Concept

Direction of fit

The technical term direction of fit is used to describe the distinctions that are offered by two related pairs of opposing terms: The more general set of mind-to-world (i.e., mind-to-fit-world, not from-mind-to-world) vs. world-to-mind (i.e., world-to-fit-mind) used by philosophers of mind, and The narrower, more specific set, word-to-world (i.e., word-to-fit-world) vs. world-to-word (i.e., world-to-fit-word) used by advocates of speech act theory such as John Searle. In philosophy of mind, a belief has a mind-to-world direction of fit. A belief (that p, say) depicts the world as being in a state of affairs such that p is true. Beliefs, some philosophers have argued, aim at the truth and so aim to fit the world. A belief is satisfied when it fits the world. A desire, on the other hand, normally expresses a yet to be realized state of affairs and so has a world-to-mind direction of fit. A desire that p, unlike a belief, doesn't depict the world as being in the state that p; rather it expresses a desire that the world be such that p is true. Desire is a state that is satisfied when the world fits it. A way to account for the difference is that a (rational) person that holds the belief that p when confronted with evidence that not-p, will revise his belief, whereas a person that desires that p can retain his desire that p in the face of evidence that not-p. To a philosopher of language a word-to-world fit occurs when, say, a sports journalist correctly names Jones as a goal scorer; while if the journalist mistakenly names Smith as the goal scorer, the printed account does not display a word-to-world fit, and must be altered such that it matches the real world. Conversely, a world-to-word fit occurs when a fan of Smith's team opines that they deserved to win the match, even though they lost. In this case, the world would have to change to make the sports fan's wish become true. However, in the case of, say, a judge delivering a death sentence to a criminal declared guilty by a jury, the utterances of the judge alter the world, through the fact of that utterance; and, in this case, the judge is generating a world-to-word-to-world fit (see below).

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Related concepts (3)
Mental state
A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain/pleasure experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definition of the term. According to epistemic approaches, the essential mark of mental states is that their subject has privileged epistemic access while others can only infer their existence from outward signs.
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.
Belief
A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true or a state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some stance, take, or opinion about something. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take it to be true; for instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white".