from Merleau-Ponty began e.g., Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963, 1945/1962). And, while it is reasonable to anticipate that someone as well read as Merleau-Ponty would have known of Dewey’s contribution to pragmatism and education, arguably, the distance, geographic and otherwise between European continental philosophy and American pragmatism at the time, may have influenced a lack of connection. That said, it is worth noting the shared influence of Hegel on the early career thinking of Merleau-Ponty and Dewey. At the outset, Dewey was a committed Hegelian idealist, impressed by Hegel’s views on individual freedom and social harmony; a perspective which was later replaced by a greater ‘emphasis on local problem-solving’ (Fesmire 2015 p. 15) and a perspective on biological naturalism which contained a more unified perspective on body and mind (Schusterman 2008). Baldwin (2004) notes that Merleau-Ponty twice quotes with approval Hegel on the similarities of their views on the philosophy of nature in his first book (Merleau-Ponty 1942/1963). Thus, given the current challenges of education e.g., in terms of being able to foster personal and societal growth, and for learning to be aspirational and imaginative, and to rise above the formulaic arrangements which often narrow children’s learning experiences, we see the benefit of considering the interrelationship (coherent or otherwise) between key aspects of Dewey’s pragmatism and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological thinking to be worth examining in greater detail.

In its wider context, the paper is also located against a backdrop of recent 4E Cognition developments in embodied cognition (see for example, Shapiro 2004, 2019; Shapiro and Stolz 2019), and recent enlargements in 4E Cognition where cognition is not considered to exclusively occur in the mind, but is variously embodied, embedded, enacted, extended (Newen et al. 2018). This position and context, contrasts with more established views, where internal representations of states of affairs are manipulated by the mind to inform knowledge and actions (Carney 2020). The 4E Cognitive perspective includes, how we perceive the body as contributing to cognitive processes and how the body has co-evolved with the mind over time. Such a perspective extends to reviewing how the body and the mind are connected to our social and cultural environments and the affordances for action different environments provide as we become more attuned to our surrounding circumstances. While this paper is broadly sympathetic to 4E cognition developments, it also recognises that for some the blending of the continental phenomenological tradition (most notably via the work of Merleau-Ponty), with the methods of contemporary neuroscience is problematic, as it attempts to complement a ‘third-person knowledge of specific brain states with a phenomenologically informed, first-person perspective on what it’s like to experience these states’ (Carney 2020 p. 2). That said, we continue to see merit in the important work of Varela et al. (1991) into the action of the embodied mind, as the authors in drawing upon phenomenological and neurobiological resources, propose the development of an enactivist account of cognition, which emphasises the role of the dynamical coupling between the brain, the body, and the environment. Such an action-orientated approach to intentionality, is considered by Newen et al. (2018) to have clear links to phenomenology and pragmatism. This is evident through the ways in which skilful bodily movements work in tandem with ecological demands and affordances. In these dynamic contexts, something more than neural representations is shaping and informing brain-body-environment decision making.

We also draw on the infrequent research where there is clear and specific evidence of association and comparative analysis between Dewey and Merleau-Ponty. Kestenbaum (1977) analysed Deweyan notions of experience, with the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty providing the framework and guiding point for interpreting Dewey's concept of habit in terms of its pre-objective intentionality. Kestenbaum (1977) considered that the concept of habit provided Dewey with the resources for recording and reflecting on the outcome of experiences; for exploring the ever-present role of habit in experience and for reviewing the capacity of habit to intensify experience. However, even here, as Rosenthal (1978 p. 139) notes, there ‘is no attempt at mutual elucidation’ with Merleau-Ponty's position ‘taken for granted rather than discussed as an object of explicit concern’ (p. 139). There is though elaboration that while perception may contain cognitive references, habits are also preconscious and pre-objective, yet provide nevertheless experiences which can become a focal point for understanding the intentional unity of the self in relation to the world. On this basis, Kestenbaum (1977) considers through reference to Dewey’s work on Art as Experience (Dewey 1934/2005), that a reassessment of Dewey’s epistemology, which embraces a circularity of experience rather than an overly restrictive focus on scientific method and problem solving, is needed. This position links to other late-period Deweyan writings e.g., The Quest for Certainty (Dewey 1929/1988) where Dewey argued that degrees of constructive disruption were needed to unwrap the process of inquiry. Indeed, Fesmire (2015 p. 27) considered Dewey’s (1929/1988) work at this time to be ‘a relentless attack on traditional epistemology from the revolutionary standpoint of knowing as acting’, a perspective from which there is a unity of mind and object, the self and the world and from which ‘the creative, sense-bestowing role of perception as embodying habitual, meaning-permeated modes of response’ (Rosenthal 1978 p. 142) is pivotal to experience, engagement and the resetting of learning goals. This position is largely consistent with more recent efforts in Deweyan-informed epistemology to move beyond analytical and realist interpretations and to set out a more naturalistic epistemology, which seeks to integrate truth, reality, and knowledge. Boyles (2006 p. 60), for example, has sought ‘to progress Dewey’s conception of warranted assertibility in an effort to show the value of a fallibilist epistemology for practical and social teaching and learning contexts’, that are bounded by considerations of how knowing can become more meaningful for students. Stoller (2015 p. 329) has similar concerns, citing the learning outcomes movement in the United States as an example of narrow reductionism that is ‘antithetical to the development of deep learning and democratic forms of education’ due to its flawed homogenous idealism based around students achieving same set skills, attributes, and abilities. Stoller (2015) argues with certainty that schools should serve the interests of a pluralistic, participatory democracy in environments underpinned by trust, collaboration, and self-respect for all students. However, as Stoller (2015) also notes, it is not that Dewey was opposed to the concept of goal setting, rather it is that engaging with the needs and interests of students requires greater planning, flexibility, and preparation than a predominantly outcomes driven curriculum requires.

