Conatus and Dasein: The Problem of an Existential Theory of Motivation

In the article I articulate an interpretation of the findingness (Befindlichkeit) of Dasein in Heidegger as a specific existential drive, basing it on an interpretation of his concept of existence, drawing from his earlier lectures before Being and Time, and relying on the clarification of the existential meaning of relation. Following a related interpretation of understanding and care, I offer some considerations pertaining to the problem of authentic motivation and its possible practical application. Initially, I offer an interpretation of existence as it relates to the meaning of being, understanding the relata in this ultimate sense as two aspects of speech. In this, I understand the meaning of being as a groundless call or address. Building on that, I propose a motivational understanding of findingness as the necessary drive of Dasein toward its self-interpretation as it relates to the enigmatic call of being. I supplement this view with an interpretation of existential understanding as a coequal aspect of the groundless freedom of that relation of Dasein to itself. Finally, I offer an interpretation of authenticity, in line with the aforementioned explicated understanding of existence and the corresponding meaning of the authentic motivational findingness of Dasein. In conclusion, I raise a question of how such authentic motivation could be practically understood in the perspective of life-world interactions.

Motivasi

Theory of motivation

Public Service Motivation and Organizational Commitment: The Moderating Effects of Process Theory of Motivation

Eunjin Hwang);노승용(Si-in Choi);최시인(Seung-Young Rho)

Arguments from Illusion

This paper lays out in detail various versions of an argument from illusion in areas of philosophy other than the familiar one in the theory of perception. Those are the philosophy of action (doing vs. trying), the theory of motivation, the theory of knowledge, the theory of justification, and, in the philosophy of action, the distinction between act and agent. The suggestion is that we learn something about the force of such arguments, and about the best way to resist them, by seeing how they function in different contexts. There is also a suggestion (but no more than that) that if you are tempted by one instance, you should be equally tempted by the others. The paper also examines the much less familiar distinction between disjunctivism and non-conjunctivism.

Why There Is Really No Such Thing as the Theory of Motivation

This paper (a forerunner of the author’s Practical Reality) considers in detail the distinction between the reasons we have to act in certain ways, often known as justifying reasons, and the reasons for which we act when the time comes, often known as motivating reasons. It argues that it must be possible for one and the same reason to play both roles. It warns accordingly against the popular version of that distinction which understands the reasons we have to act in certain ways with relevant features of the situation and reasons for which we act as certain psychological states of our own, combinations of beliefs and desires. Any such distinction makes it impossible to act for a good reason. The paper also offers some suggestions about what a better account of the distinction would look like.

Practical Thought

This is a collection of papers published between 1977 and 2017. The papers focus on moral metaphysics, on holism in the theory of reasons and ethical particularism, on the theory of motivation, and on the development of ethical intuitionism. In moral metaphysics the distinction between resultance and supervenience is taken to have significant consequences. In moral theory the general line is that there are plenty of moral reasons but no moral principles. In the theory of motivation a case is made for the idea that the reasons for which we act are matters of fact, real or supposed. In the history of intuitionism, I try to show the benefits of taking H. A. Prichard seriously.

Introduction: No More Answers?

This Introduction is a short intellectual biography. In addition to telling how it was that the author ended up in philosophy, it tracks the development of his views in the theory of reasons and the way in which combining those views with views he later developed in the theory of motivation reveal the possibility of a new form of Aristotelianism in the theory of practical reasoning. It ends by discussing the relevance of the distinction between knowledge and true belief to the theory of motivation.