Abstract: Merleau-Ponty proposes the concept of “lived time” (temps vécu) based on Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre’s notions of temporality, advancing the study of temporal phenomenology. Unlike subjectless objective or natural time, “lived time” is grounded in the relationship between the self and the world. Here, time constitutes the existential significance of the subject rather than serving as a component of the objective world. The structure of time itself emerges from the body’s situatedness within the world and its perceptual perspectives. It is precisely through these temporal viewpoints embedded in the perceptual field that the synthesis of past, present, and future is actualized. Emphasizing the primacy of subjective perception, Merleau-Ponty particularly highlights the ontological importance of the “now”. The present perceptual situation converges both past and future, thereby reconstructing the subject as an embodied being within the world.

Key words: subjectivity, temporality, Merleau-Ponty, lived time, phenomenological perception