Reconceiving Direction of Fit

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (3):171-180 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I argue that the concept of direction of fit is best seen as picking out a certain inferential property of a psychological attitude. The property in question is one that believing shares with assuming and fantasizing and fails to share with desire. Unfortunately, the standard analysis of DOF obscures this fact because it conflates two very different properties of an attitude: that in virtue of which it displays a certain DOF, and that in virtue of which it displays certain revision conditions. I claim that the latter corresponds with the aim of an attitude, not its DOF. In order to remedy this failure of the standard analysis, I offer an alternative account of DOF, which I refer to as the two-content analysis

Similar books and articles

Direction of Fit and Motivational Cognitivism.Sergio Tenenbaum - 2006 - In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 235-64.
Wants and desires: A critique of conativist theory of motivation.Chris Meyers - 2005 - Journal of Philosophical Research:357-370.
Selfless Desires and the Property Theory of Content.Neil Feit - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3):489-503.
Direction of Fit Accounts of Belief and Desire Revisited.Greg Sherkoske - 2010 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 10 (1):1-11.
Believing, holding true, and accepting.Pascal Engel - 1998 - Philosophical Explorations 1 (2):140 – 151.
Changing Direction on Direction of Fit.Alex Gregory - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (5):603-614.
Direction of Fit.G. F. Schueler - 2013 - In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell.
Appetitive besires and the fuss about fit.Steven Swartzer - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):975-988.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-08-13

Downloads
590 (#28,741)

6 months
98 (#40,778)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Avery Archer
George Washington University

References found in this work

Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Intention.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1957 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege.Gottlob Frege - 1952 - Oxford, England: Blackwell. Edited by P. T. Geach & Max Black.
Posthumous Writings.Gottlob Frege (ed.) - 1979 - Blackwell.

View all 41 references / Add more references