Margolis (1998) also sought to draw more extensive connections between Dewey’s pragmatism and continental philosophy, particularly the phenomenological writings of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty; a venture which Margolis (1998) advises has had other iterations e.g., Rosenthal and Bourgeois (1991) in their attempts to find a common vision between American pragmatist George Herbert Mead and Merleau-Ponty. In relation to Husserl and Heidegger, Margolis (1998) found very little that was similar. However, between Dewey and Merleau-Ponty, Margolis (1998) found considerable commonality and a belief that what ‘is similar in Dewey and Merleau-Ponty may be what will be surest in the philosophy of the next century’ (p. 252). This prediction is based on a shared appreciation of the nature of natural inquiry, which fuses Dewey’s thinking on the indeterminate nature of problem solving (Dewey 1938a) and Merleau-Ponty’s later writing on the pre-given world which precedes conscious analysis. Margolis (1998) points to the significance of Merleau-Ponty’s final work on the visibility and invisibility of experience (Merleau-Ponty 1964/1968) and highlights that to overcome dualisms and cognitive pretensions it is necessary to ‘(a) grasp the indissoluble unity of pragmatism and phenomenology; and (b) grasp as well that the contingency of the cultural formation of our cognitive powers … are biologically given but not biologically fixed …’ (p. 250). On this basis, Margolis (1998) believes, the unity of pragmatism/phenomenology can proceed to problematise the typical questions which surround philosophy, including matters crucial to educational philosophy such as the role of language in learning. Similarly, but with a more explicit focus on philosophy in the flesh, Lakoff and Johnson (1999 p. xi) consider Dewey and Merleau-Ponty to be ‘the two greatest philosophers of the embodied mind.’

More recently Gibson (2016) highlighted how Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of subjectivity can support and reinforce the rationale behind Dewey’s inquiry-based approach to education, and concluded that ‘Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, which shares a common sensibility with Dewey’s philosophy, helps to ground and advance Dewey’s progressive education, and further the battle against reductive either or thinking, not just in education, but in all aspects of life’ (p. 131). In this context, leaning is characterised by the open-ended nature of experience, and, where coping with the ambiguities of experience should be embraced rather than ignored. Thorburn and Marshall (2014) also drew upon the theorising of Dewey and Merleau-Ponty, in relation to how school-based outdoor learning episodes could enhance relationships between the self, others, and nature (environment) and be extended to include embodied experiences, which subsequently inform how personal responsibility is exercised in relation to how we live. McMahon (2018) has also argued, via three case studies that focus on ontological understanding of the self in relation to the nature of emotional and behavioural disturbances, that environments based on habits of open-ended plasticity can achieve productive outcomes.

Our own position is that there is merit in reviewing whether criticisms of the problem solving focus in pragmatism e.g., Carr (2016) considers that Dewey’s educational thinking is an ‘arid, barbarous and reductionist litany of human life as an evolutionary struggle to solve problems in order to survive’ (p. 14), and thereafter, that ‘the most educationally unpromising feature of Deweyan or other pragmatism would seem to be the extreme poverty of its account of human inquiry and of meaning in general’ (p. 19), might in some way be ameliorated by pragmatism and phenomenology aligning themselves more closely, when conceiving of theory and practice gains for education. Could, for example, concerns about getting beyond basic descriptions of intentionality and of Vagle’s (2014) apprehensions that some of the operative concepts in phenomenology are not elaborated upon in ways which provide methodological insights or aid reflection, benefit from a closer engagement with pragmatism. In short, we concur with McMahon’s (2018 p. 608) position that the conceptual thinking of Merleau-Ponty and Dewey is in relation to the embodied mind of ‘two philosophers who are infrequently put into direct conversation with one another but whose work is mutually resonant and complementary’.

Given this contextual backdrop, our purpose in the paper is threefold. Firstly, to extend critical inquiry into Dewey and Merleau-Ponty’s respective writings on habit and embodiment, and to discuss the main connections and points of difference between the authors on these matters. Secondly, we discuss how greater conceptual considerations of habit and embodiment in relation to educational goals, specifically the role language and reflection might play in learning. Thirdly, we discuss some of the most apparent pedagogical influences on practice which emanate from our conceptual enquiry. These purposes are consistent with adopting a broadly naturalistic position, both ontologically and methodologically; a perspective which considers that the body materially exists (ontology) and is therefore capable of being researched and discussed in terms of how natural life articulates with human behaviour and action (methodology). This naturalist-informed position considers that the thinking of Dewey and Merleau-Ponty on habit and embodiment can benefit educational practices that provide insights into, for example, how greater lived-body consciousness can become evident through our experiences. This position is in line with Dewey’s proposal that naturalism ‘can serve as a powerful alternative to dominant contemporary strains of (naturalistic) reductionism’ (Trotter 2016 p. 21), and which offers instead ‘a naturalistic framework which does not require that we give up the idea that experience is a crucial piece of the meaning-making process’ (Trotter 2016 p. 33). It is also consistent with a distinctive feature of Merleau-Ponty major works i.e., the development of a life world naturalism which ‘treats philosophical reflection as emergent from the nature on which it reflects, as an intensification or redoubling, an iterative fold, of nature’s own sense-making’ (Todavine 2013 p. 65).

