Ricoeur on choice

This paper offers an exposition of Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenology of choice as the free resolution of hesitation. It denies the centrality of practical reason in favour of a view of attention as a willed sensitivity to motivation. In doing so it argues for a theory of the agent as a respondent to an inchoate motivational field who acts intentionally when his or her chosen action is in accord with those motivations which arise from that field. The paper contrasts this monistic view with that of William James and defends it against the charge of infinite regress. © 1989, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.