Talk:Direction of fit

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Introduction[edit]

This article needs an opening sentence. Steve Dufour 16:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction written yesterday.Lindsay658 23:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please reverse change:

I made an edit a few days ago. I changed the first sentence under "General" from "In philosophy of mind, a belief is true when it has a mind-to-world direction of fit" to "In philosophy of mind, a belief has a mind-to-world direction of fit". This change was reversed a day later. This is a mistake. A belief aims at truth: it is not necessarily true (false beliefs are beliefs). All beliefs have a mind-to-world direction of fit, regardless of whether they are true or false. They purport to represent the world; they may not succeed. They are still beliefs (see Humberstone, Direction of Fit. Mind 1992. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.72.80 (talk) 15:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification please[edit]

The third sentence is not a sentence. It may have meaning for someone who already understands this concept, but for anyone looking it up on Wikipedia it is meaningless gibberish - something, I have to say, you philosophers excel at. Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope I've clarified many articles on WP; surely I've made many criticisms similar to yours. But, until you quote it, I don't know which sentence you're talking about. Sorry buddy, -M MaherCoen (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Sorry. It was more an intemperate spray at the odd argot of philosophers than a thoughtful attempt at being constructive. I apologise. I'm referring to "A belief (that p, say) depicts the world as being in a state of affairs such that p is true." In everyday language this, standing alone, is meaningless. The "that" in "that p, say" just hangs there and I am left waiting for the rest of what "that" refers to. We non-philosophers never say or hear "He believes that x" or "She hopes that y."

A normal person, in everyday English, would say "You believe x" and never say "You believe that x". Do you see what I mean here? It's just not normal usage. Throwing in the "that" just makes me, the reasonably well-read and articulate non-philosopher, think "Wooah! Speak English people. Is this a typo? If not, who are you writing for?" and not bother with the rest of the article. Really. That's what happened.

I've just read down into the article a bit further and can guess that maybe the "p" does in fact stand for "proposition". If so, then the odd syntax makes sense to anyone who already knows that "p" stands for "proposition". But since an encyclopedia article should be accessible to as many readers as possible and, wherever possible, not addressed only to those already familiar with the subject, perhaps this idiosyncratic syntax or p = proposition (whichever is the case) could be explained. Or perhaps the peculiar "that" could simply be removed from this sentence and those below. Anthonyhcole (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the sentence is understandable - p is the general notation for a statement. "If p, then q" where p would be something like "the sky is blue." Refer to your example with x, substituting "the sky is blue" for x. Then, you get "A normal person believes the sky is blue" or "A normal person believes that the sky is blue." In my (perhaps not normal?) opinion, both of these are acceptable. 71.54.203.30 (talk) 06:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lede is meaningless gibberish to the average reader. This is an encyclopedia, not chapter 23 of a university logic textbook. Does any editor of this article have the language skills to translate the lede into a paragraph that an articulate person, new to the topic can understand? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:55, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References required - tagged with multiple issues[edit]

This article reads like a piece of original research and opinion such as would be submitted as a college project and the style therefore is innappropriate for a wiki encyclopedic article. In it's current form it appears not to meet Wiki's notability criteria, however a search on Google reveals that it could if rewritten in an appropriate style, based on references rather than dissertation. LookingGlass (talk) 12:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]