Dewey and Merleau-Ponty on Habit and Embodiment: Points of Connection and Difference

There are different possible approaches for analysing two major writers in contemporary philosophy: the plan here is to merge the discussion of Dewey and Merleau-Ponty, so that contrasts and comparisons can be considered with greater immediacy. Moreover, to provide the clarity required, the focus is only on a selected portion of each writers publishing oeuvre. This is a particular issue for Dewey whose contribution to research over many decades covered around 8 million words, housed variously in over 600 articles and 32 books (Fesmire 2015). As such, a selective engagement with specific texts is needed: in this instance from three of Dewey’s later-period works: Human Nature and Conduct (Dewey 1922/2012), Experience and Nature (Dewey 1925/2009) and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (Dewey 1938a). For Merleau-Ponty, consideration is given to his three most prominent texts i.e., The Structure of Behaviour (Merleau-Ponty 1942/1963), Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty 1945/1962) and The Visible and the Invisible (Merleau-Ponty 1964/1968), and in addition, we consider Merleau-Ponty’s eight Sorbonne Lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy in our analysis and discussion. These lectures were only translated into English for the first time in 2010 (Merleau-Ponty 2010), even though the lectures were first published in 1949 when Merleau-Ponty was Professor of Child Psychology and Pedagogy at the University of Paris.

By the time Democracy and Education (Dewey 1916/1980 p. 147) was published, Dewey was aware that ‘the body is, of necessity a wellspring of energy’ that requires meaningful active experiences to nurture personal growth, in a reconstructive context which appreciates that the physiological conditions of life, has yet to lead to the application of ideas about ‘what is itself distinctively and basically human’ (Dewey 1920/1957 p. ix). Such specificities existed in a wider societal context where ‘neither the capacities of the individual nor the needs of the community are known fixed matters, but these instead require endless readjustment to each other as they ceaselessly evolve’ (Shook 2013 p. 23). Therefore, notions of democracy require continual refinement and reconstruction, so that institutions can meet changing circumstances and expectations. Knight Abowitz (2017 p. 67) outlines that provided ‘the common interest and free interplay of individuals and groups’ is met; Dewey’s concept of democracy can lead to the breaking down of social barriers and an increase in the roles individuals take in their local communities. The challenge of education in this context is to cultivate the ‘social effort required to sustain communities of interest that can respond to challenges and grow, and adapt accordingly’ (Knight Abowitz 2017 p. 68).

In 1916, Dewey also gave a series of lectures at Stanford University about habit in relation to social psychology and these lectures formed the basis of Human Nature and Conduct (Dewey 1922/2012). In this crucial text, Dewey (1922/2012 p. 14) set out that it is habits that ‘furnish us with our working capacities’ and which highlight the significance of intelligently controlled reflection-infused responses. As such, habits can also be a way of acquiring socially shaped predispositions that enable feeling and judgment to be shown in everyday circumstances as habits capture the special sensitivities of how human beings transact with their environments and grow and develop as individuals (Kestenbaum 1977). Therefore, in ‘order to grow, we must integrate lesser functions into ever expanding and ever more discriminating webs of habitual functioning’ (Garrison 1998 p. 74). Thus, for Dewey, habits provide the resources for recording and reflecting on the outcome of experiences, which may well contain a degree of conflict or newness, but which can achieve normative ends.

Influencing Dewey views at the time was the troubling neck and back pains he was experiencing. Dewey began experimenting with Alexander’s remedial exercise programme and the new exercise techniques reaffirmed Dewey’s belief that mind, and body experiences are continuous, situated, and transactional in nature (Cunningham 2007). Moreover, that there is no conflict between habit and thought or will—the important distinction is between unaware routines and reflective habits which show evidence of intelligence. Dewey also confirmed that habits are not repetitious events but a way of acquiring socially shaped predispositions that enable feelings and judgements to be made. As such, actions and movements which are fundamental to being educated are not the result of repetitive decisions but are based on sensitive and thoughtful responses to the environment, where there is a transition from naïve action to intelligent action based on thinking and deliberation on relevant experiences. In such situations, responses are chosen by reacting directly to situations in coherent intelligent ways, which take account of relevant factors to hand. For example, when driving a car, if severe braking is needed, what is required is a response that is appropriate and specific to the situation. Thus, when responses are underpinned by practice and habituation, a driver can make graduated responses. This can help in this instance to ensure that braking is as severe as necessary but not excessively so, as this could lead to further car control concerns and problems for other drivers close by. In this regard, Crippen (2017) considers that Dewey’s thinking was a forerunner for Merleau-Ponty and 4E cognitive scientists and their later outlining of how extra-neural mechanisms are involved in perception and cognition, and by showing how ‘active bodies can perform integrative operations traditionally attributed to “inner” mechanisms’ (p. 113).

