
Publication details
Publisher: Springer
Place: Berlin
Year: 2013
Pages: 579-595
Series: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences
Full citation:
, "On being motivated", Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 12 (4), 2013, pp. 579-595.
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).
Cited authors
Publication details
Publisher: Springer
Place: Berlin
Year: 2013
Pages: 579-595
Series: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences
Full citation:
, "On being motivated", Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 12 (4), 2013, pp. 579-595.