Título del libro: Mind, Language And Morality: Essays In Honor Of Mark Platts
Título del capítulo: Wrong direction? A criticism of direction of fit
GUSTAVO MAURICIO ORTIZ MILLAN;
Autores externos:
Idioma:
Inglés
Año de publicación:
2018
Resumen:
Many contemporary philosophers have drawn on the metaphor of direction of fit to explain the difference between beliefs and desires. The basic difference between these two states, they claim, lies in the way they relate to the world: while beliefs try to fit the world, the world has to fit our desires, or in John Searle?s terminology, while beliefs have a ?mind-to-world? direction, desires have a ?world-to-mind? one. 1 The distinction between these two mental states is important because it has applications in several fields: in theories of motivation it has been used to explain processes of practical rationality and the mechanisms of motivation that lead to intentional actions. For instance, it has traditionally been claimed that desires and beliefs are necessary elements in the motivation of actions given their different directions of fit; any action has to be explained as the product of a belief-desire pair, where the desire sets the goal of the action and the belief plays an instrumental role in achieving it. However, this distinction is not only important in discussions about practical rationality, but also in many discussions where cognitivist and non-cognitivist positions are at stake, or in debates about the ethics of beliefs, the analysis of knowledge and the doctrine of double effect. 2 In other fields, such as the philosophy of language, the idea of direction of fit has been used, not so much to distinguish between mental states, but to differentiate speech acts: statements, descriptions and assertions have a ?word-to-world? direction, since they are supposed to match the world, whereas orders, commands, requests and promises have a ?world-to-word? one, ?are supposed to bring about changes in the world, so that the world matches the propositional content of the speech act.? 3 When used within the theory of speech acts, it also serves as the basis for social ontology. 4 However, I am concerned here only with the distinction between beliefs and desires, and I am going to restrict my discussion to this issue-what I say about beliefs and desires might be extended to other debates, but this is something I am not going to explore here. © 2018 Taylor & Francis.
Entidades citadas de la UNAM:
ISBN:
9781351202589
Editorial:
Taylor and Francis Nombre de la publicación:
Wrong direction? A criticism of direction of fit
Página inicial:
26
Página final:
48
Tipo de producto:
Capítulo de un Libro
