Embodied-Technological Epistemology of Learning: Reinterpreting Learning through Merleau-Ponty in the Digital and AI Era
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59890/ijasse.v4i4.25Keywords:
Embodied Learning, Digital Age, Epistemology, Merleau-Ponty, PhenomenologyAbstract
This study reconceptualizes learning in the digital and AI era as an embodied, relational, and technologically mediated process. Grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, it develops an Embodied-Technological Epistemology of Learning through a philosophical-conceptual interpretive literature review. The analysis synthesizes embodied cognition, post-phenomenology, and contemporary AI-in-education scholarship. Findings identify three interconnected dimensions of learning: embodied perception, technological mediation, and human meaning-making, with human epistemic agency emerging as a critical condition of meaningful learning. Generative AI can extend learners’ access, reflection, and cognitive capacities, but excessive reliance may displace questioning, interpretation, evaluation, and judgment. The study therefore argues that technology should function as an extension rather than a substitute for embodied human agency, offering a philosophical foundation for human-centered learning in the AI era.
References
Castro-Alonso, J. C., Ayres, P., Zhang, S., de Koning, B. B., & Paas, F. (2024). Research avenues supporting embodied cognition in learning and instruction. Educational Psychology Review, 36, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09847-4
Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Indiana University Press.
Ihde, D. (1995). Postphenomenology: Essays in the postmodern context. Northwestern University Press.
Lyu, C., & Deng, S. (2024). Effectiveness of embodied learning on learning performance: A meta-analysis based on the cognitive load theory perspective. Learning and Individual Differences, 116, 102564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102564
Miao, F., & Cukurova, M. (2024). AI competency framework for teachers. UNESCO. https://doi.org/10.54675/ZJTE2084
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception (D. A. Landes, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1945)
Roe, J., & Perkins, M. (2024). Generative AI and agency in education: A critical scoping review and thematic analysis. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2411.00631
Smith, J. (2023). Postphenomenology and education: From cyborg students to immersive classrooms. Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication, 6, 57–73. https://doi.org/10.33919/dasc.23.6.4
Sweeney, D. M. (2024). Students’ experiences of educational technology use to facilitate university learning: Factors influencing their mediation of learning. Research in Learning Technology, 32. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v32.3103
Yan, L., Greiff, S., Teuber, Z., & Gašević, D. (2024). Promises and challenges of generative artificial intelligence for human learning. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1839–1850. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02004-5
Yan, L., Sha, L., Zhao, L., Li, Y., Martinez-Maldonado, R., Chen, G., Li, X., Jin, Y., & Gašević, D. (2024). Practical and ethical challenges of large language models in education: A systematic scoping review. British Journal of Educational Technology, 55, 90–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13370
Yusuf, A., Pervin, N., & Román-González, M. (2024). Generative AI and the future of higher education: A threat to academic integrity or reformation? Evidence from multicultural perspectives. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 21, Article 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-024-00453-6
Wang, G., Wang, W., Yang, D., & Ren, J. (2026). Generative AI, cognitive offloading, and learner agency in higher education: A scoping review. Behavioral Sciences, 16(7), 1150. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16071150
Viberg, O., Feldman Maggor, Y., & Wong, J. (2026). Efficiency vs. effectiveness: Self-regulated learning with LLM-mediated help-seeking. Learning Letters, 8, 60. https://doi.org/10.20851/ll.v8.60




