Carry Consequence

Speak For Themselves

action

motivation

productivity

thinking

behavior

morality

morals

categorical imperative

preparation

accumulation

beginning

effort

assertiveness

kissing ass

acting

decisiveness

is a duree... a continuous flow of conduct. It is not composed of an aggregate or series of separate intentions, reasons and motives. It is not a combination of 'acts': Rather 'acts' are constituted only by a discursive moment of attention to the duree of lived-through experience.

to be a human being is to be a purposive agent, who both has reasons for his or her activities and is able, if asked, to elaborate discursively upon those reasons (including lying about them) . . . . Human action occurs as a duree, a continuous flow of conduct, as does cognition. Purposive action is not composed of an aggregate or series of separate intentions, reasons and motives . . . is not a combination of 'acts': 'acts' are constituted only by a discursive moment of attention to the due of lived-thorugh experience. (The Constitution of Society).

is a kind of observation with its own kind of sight. It is a kind of looking without visuality.

for the fact that observation is a kind of concern is just as primordial as the fact that action has its own kind of sight. Theoretical behaviour is just looking, without circumspection. But the fact that this looking is non circumspective does not mean that it follows no rules: it constructs a canon for itself in the form of method. (Heidegger BT: 99)

is a response to solicitations of the world guided not by goals or intentions, but solicited by the situation to get into equilibrium with it. Our body is not an object for an 'I think', it is a grouping of 'live-through' meanings.

According to Merleau-Ponty, in everyday, absorbed, skillful coping, acting is experienced as a steady flow of skillful activity in response to one's sense of the situation. Part of that experience is a sense that when one's situation deviates from some optimal body-environment relationship, one's motion takes one closer to that optimum and thereby relieves the 'tension' of the deviation. One does not need a goal or intention to act. One's body is simply solicited by the situation to get into equilibrium with it. 'Whether a system of motor or perceptual powers, our body is not an object for an 'I think', it is a grouping of live-through meanings which moves towards its equilibrium' (1962: 153). (Dreyfus 'the current relevance of merleau : pdf')

is a trajectory within a social field which determines the 'social fate' that propels an actor towards the places to which their socially constituted dispositions predestine them.

Action is explained in terms of position and trajectory. According to Bourdieu (1990) every position in a social field is seen to induce a set of motivations that are subjectively experienced as a 'chain of objective requirements . . . what' should be done. Meanwhile, the actor's trajectory, their direction of movement through, and status within, the social field, determines the 'social fate' that propels them towards the places to which their socially constituted dispositions predestine them.

is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat. Eric Hoffer

is capable of being commanded, even if love isn't.

We can't command our love, but we can our actions. Arthur Conan Doyle

action, n.All

action