On being motivated

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12 (4):579-595 (2013)
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Abstract

Merleau-Ponty’s notion of being motivated or solicited to act has recently been the focus of extensive investigation, yet work on this topic has tended to take the general notion of being motivated for granted. In this paper, I shall outline an account of what it is to be motivated. In particular, I shall focus on the relation between the affective character of states of being motivated and their intentional content, i.e. how things appear to the agent. Drawing on Husserl’s discussion of perceptual awareness, I suggest that the intentional content of states of being motivated has a horizonal structure, in which both affective and perceptual features are implied. In states of being motivated, the agent becomes aware of certain possibilities for action, towards which they feel drawn. This structure is what Merleau-Ponty refers to as the “intentional arc” (1962, 136).

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Citations of this work

The Sound of Silence: Merleau‐Ponty on Conscious Thought.Philip J. Walsh - 2017 - European Journal of Philosophy 25 (2):312-335.
The Space of Motivations.Donnchadh O’Conaill - 2014 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22 (3):440-455.
Perceptual Experience in Kant and Merleau-Ponty.Antich Peter - 2019 - Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 50 (3):220-233.
Motivation and the Primacy of Perception.Peter Antich - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Kentucky
Motivation as an epistemic ground.Peter Antich - 2022 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 21 (4):775-790.

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References found in this work

Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1998 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Mark Ravizza.
A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy.Edmund Husserl - 1980 - Hingham, MA, USA: Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Boston.
A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1993 - Philosophical Perspectives 7:429-440.

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