embodiment the bodily aspects of human subjectivity. Embodiment is the central theme in European phenomenology, with its most extensive treatment in the works of Maurice Merleau- Ponty. Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodiment distinguishes between ‘the objective body,’ which is the body regarded as a physiological entity, and ‘the phenomenal body,’ which is not just some body, some particular physiological entity, but my (or your) body as I (or you) experience it. Of course, it is possible to experience one’s own body as a physiological entity. But this is not typically the case. Typically, I experience my body (tacitly) as a unified potential or capacity for doing this and that – typing this sentence, scratching that itch, etc. Moreover, this sense that I have of my own motor capacities (expressed, say, as a kind of bodily confidence) does not depend on an understanding of the physiological processes involved in performing the action in question.
The distinction between the objective and phenomenal body is central to understanding the phenomenological treatment of embodiment. Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body grasped as a physiological entity. Rather it pertains to the phenomenal body and to the role it plays in our object-directed experiences. See also MERLEAU-PONTY, PHENOMENOL – OG. D.Le.