Habit and attention

Komarine Romdenh-Romluc

pp. 3-19

in: Dermot Moran (ed), The phenomenology of embodied subjectivity, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

The dominant view holds that actions are essentially brought about by the agent's intentions. Merleau-Ponty offers an alternative account, according to which actions are primarily initiated and guided by the agent's apprehension of her environment. Intentions may still play a role in bringing about action, but they are not essential. In this chapter, I consider two important factors that contribute to our actions: habit and attention. I argue that neither can be satisfactorily accommodated on the dominant model, but Merleau-Ponty's framework provides a nice explanation of them. This gives us some reason to prefer a Merleau-Pontyian account to the dominant view.

Cited authors

Merleau-Ponty Maurice