Direct Attribution Theory of Reference
Chisholm argued for the primacy of the mental over linguistic intentionality, as suggested in the title of Person and Object (1976) that was deliberately contrasted with Quine's Word and Object (1960). In this regard, he defended the direct attribution theory of reference in The First Person (1981). He argues that we refer to things other than ourselves by directly attributing properties to them, and that we indirectly or relatively attribute properties to them by directly attributing properties to ourselves. Suppose the following bed scene:
- (1) a man M is in bed B with a woman W, namely, M-B-W, or
- (2) a woman W is in bed B with a man M, namely, W-B-M.
If I were M and "U" were W, then I could directly attribute to myself the property (1) or M-B-W, while indirectly to "U" the property (2) or W-B-M, thereby referring to "U". That is, to say (1) is relatively to say (2), or to explicate M-B-W is to implicate W-B-M.
His idea of indirect attribution (1981) is relevant to John Searle's "indirect speech act" (1975) and Paul Grice's "implicature" (1975), in addition to entailment.
Read more about this topic: Roderick Chisholm
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