Direction of t

The technical term direction-of-t is used to describe the judges opinion is upheld, the world must be altered
the distinctions that are oered by two related sets of op- to match the content of the judges utterance (i.e., the
posing terms:
criminal must be executed).
The more general set of mind-to-world (i.e.,
mind-to-t-world, not from-mind-to-world) vs.
world-to-mind (i.e., world-to-t-mind) used by
philosophers of mind, and

2 Earlier theories

According to Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Part

The narrower, more specic set, word-to-world
I, Question 21, Article 2), there are two kinds of "truth"
(i.e., word-to-t-world) vs. world-to-word (i.e.,
(veritas), both understood as correspondence between
world-to-t-word) used by advocates of speech act
mind (intellectus) or words (oratio) and world (things,
theory.
res):

In general

Truth consists in the equation of mind and

thing, as said above. Now the mind, that is the
cause of the thing, is related to it as its rule
and measure; whereas the converse is the case
with the mind that receives its knowledge from
things.

In philosophy of mind, a belief has a mind-to-world direction of t.[1] A belief (that p, say) depicts the world
as being in a state of aairs such that p is true. Beliefs,
some philosophers have argued,[2] aim at the truth and so
aim to t the world. A belief is satised when it ts the
world.

When therefore things are the measure and

rule of the mind, truth consists in the equation
of the mind to the thing, as happens in ourselves. For according as a thing is, or is not,
our thoughts or our words about it are true or
false.
But when the mind is the rule or measure of
things, truth consists in the equation of the thing
to the mind; just as the work of an artist is said
to be true, when it is in accordance with his art.
Now as works of art are related to art, so are
works of justice related to the law with which
they accord. Therefore Gods justice, which
establishes things in the order conformable to
the rule of His wisdom, which is the law of His
justice, is suitably called truth. Thus we also
in human aairs speak of the truth of justice.
(emphasis added to original)

A desire, on the other hand, normally expresses a yet to

be realized state of aairs and so has a world-to-mind
direction of t.[3] 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 satised when the world ts it.
A way to account for the dierence 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 t 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 t, and must be altered such that
it matches the real world. Conversely, a world-to-word
t occurs when a fan of Smiths team opines that they deserved to win the match, even though they lost. In this 3 In speech act theory
case, the world would have to change to make the sports
fans wish become true.
Perhaps the rst to speak of a direction of t was the
However, in the case of, say, a judge delivering a death philosopher J. L. Austin. Austin did not use the distincsentence to a criminal declared guilty by a jury, the ut- tion between dierent directions of t to contrast comterances of the judge alter the world, through the fact mands or expressions of intention to assertions, or desires
of that utterance; and, in this case, the judge is gener- to beliefs. He rather distinguishes dierent ways of asating a world-to-word-to-world t (see below). So, if serting that an item is of a certain type.[4]
1

4 IN PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

In an extensive discussion[5] of the issues involved with

the dierences between, say, (a) wrongly calling a triangle a square (something which, he said, was committing
an act of violence to the language) and (b) wrongly describing a triangular object as being a square (something
which, he said, was committing an act of violence to the
facts), Austin distinguished between what he termed:
"the onus of match": in the case of one wanting to
match X and Y, the distinction between the matching of X to Y and the matching of Y to X; and
"the direction of t": in the case of naming something, the dierence between the tting of a name
to an item, and the tting of an item to a name.
The concept of direction of t can also apply to speech
acts: e.g., statements, guesses and conjectures have
word-to-world direction of t, while commands and
promises have a world-to-word direction of t.
John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken[6] assert that there
are only four possible "directions of t" in language:
1. The word-to-world direction of t.
In achieving success of t the propositional
content of the utterance ts an independently
existing state of aairs in the world. E.g.: We
are married.
2. The world-to-word direction of t.
To achieve success of t the world must change
to match the propositional content of the utterance. E.g.: Will you marry me?", I want
to marry him, You'd just better marry her,
buddy!", etc.
3. The double direction of t.
To achieve success of t the world is thereby
altered to t the propositional content by representing the world as being so altered, unlike sense 2. E.g.: I declare you man and
wife. The 'doubled' direction is therefore
always world-to-word-to-world. For obvious
reasons, Searle calls sentences of this type 'declarations.
4. The null or empty direction of t.
There is no direct question of achieving success
of t between the propositional content and the
world, because success of t is presupposed by
the utterance. E.g.: I'm glad I married you
presupposes that the speaker is married to the
listener.
Searle used this notion of "direction of t" to create a taxonomy of illocutionary acts.[7]

