Intersubjectivity, a core concept in phenomenology, posits that human existence is fundamentally relational. While psychology broadly agrees that the self is shaped by relations, disagreement persists over the relative influence of biological versus social factors. The natural-scientific paradigm currently dominates the psy-sciences, prioritizing biological explanations. This paper argues that the mind-body dualism inherited from classical philosophy underlies this paradigm. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, it proposes that the concept of body-mind-world unity dissolves this dualism. The author illustrates this phenomenological approach through Ben Rumble's embodiment-based therapeutic practice and connects it to the psychoanalytic theory of Sándor Ferenczi.
Social interactions fall along a spectrum from purely inferential or simulation-based processes to radically embodied ones, and different explanatory theories suit different points on that spectrum. Gallagher's embodied-cognition account works well for motor-perceptual interactions but only metaphorically describes interactions involving articulated language or semantically charged actions. Because accurate prediction or description matters, no single theory covers all interaction types; a pluralistic approach is needed.
An evolving phenomenological-enactive perspective can deepen understanding of how enactive subjects are entangled with their living ecologies. This article applies classical phenomenological projects and their enactive extension to public phenomena such as objects, spaces, and events. Within embodied cognition discourse, it thematizes the enactive, affective, and intersubjective aspects of relating to the urban lifeworld. This approach helps reveal both the potential of phenomenological-enactive methodology and the processes through which an embodied, intersubjective co-constitution of a public ethos occurs. Theoretical ideas are illustrated with reflections on concrete public phenomena.