Concept
Propositional attitude
Overview
A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a proposition. In philosophy, propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal principles/values). Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. believed) governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.
Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false from the perspective of the person. An agent can have different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition (e.g., "S believes that her ice-cream is cold," and "S fears that her ice-cream is cold"). Propositional attitudes have directions of fit: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it.
One topic of central concern is the relation between the modalities of assertion and belief, as well as intention. A person's assertions may not conform to their beliefs. When the departure of assertion from belief is intentional, it is called a lie.
Other comparisons of multiple modalities that frequently arise are the relationships between belief and knowledge and the discrepancies that occur among observations, expectations, and intentions. Deviations of observations from expectations are commonly perceived as surprises, phenomena that call for explanations to reduce the shock of amazement.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The copula is the sign denoting that there is an affirmation or denial; and thereby enabling the hearer or reader to distinguish a proposition from any other kind of discourse. Thus, in the proposition, The earth is round, the Predicate is the word _round_, which denotes the quality affirmed, or (as the phrase is) predicated: _the earth_, words denoting the object which that quality is affirmed of, compose the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Propositional attitude is.
This is sometimes done by a slight alteration of one of the words, called an _inflection_; as when we say, Fire burns; the change of the second word from _burn_ to _burns_ showing that we mean to affirm the predicate burn of the subject fire. But this function is more commonly fulfilled by the word _is_, when an affirmation is intended, _is not_, when a negation; or by some other part of the verb _to be_. The word…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Propositional attitude is.
In this stage it is a resultant from previous separate association and apperception processes. Then follows in the second stage of expression in speech, an analysis of that total idea into its parts, in which these parts are always put into close relations with each other. Such relations are called by grammarians subject and predicate, noun and adjective, verb and adverb, &c. The grammatical meaning of these…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Propositional attitude is.
Philosophers who discussed Propositional attitude
Related ideas
- Philosophy
- Intentionality
- Explanation
- Linguistics
- Willard Van Orman Quine
- Logic
- Proposition
- Direction of fit
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.