Editing Propositional attitude (section)

{{Short description|Concept in epistemology}}
{{More footnotes|date=April 2009}}
A '''propositional attitude''' is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a [[proposition]]. In [[philosophy]], propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal principles/values).<ref name="IEP Propositional Attitudes">{{Cite web |title=Propositional Attitudes |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/prop-ati/ |access-date=2023-03-07}}</ref> [[Linguistics|Linguistically]], propositional attitudes are denoted by a [[verb]] (e.g. ''believed'') governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.

Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false from the perspective of the person. An agent can have different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition (e.g., "''S'' believes that her ice-cream is cold," and "''S'' fears that her ice-cream is cold"). Propositional attitudes have [[direction of fit|directions of fit]]: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it.<ref name="IEP Propositional Attitudes"/>

One topic of central concern is the relation between the modalities of assertion and belief, as well as intention. A person's assertions may not conform to their beliefs. When the departure of assertion from belief is intentional, it is called a ''[[lie]]''.<ref name="IEP Propositional Attitudes"/>

Other comparisons of multiple modalities that frequently arise are the relationships between belief and knowledge and the discrepancies that occur among observations, expectations, and intentions.  Deviations of observations from expectations are commonly perceived as ''[[surprise (emotion)|surprises]]'', phenomena that call for ''[[explanation]]s'' to reduce the shock of amazement.