Direction of Fit - in Speech Act Theory

In Speech Act Theory

Perhaps the first to speak of a "direction of fit" was the philosopher J. L. Austin. Austin did not use the distinction between different directions of fit to contrast commands or expressions of intention to assertions, or desires to beliefs. He rather distinguishes different ways of asserting that an item is of a certain type.

In an extensive discussion of the issues involved with the differences 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 fit": in the case of naming something, the difference between the fitting of a name to an item, and the fitting of an item to a name.

The concept of direction of fit can also apply to speech acts: e.g., declarations have word-to-world direction of fit, while commands and promises have a world-to-word direction of fit.

John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken assert that there are only four possible "directions of fit" in language:

1. The word-to-world direction of fit.

In achieving success of fit the propositional content of the utterance fits an independently existing state of affairs in the world. E.g.: "We are married".

2. The world-to-word direction of fit.

To achieve success of fit 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 fit.

To achieve success of fit the world is thereby altered to fit 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 fit.

There is no direct question of achieving success of fit between the propositional content and the world, because success of fit 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 fit" to create a taxonomy of illocutionary acts.

Although Elizabeth Anscombe never employed the term "the direction of fit", Searle has strongly argued that the following passage from her work Intention was, by far, "the best illustration" of the distinction between the tasks of " the words (more strictly their propositional content) to match the world… 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 different 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 man's 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 detective's record and what the man actually buys do not agree, then the mistake is in the record.