The Principle of the Insufficient Reason : Merleau-Ponty and the Motivation Theory

Abstract

Can an action have a sufficient reason? The article distinguishes two forms of the sufficient reason: the cause and the premise. The phenomenological theory of motivation argues against the idea “reasons are causes” as well as against the idea “reasons are premises”.

The author draws attention to the original idea developed by Merleau-Ponty, i.e. on the analogy between the perceptual motivation on the one side and the practical motivation on the other.

Keywords

• Action
• reason
• cause
• motivation
• necessity
• practical syllogisme
• practical inference
• Anscombe
• Ricoeur
• Merleau-Ponty