Believing must be construed as a relation between a believer and some other thing . . . What kind of thing, then? . . . The simplest conception, I suggest, is one which construes believing as a relation between a believer and a property- a property which he may be said to attribute to himself.Moreover, there seems to be a distinction between the belief that first person and third person beliefs. I might have either belief without the other. The proponent of the view that beliefs are self-ascriptions of properties can readily capture this sort of distinction between mental states by saying that first-personal belief that I am on fire is the self- ascription of the property of being on fire, whereas my third-personal belief that HC is on fire is the self-ascription of the property of being such that HC is on fire.