Certainly, by the late 1920’s Dewey (1927) considered that ‘the integration of mind–body in action is the most practical of all questions we can ask of our civilization’ … (and that) … ‘I do not know of anything so disastrously affected by the tradition of separation and isolation as is … the body-mind’ (p. 27). This fissure was compounded by their being ‘no word by which to name mind–body in a unified wholeness of operation’ (Dewey 1928 p. 6). Consequently, when discussing body/mind relations, ‘we still speak of body and mind and thus unconsciously perpetuate the very division we are striving to deny’ (Dewey 1928 p. 6). By the beginning of the Twenty-First Century, Solymosi and Shook (2013) drew upon Dewey’s (1927) integration concerns to launch their neuropragmatism manifesto, which sought to engage with scientifically informed treatments of cognition, knowledge, the body-mind relation, agency, socialization, and further issues in ways which grappled ‘with philosophical questions arising at many levels, from synapse to society’ (p. 1). As such, ‘neuropragmatism is the philosophy best suited for guiding humanity through this new intellectual and moral terrain’ and to bring the experimental method to the fore in learning in contemporary life (Solymosi and Shook 2013 p. 18). Such reasoning is predicted on the belief that pragmatism-informed naturalistic accounts of intelligence and agency, can inform subsequent reviews of epistemological and ethics claims as the neuropragmatism integration of science and philosophy ‘prevents both scientism and speculation from inflating debilitating dualisms’ (Solymosi and Shook 2013 p. 2). Importantly, Solymosi and Shook (2013) consider that Varela et al., (1991) neurophenomenology is coherent with a shared appreciation that knowledge is gained ‘from experimental attempts to productively manage our deliberate modifications to the environment’ (p. 10); a position which is consistent with Varela et al., (1991) recognition of the benefits of pragmatism.

For Merleau-Ponty, habits exist as a form of embodied praxis which builds on earlier phenomenological thinking by Husserl that sought to identify and describe ‘the manifestation and workings of habit at different levels in conscious experience, from the habituality of drives and instincts, through the perceptual and motor intentionality of the embodied subject, onto the collective forms of habit experienced in society’ (Moran 2011 p. 70). Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962 p. 143) was particularly drawn to the idea that the cultivation of habits was primarily a matter of the ‘motor grasping of a motor significance’ rather than a matter that was bordered by shared and social, reflective, intellectual, and partially objective considerations, as was the case with Dewey. For Merleau-Ponty, it is the body which captures and comprehends movement, and which discovers our potentialities and not some other mechanistic form of intellectual synthesis. Accordingly, Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) provides numerous motoric examples of how people perceive the world and work out with experience ever more attuned and in the moment responses and decisions as the body mediates the world.

Dewey also explored further habit-related concerns in Experience and Nature (Dewey 1925/2009), where he reaffirmed that the capacity to distinguish psycho-physical (habit related) influences are bounded by ‘increasing complexity and intimacy of interaction among natural events’ (p. 261). And key to intimacy of interaction is language communication, as qualities of expressed feelings are not just felt, but ‘they have and they make sense (original emphasis retained); record and prophesy’ (Dewey 1925/2009 p. 258). On this basis, Dewey considers that language communication, latent qualities and habits can be identified and discriminated between to foster intimacy, interaction, and personal growth. Therefore, Kestenbaum (1977) believes that habit provided Dewey with the resources for recording and reflecting on the outcome of experiences; for exploring the omnipresent role of habit in experience and for reviewing the capacity of habit to intensify experience. Thus, habits have an active sense-giving qualitative dimension which is emblematic of Dewey’s pragmatism and his sense of phenomenology.

In Experience and Nature (Dewey 1925/2009), Dewey also explored the situational nature of experience, not just in terms of reflex responses or sensory inputs but more broadly in term of ‘the whole bio-sociocultural context … when experience it taken in its widest and deepest sense’ (Fesmire 2015 p. 51). Dewey at this time was trying to engage with a new version of empirical naturalism which created a context for examining human experience and its potential (Westbrook 1991). To do this he sketched out the notion of the visibility and invisibility of experience, e.g., that ‘the visible is set in the invisible; and in the end what is unseen decides what happens in the seen; the tangible rests precariously upon the untouched and ungrasped’ (Dewey 1925/2009 43–44). What Dewey was outlining was a recognition that ordinary experiences could yield generic traits, which could be verified upon reflection. Through this process, Gouinlock (1972 p.13) considered that nature was made ‘whole again in a way philosophers had not known since Aristotle. Beauty and value, triumph, and defeat, knowing and doubting—the entire spectrum of qualitative and cognitive experience—were once again characteristic of nature …’.

