This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1964, given by Roderick M. Chisholm (1916-1999), an American philosopher.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

I shall propose that the primary form of all references is that reference to ourselves that we normally express when we use the first-person pronoun. In the case of believing, this reference may be called 'direct attribution'. Our reference to all other things is by way of such reference to ourselves. I shall argue that; although we express ourselves in first-person sentences, the reference to ourselves that we thus express does not involve the acceptance of first-person proposition- for, I shall (...) contend, there is no good reason to assume that there are such propositions. The primary form of believing is not a matter of accepting propositions; it is a matter of attributing properties to pneself I am the primary object of my own attributions and the properties are the content. (shrink)

In this paper I suppose that the several forms of intending are related to endeavor – or undertaking – in the same way that, according to Aristotle, the several senses of truth are linked to the truth of judgment. I argue that the basic form of endeavor is the one in which the agent tries to bring about that he himself have a certain property. I show that there is a distinction between “The doctor treats the doctor” and “The doctor (...) treats himself”; the former can be explained in terms of the latter, but the latter in some cases cannot be explained in terms of the former. I show that the other kinds of endeavor can be reduced to the basic one.Supõe-se, no artigo, que as várias formas de intencionar estão ligadas a esforçar-se – ou empreender – à maneira como, segundo Aristóteles, os vários sentidos de verdade estão ligados à verdade do juízo. Argumenta-se que a forma básica de esforço é aquela em que o agente tenta fazer com que ele próprio tenha certa propriedade. Mostra-se que há uma distinção entre “O médico trata o médico” e “O médico trata a si mesmo”; a primeira pode ser explicada em termos da última, mas essa pode não ser explicada em termos da primeira. Mostra-se que os outros tipos de esforço podem ser reduzidos a esse tipo básico. (shrink)