Although Elizabeth Anscombe never employed the term

the direction of t, Searle has strongly argued[8] that the
following passage from her work Intention was, by far,
the best illustration of the distinction between the tasks
of "[getting] the words (more strictly their propositional
content) to match the world [and that of getting] the
world to match the words":
32. Let us consider a man going round a
town with a shopping list in his hand. Now it
is clear that the relation of this list to the things
he actually buys is one and the same whether
his wife gave him the list or it is his own list;
and that there is a dierent relation where a list
is made by a detective following him about. If
he made the list itself, it was an expression of
intention; if his wife gave it him, it has the role
of an order. What then is the identical relation to what happens, in the order and the intention, which is not shared by the record? It
is precisely this: if the list and the things that
the man actually buys do not agree, and if this
and this alone constitutes a mistake, then the
mistake is not in the list but in the mans performance (if his wife were to say: Look, it
says butter and you have bought margarine, he
would hardly reply: What a mistake! we must
put that right and alter the word on the list to
margarine); whereas if the detectives record
and what the man actually buys do not agree,
then the mistake is in the record.[9]

4 In philosophy of mind
According to Velleman, when used in the domain of the
philosophy of mind, the concept direction of t represents the distinguishing feature between two types of
intentional mental states:
Facta (singular factum, states that currently
exist) are states with a mind-to-world direction
of t.
Examples include beliefs, perceptions,
hypotheses, and fantasies. In the event of a
mismatch between the mental state and the
world, the mental state is in some sense false
or wrong and should perhaps be changed.
Facienda (singular faciendum, states that are
yet to exist) are states with a world-to-mind direction of t.
Examples include intentions and desires. If
there is a mismatch between the mental state
and the world, the world is in some sense wrong
and should perhaps be changed.

3
In some forms of mind-body dualism, a matching factum
and faciendum must be present in a persons mind in order
for him to act intentionally. If a person has the belief
that action (A) will lead to state (S), and has the desire
that state (S) obtain, then he will perform action (A). The
action is directly caused by simultaneous presence of the
two mental states; no further explanation is needed.
According to Velleman:
The term direction of t refers to
the two ways in which attitudes can
relate propositions to the world.
In cognitive attitudes [such as belief], a proposition is grasped as
patterned after the world; whereas
in conative attitudes [such as desire], the proposition is grasped as
a pattern for the world to follow.
The propositional object of desire is
regarded not as fact -- not, that is, as
factum, having been brought about
-- but rather as faciendum, to be
brought about: its regarded not as
true but as to be made true.[10]

References

[1] Searle (2001), p.37.

Austin, J.L., How to Talk: Some Simple Ways,

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol.53,
(1953), pp. 227246.
Humberstone, I.L., Direction of Fit, Mind,
Vol.101, No.401, (January 1992), pp. 5983.
Searle, J.R., A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts,
pp. 119 in Searle, J.R., Expression and Meaning:
Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge
University Press, (Cambridge), 1979. (N.B. This
is a reprint of the same paper that was published
twice, in 1975 and 1976, under two dierent titles: (a) Searle, J.R., A Taxonomy of Illocutionary
Acts, pp. 344369 in Gunderson, K. (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press, (Minneapolis), 1975; and (b) Searle,
J.R., A Classication of Illocutionary Acts, Language in Society, Vol.5, (1976), pp. 124.)
Searle, J.R., Expression and Meaning: Studies in the
Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge University Press,
(Cambridge), 1985.
Searle, J.R., Rationality in Action, The MIT Press,
(Cambridge, Massachusetts), 2001.
Searle, J.R. & Vanderveken, D., Foundations of
Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press,
(Cambridge), 1985.
Velleman, J.D., The Guise of the Good, Nos,
Vol.26, No.1, (March 1992), pp. 326.

[2] Searle (2001), p.37.

[3] Searle (2001), p.37-8.
[4] Hennig, Boris. Two Epistemic Directions of Fit (PDF).
Retrieved 4 May 2011.
[5] Austin (1953), p.234.
[6] Searle & Vanderveken, (1985), pp.52-53.
[7] See Searle (1975/1976/1979).
[8] Searle, 1985, p.3.
[9] Anscombe, 1963, p.56
[10] Velleman, (1992), p.8.

Bibliography
Anscombe, G.E.M., Intention (Second Edition),
Basil Blackwell, (Oxford), 1963 (rst edition 1957).
Austin, J.L., How to Do Things With Words: The
William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955, Oxford University Press, (Oxford),
1962.

7 See also
John Searle

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Direction of t Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_of_fit?oldid=724584622 Contributors: ThirdParty, Banno, Chowbok,

Versageek, Velho, BD2412, Reedy, Simongraham, O process, Kripkenstein, Gregbard, Lindsay658, Steve Dufour, LookingGlass, Meses,
Anarchia, Nightmiler, SlackerMom, SchreiberBike, Yobot, AnomieBOT, John of Reading, Hpvpp, ChuispastonBot, BG19bot, Luizpuodzius, Asdrubalissimo, Krutnam and Anonymous: 12

8.2

Images

File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The

Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the le, specically: Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).

8.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0