In his final and unfinished work, Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) was grappling with ideas directly related to the visibility and invisibility of experience, where objective existence (independently verifiable matters) could be contrasted with subjective experiences e.g., understanding and relating to others through gestures and signals in a form of expressive continuity (empathy). Merleau-Ponty developed his ontology of the flesh (chair) as a device for understanding better the sensation of experience and the ontological connections between human beings and the world. In this regard, Merleau-Ponty was revealing how an explanation of nature and culture could be advanced through an account of being-in-the-world. Pivotal to this way of thinking is an understanding of transcendental subjectivities, particularly the way in which the nature of being-in-the-world precedes conscious thought and pre-reflective experiences. In this way, the eye and the mind can reinterpret bodily awareness through an intertwining that exhibits itself via language and speech (Merleau-Ponty 1964/1968). As such, phenomenology can contribute to our understanding of experience and to appreciating how embodiment can capture the complexities between the intersubjective and incorporeal nature of our experiences and the social and cultural contexts within which we live. In these contexts, there is a ‘double and crossed situating of the visible in the tangible and of the tangible in the visible; the two maps are complete, and yet they do not merge into one. The two parts are total parts and yet are not superposable’ (Merleau-Ponty 1964/1968 p. 134).

In addition, among the founding writers on phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty explored in most detail how the movement experiences of the body influences perceptions of the world and how lived-body experiences should not be separated from cognitive learning. Instead, the body-subject provides a holistic way of conceiving relations between the body and the world, which avoids over privileged abstraction and cognition and under-representing the centrality of the body in human experience. As such, habitual acts are based on insight and not just intellectual acts. Thus, ‘motor activity necessarily implies perceptual development, and vice versa’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010 p. 140). Therefore, ‘what is acquired by habit is not a series of determined movements, but a possibility, an aptitude to invent a valuable solution to a situation’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010 p. 196). In this way ‘we say that the body has understood, and habit has been cultivated when it has absorbed a new meaning and assimilated a fresh core of significance’ (Baldwin 2004 p. 124). For this reason, habits cannot be considered as automatic, as automatic habits can only function in precise conditions. Habits by contrast are plastic and should be considered as an ‘aptitude to respond to a certain type of situation by a certain kind of solution’ as they are corporeal in nature (Merleau-Ponty 2010 p. 452). Thus, in many instances there needs to be a change in reflection from an abstract, disembodied activity to an embodied open-ended reflection. Progress in this way, can loosen preconceived ties and replace them with approaches that are ‘open to possibilities other than those contained in one’s current representations of the life space’ (Varela et al. 1991 p. 27). This line of thinking is consistent with Gallagher’s (2005, 2018) view that children are naturally inclined towards phenomenology as the basis for comprehending their being-in-the-world and for the ability to understand others.

Habit, Embodiment, and Education: The Role of Language and Reflection

Despite some concerns about the looseness of Dewey’s development of habit, as for some it represents ‘a deliberately imprecise way to sweep in physical posture, evolving customs, symbol systems, conceptual frameworks, myths, metaphors, beliefs, virtues, and prejudices’ (Fesmire 2015 p. 145), Dewey’s work nevertheless, concurs with much of the dynamic connections drawn between the brain, the body, and the environment under 4E cognition developments. Moreover, Dewey did in his later thinking engage with considerations about the logic of inquiry in relation to habit (Dewey 1938a). Dewey argued that habits are central to control, as despite differences of subject-matter, habits have the active capacity to become formulations and guiding principles which can ‘yield conclusions that are stable and productive in further inquiries’ (Dewey 1938a p. 13). As such, habits become part of an act of inquiry from which experiences merge with mediated conclusions. Thus, while Dewey’s use of habit is rather incomplete, as it lacks sufficient clarity on how habits operate as part of a complex conceptual network, it does form an important part of experiential thinking on problem solving and the acquisition of knowledge.

What Dewey wished to identify as far as investigative methods were concerned, was to engage with uncertainty and doubt, to hold thoughts for a time and test experiential ideas. Thus, in unfamiliar (i.e., in non-existing habitual situations) we should dwell on what to do as we try to find determinate solutions. In this context, habits (as for Merleau-Ponty) contain a certain plasticity, for as well as being adapted and reformed, they can also be affirmed and transformative (Dewey 1938a).

A particular challenge in relation to attempts to emphasise the educational benefits of cultivating habits and the holistic benefit of embodied learning is that its gains may be difficult to express in language. This might, for example, be particularly problematic for practical subjects where habits are often considered as motoric and ‘in the moment’ experiences that can be drawn upon perceptively to make coherent decisions. In such environments, teachers can possibly infer from students’ actions that they understand what they are doing. In this regard, Merleau-Ponty’s work, is considered by some to expand on a key matter, namely that ‘Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of corporeal movement is arguably a profound contribution to a very vexing problem: How can one capture the evanescent qualities of corporeal experience within the categories of language?’ (Hughson and Inglis 2002 p. 2). Such matters are pivotal to discussions on the social and wider affective benefits of working with others, students’ level of interest and motivation, and their level of engagement and taking responsibility for their learning.

For Merleau-Ponty, the child progresses from using language that has a situational value, in which the child uses certain words before they fully understand their meaning. However, these situations are still relevant ones, which enable the child to gain access to language. In this context, the habitual process should aim to firstly understand words used and then ‘to give a personal equivalent reproduction of it’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010 p. 49). In developing this position, Merleau-Ponty, utilised Humbolt’s concept of inner forms of language (innere Sprachform) for developing his categorical attitude to language, thoughts, and expression, under which the practical intentions of children become visible to both the child and in their relationships with others. In this way, language and speech are accompaniments to thoughts and form part of a wider communicative action that is necessary for cultivating discursive and social practices (Newen et al. 2018).

