ABSTRACT
Many contemporary philosophers have drawn on the metaphor of direction of fit to explain the difference between beliefs and desires. The basic difference between these two states lies in the way they relate to the world: while beliefs try to fit the world, the world has to fit desires, or in John Searle's terminology, while beliefs have a "mind-to-world" direction, desires have a "world-to-mind" one. The idea of direction of fit is one among other ways of distinguishing between beliefs and desires, since these two mental states are different in ways other than their relation to the world. G. E. M. Anscombe distinguished between beliefs and desires in terms of their direction to the world, although she does not use the phrase "direction of fit." The metaphor of direction of fit does not only commit from the very beginning to a certain theory of truth, but also to a certain theory of motivation: the David Humean theory of motivation.
