Editing Roderick Chisholm (section)

===Direct attribution theory of reference===<!-- "Direct attribution theory of reference" redirects here -->
Chisholm argued for the primacy of the [[mind|mental]] over [[linguistics|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'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> in ''The First Person'' (1981). He argues that we refer to things other than ourselves by indirectly 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 "[[Speech act#Indirect speech acts|indirect speech act]]" (1975) and [[Paul Grice]]'s "[[implicature]]" (1975), in addition to [[Logical consequence|entailment]].