Such practices work in circularity with embodiment as well, for the feedback from language practice loops back to inform our bodily actions and affective life (Fuchs 2020). Therefore, language becomes meaningful because of embodied experiences. For example, in learning to use eating utensils, active embodied experiences are needed to make sense of their function. Without the occurring, the utensils are abstract and meaningless. Moreover, when action is combined with reflection the capacity for experiences to become tangible takes place. Crippen (2017) considers that the perceived capacity for bodily sensitivities and capacities to become coordinated as joint action was shared by Dewey and Merleau-Ponty, who both maintained that ‘real-time coordination and acquired habits … can help us deal with things and indeed characterize how we perceive them; and, critically, capacities and sensitivities coordinate not on their own, but by synchronizing around environmental contours’ (p. 117).

In such contexts, the second person phenomenological standpoint becomes relevant to a social ontological perspective e.g., reviewing students’ and teachers’ obligations in classes and what conditions might benefit the development of a shared sense of practice and empathy. In brief, how can a first person ‘I’ response become closely aligned with group ‘We’ responses, and how can this alignment be nurtured in viable intersubjective ways which highlight the capacity for both personal privacy and shared identification in human experiences. Actualising these forms of plurality requires building consensus around shared practices and observations and thereafter using speech, judgement, and action to confirm the authenticity of experience. Thus, at the foundation of experiences and reflections, there is a being which immediately recognises itself as it has both knowledge ‘of itself and of all things … through direct contact with that existence’ (Merleau-Ponty 1945/1962 p. 371). On this basis, students need to become perceptually aware of the psychologically rich behaviour other students are displaying, so that they can share a concept of experience and practice, which is nurtured through performance and cultivated further by factors such as a mutual sense of recognising rights and responsibilities and accepting group decisions (Thorburn and Stolz 2017).

Habit and Embodiment: Educational Practice Considerations

By the end of Dewey’s long career, a central tenet of his philosophy was that the subject and object, the self and the world, the mind and the body are not separate structures but single structures which are in tune with each other through cyclical and intentional meaning-making transactions (Dewey 1938b). Dewey’s naturalism had reached a philosophical position, where we inhabit nature as cultural beings, where we need to bring experience back to ordinary life and practice, where we need to restore the continuity between mind and nature and value primary experience without ever falsifying it (Fesmire 2015). Merleau-Ponty’s consideration of child development and psychology is helpful in such instances, as it details how children’s learning experiences and proficiency is subject to frequent states of flux, relapse, deviations, and degrees of unpredictability, which over time lessen as the child makes finer and finer discriminations of situations coupled with improved and ever more appropriate responses. Moreover, fusing Dewey and Merleau-Ponty’s views highlights that habit forming behaviour can connect with post dualist body-mind discourses to emphasise the links between education and psycho-physical practice. In this setting, new habits can become self-sustaining, leading to embodied attentiveness and to students becoming ever more connected with their everyday schooling ambitions.

In this light, what educational practice considerations suggest themselves as beneficial to consider when seeking to engage students in active problem-centered learning settings, where the mind and body experiences can merge with language and reflection to open-up promising steppingstones for further engagement. Moreover, how can students understand their own views relative to others from a situated perspective. We have often argued, (see, for example, Thorburn and Stolz 2020, 2021, 2022; Stolz and Thorburn 2022), that a restructuring and redesign of learning settings to meet a range of social, and pedagogical challenges is needed. In brief, we share Boyles (2006 p. 66) caution, that as far as the superstructure of schools is concerned, a focus on ‘order, discipline, and time-on task expectations do not support inquiry that is varied, serendipitous, and transactional.’

Therefore, in advance of elaborating about such matters, it merits restating that as schools are inevitably complex and often quite distinctly different eco-systems, a degree of caution is necessary ahead of going into specifics, and that a more productive route to progress is to highlight areas of practice where rethinking is merited for those in the pedagogical field as well as those with responsibilities for conceptualising educational policies. In this sense, our view concurs with Rocha’s (2015) Deweyan-infused analysis of the need to avoid education becoming overly absorbed by matters which are ‘fixed to a small and temporary institutional subject-matter … (as for) … Dewey, education takes us out into the waters of social life and culture’ (p. 47). Moreover, Stitzlein (2022) has recently, critically outlined how a Deweyan approach to inquiry can prove useful in forthrightly debating and challenging divisive concepts in education such as race, sexism and equity, concepts prone to legislative restraint rather than constructive discussion. As such, ‘inquiry is a way of doing democracy’ (original emphasis retailed) (Stitzlein (2022 p. 610), as evidenced by schools recognising the importance of providing children with shared and openminded opportunities to enhance their citizenship skills in an educational setting.

