In several papers, Mark Wrathall argued that French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, identifies a sui generis type of grounding, one not reducible to reason or natural causality. Following the Phenomenological tradition, Merleau-Ponty called this form of grounding “motivation,” and described it as the way in which one phenomenon spontaneously gives rise to another through its sense. While Wrathall’s suggestion has been taken up in the practical domain, its epistemic import has still not been fully explored. I would like to take up the epistemic dimension of Wrathall’s thought in this paper. Following Wrathall, I explain how motivation can help us understand the manner in which perceptions ground singular, experiential judgments. But I extend this work in two ways. First, I suggest some additional considerations that support Wrathall’s view. Second, I argue that motivation can also help account for the way perceptions ground general judgments. My aim here will not be so much to rule out other answers to these longstanding epistemological questions, as to show that motivation carves out an attractive epistemological space.

马克·瓦特霍尔（Mark Wrathall）在几篇论文中指出，法国现象学家莫里斯·梅洛·庞蒂（Maurice Merleau-Ponty）发现了一种特殊的现象接地的一种类型，不能归结为理由或自然因果关系。遵循现象学传统，梅洛-庞蒂将这种形式的基础称为“动机”，并将其描述为一种现象通过其感觉自发产生另一种现象的方式。尽管Wrathall的建议已在实际领域中接受，但其认知意义仍未得到充分探索。我想在本文中论述Wrathall思想的认识论维度。在Wrathall之后，我将解释动机如何帮助我们理解感知基于单一的经验性判断的方式。但是我以两种方式扩展了这项工作。首先，我提出一些支持Wrathall观点的其他考虑因素。其次，我认为动机也可以帮助解释理解基础一般判断的方式。