What is "propositional attitude"

n. (context philosophy English) A relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition, such as believing that, desiring that, or hoping that.

A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent toward a proposition. Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false. 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”).

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 have directions of fit: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it.