At source, our focus would be on designing classrooms as a shared experiential setting, a place of encounter where teachers and students interact and engage with matters of interest in a cooperative inquiry-based way (Laner 2021). In these environments, open-ended experiences can be strengthened when students possess initiative and are curious to reconstruct their experiences to grow further. As experiences continue, students’ thoughts and feelings can become part of a repertoire of flexible and suitably sensitised habits which reveal independent thought, critical inquiry, observation, experimentation, foresight, and sympathy for others. These experiences when merged with the interrelated principles of continuity and interaction can help students connect previous and current experiences to enhance meaning and further their capacity to direct future experiences (Dewey 1938b). There is as well a need for engagement with language to aid reflection and discussion, so that habits can shape and inform a cyclical and, in some cases, a spiralling new approach to engagement, with ever more complex patterns of behaviour and understanding emerging. For as Merleau-Ponty (2010 p. 41) notes, ‘Language is an act of transcending. Thus, we cannot consider it to simply be a container of thought; we must see in it an instrument of conquest of self through contact with others’ as ‘language is a manifestation of human intersubjectivity’ (Merleau-Ponty (2010 p. 63). Thus, for Merleau-Ponty language provides an access route to understanding experience, which demands patience and time if students are going to dwell on their experiences and for teachers thereafter to be alert in avoiding the illusory expectation that students’ experiences are necessarily shared by others. As Merleau-Ponty (2010 p. 47) succinctly stated ‘is not about reducing language to thought, but about introducing thought into language.’

In terms of taking forward Merleau-Ponty’s imperative for putting ‘thought into language’ consider the possible merits of the following example involving students of 13–14 years in an English class where they are studying Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’. The learning intention is to develop students understanding of the themes of hysteria, the danger of judgement, and the consequences of one’s actions in a context where previously students have explored the history of McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. The teacher’s intention is to connect degrees of content knowledge accuracy and agreement, while also engaging with the uncertainties and intangibles of human experience through using flexibly deployed aide-memoires to encourage engagement and experimentation (Jonas 2011). Once suitably familiar with the social and historical context of the play, students in small groups can share ideas, input suggestions, investigate areas (which may become cul-de-sacs to begin with) before over time progressing towards a more vivid interpretation of text and experience which are meaningful in self and shared ways. Groups can present and discuss sometimes divergent views, before reaching degrees of clarity and certainty, where the insightfulness of thought is evident in language and supportive student listening merged with reflection. Groups could be tasked with sourcing quoted examples of events from the play which link to overarching themes e.g., if they are investigating the theme of hysteria, they might site Abigail accusing Elizabeth Proctor of Witchcraft; an exercise where quotes can be shared, adding meaning for students of the benefits of whole class group work. Thereafter, groups could be tasked with connecting themes from the play with contemporary society e.g., in relation to personal freedoms viz. taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. Throughout the teacher’s role is an active one defined by differentiated questions and prompts based on students’ previous responses, deliberately disrupting tasks when needed, a teacher who knows tacitly when to move tasks on, when to intervening as well as waiting sufficient time for learning to happen. Shaping the overall environment in such ways can collectively enhance the likelihood of achieving coherent progress and a shared sense of telos and overtake concerns of being overly reliant on presumed student interest (Jonas 2011) and of miscalculating that inquiry-based constructivist approaches to learning merely requires students to teach themselves (Gordon 2016). Moreover, students’ roles in developing warranted assertions through merging together truth, interaction and inquiry can provide the satisfaction of making learning progress in areas considered pertinent and interesting (Boyles 2006).

As with Merleau-Ponty, Dewey (1929/1988) in The Quest for Certainty argued that methods of uncertainty are needed to create deliberate and constructive disruption so that students can more readily accept uncertainty in a changing world. To make progress, students need to arrive at outcomes where theoretical certainty is matched by practical certainty, and attained through students engaging in cycles of action and reflection which helps them to respond and make progress. Such ambitions are largely consistent with Varela et al. (1991) desires for body and mind embodied-based reflections to be brought together so that reflection becomes a form of experience itself. If effective, preconceptions can be replaced by ‘open-ended reflection, open to possibilities other than those contained in one's current representations of the life space’ (p. 27). Varela et al. (1991) refer to this highest of reflective goods as ‘mindful, open-ended reflection’ (original emphasis retained) and with learning experiences which are variously embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended.

Consider, for example, how this might be applicable for the teacher in the case of teaching swimming relative to recent 4E Cognition developments. In terms of embodiment, the focus may well be on the sensory nature of experiences, of students recognising and appreciating that the ability to move with high levels of kinetic economy is pivotal to stroke effectiveness (propulsive movements, breathing patterns, streamlining). Movement experiences are therefore helpful for students in increasing their understanding of floatation and of being at one with the water; experiences that enable the nature of swimming to become clear, and for students to experience the benefits of flowing coordinated movements and controlled energy output. Progress on this basis would enable learning to be enacted, in that students were using their increased sensory-informed skills to reach a goal, in this case the enhanced capacity to sustain high-level performance for longer. Progress might also be embedded in that learning is social, students work in small groups for example and provide clear and accurate diagnostic feedback which benefits swimmers. In addition, learning could be extended in that further diverse resources could be used to aid progress, for example through video analysis of performance, timed swims, stroke assessment and comparisons with model performers dovetailing with students own more subjective accounts of perceptions about the nature and demands of swimming (Thorburn 2008).

In terms of contemplating more closely the pedagogical role of the teacher, consider their role when teaching skiing outdoors on snow to a group of early adolescent students (11–13 years). Part of teacher’s safety/enjoyment planning requires the selection of suitable ski terrain, which enables students’ experiential movement experiences to be progressive and memorable. Thereafter, noting that students’ movement responses use proprioceptive-kinaesthetic awareness to allow their bodies to remain experientially visible to them through a kind of situational spatiality, which is derived from being aware of the possibilities for action that the milieu affords. However, while students further their ability to perceive what to do by means of steering and turning their skis, they may not necessarily understand the universal movement principles that underpin skills. Therefore, a wise teacher would appreciate that students’ responses are as much a set of personal movement experiences in response to terrain as they are a set of movements designed more narrowly to merely copy or imitate those of the teacher (Stolz and Thorburn 2022; Thorburn and Stolz 2022). The astute teacher would ask themselves therefore is their intentionality in their movements, in their actions, in their environmentally attuned movement responses. As with the earlier language example, such a setting can potentially merge teacher and students focus on task agreement, provide a clear outline of how experiences can be shared as well as capturing the diversity of individual experience.

Despite the call for engaging with uncertainty and open-ended reflection, learning engagement in educational contexts needs also to contain rigour. For as Abrahamson, Dutton and Baker (2022) note regarding Dewey, both phenomenological philosophy and pedagogical practice need to ensure that formal study is entrusted into purposeful experiences. Such intentions would be manifest when the testing of first-person accounts within a community of participants who have familiarity with methods for accessing and investigating phenomenon can work together to produce more finely tuned descriptions that can deepen both objective explanation (expression) and the quality of the validation process (intersubjectivity) (Stolz and Thorburn 2022; Thorburn and Stolz 2022). Moreover, in a context where more expert teachers can guide less experience ones, the potential exists for a utility of purpose where validation by practice can take place across first-, second- and third-person experiential perspectives, and where as appropriate, testing, recording and ranking students’ progress is plausible and measurable. Progress on this basis would reflect Dewey’s thinking and later Merleau-Pontian and 4E cognitive scientists’ anticipation that integrative and enactive tasks can exist without ‘conflict between scientific views and everyday experiences, while simultaneously offering rigorous standards for weeding out ill-conceived ideas’ (Crippen 2017 p. 113).

Conclusion

This paper has used the naturalistic accounts of subjectivity advanced by Dewey and Merleau-Ponty as the theoretical basis for understanding experience and specifically on the benefit of their thinking on habit and embodiment might have for educational aims and practice. This twining of pragmatism and phenomenological influences has not been without its challenges, the most significant of which is that the merging of Dewey and Merleau-Ponty thinking on issues surrounding the nature of experience is incomplete. Merleau-Ponty died in 1961, aged 53 and at this time, his final thoughts on perception and experience were unfinished ‘and it is just not clear where the trajectory of his thoughts would have carried him' (Baldwin 2004 p. 246). That said, Merleau-Ponty’s work has provided sufficient insight and clarity to have become the theoretical cornerstone for Varela et al. (1991) seminal contribution to elaborations about the embodied mind and subsequently a major part of the conceptual underpinnings for key aspects of the 4E cognition programme. For Dewey by comparison there is a lifetime of writing to consider, and this is not always straightforward. Ryan (1995 p. 20) notes in relation to Experience and Nature (Dewey 1925/2009), that ‘the more complicated his subject, the more his prose wound around and around to follow it.’ Dewey was 79 years old when he produced his lengthy tome on Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (Dewey 1938a) and his more succinct and popular text on Experience and Education (Dewey 1938b). This sets up a contrasting comparative dilemma; namely that the challenge with Dewey if often one of understanding the different twists and turns in Dewey’s thinking over many years relative to Merleau-Ponty’s work, where the task is often anticipating what a modern continuation of his later work may have yielded.

Moreover, there are points of difference, or more commonly, points where one of the authors has developed their thoughts more than the author. Dewey, for example, had regard for the need for a healthy body, however, references to this point were scattered rather thinly across various readings over many decades. For Merleau-Ponty, subjectivity is ‘bound up with that of the body and that … when taken concretely, is inseparable from this body and this world’ Merleau-Ponty 1945/1962 p. 408). This perspective is evident in Merleau-Ponty’s motor-infused views on habit, relative to the priority Dewey affords to social and reflective dispositions. There is however a shared grasp of the importance of human nature, of being-in-the-world, a qualitative sense of engaging with the environment. Merleau-Ponty led though on the holistic-informed notion of embodied reflection as part of cognitive learning. That said Dewey’s understanding of evolutionary biology is evident in his writings on experience and nature and clearly so when writing on the visibility and invisibility of experience (Dewey 1925/2009). This area is arguably the closest point of synergy between the two philosophers and given the demanding nature of the readings, it potentially benefits understanding to merge the work of both authors when analysing the transactional nature of perception and experience. Moreover, both Dewey and Merleau-Ponty had an interest in language as part of self and shared experience, and in Dewey’s case more so in terms of educational methods. This coupled with acknowledging that phenomenology can be complex to take forward in applied educational contexts, highlights that the focus Dewey had in his later writings on the logic of inquiry could be beneficial methodologically to follow as part of attempts to help students move from indeterminate to more certain progress. This is providing that any disproportionate focus on problem solving does not become overly narrow and instead includes subjective experiences as part of learning strategies for achieving objective ends.