MIDWEST STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHY, I1 (1977)

REFERRING TO EVENTS
FRED I. DRETSKE

I N a memorable footnote J. L. Austin describes himself as shooting someones donkey by mistake. He then describes himself as shooting the donkey by accident. The two stones go something like this: You and I both own a donkey and they are grazing in the same field. T h e day comes when I conceive a dislike for mine. I go to shoot it, draw a bead, and fire; the brute falls in its tracks. I inspect the victim and find to my horror that it is your donkey. Sorry, old sport, my mistake. In the second case I go to shoot my donkey as before, draw a bead on it, and fire; at the last critical moment the beasts move and my shot fells your donkey instead ofmy own-the one I was aiming at. There is no mistake this time; just an unfortunate accident. In both cases I shot your donkey, no dispute about that. Nonetheless, in saying that I shot your donkey by mistake, or by accident, I say something that is ambiguous, unclear, or, at least, fairly unspecific about the nature ofthe accident or the mistake. For example, Austin describes one sort of accident when he depicts the donkeys as moving at the last moment. In this version of the story what is accidental is not the shooting but the fact that your donkey, not mine, got shot. But we may have had quite a different sort of accident: I could have been cleaning my rifle and discharged it accidently, killing your donkey. We sometimes express the difference between situations of this sort by emphasizing or stressing certain words in our description ofthe accident. In the circumstances described b y Austin we can report the incident by saying that your donkey was shot b y accident-thereby indicating that what was accidental was your donkeys getting in the line of fire, not there being a line of fire for your donkey to be in front of. In the case where the gun discharges accidentally, I might report the mishap by saying that I accidentally shot your donkey. The stress on the word shot (or the lack of any special contrastive stress on the words your donkey) generally signals the fact that the accident pertains to the discharge of the gun, not to the ultimate recipient of the discharged bullet.
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Austins example is ideally suited to illustrating the way subtle shadings in stress, intonation and pitch can alter what we mean to be asserting when we talk about accidents and mistakes. There is a difference between saying that I shot your donkey by mistake (or by accident) and saying that I shot your donkey by mistake (or by accident), and this difference is not merely a difference in how we say what we say. It is, or so I have argued, a genuine difference in what we say, a difference in the proposition being expressed. I have explored these matters at length in several previous publications.* What I wish to do in this paper is to offer an account of why a n d how such pragmatic factors (or what are commonly taken to be pragmatic factors) as stress, pitch and intonation influence the meaning of what we say. I shall argue that the fundamental explanation for this semantic phenomenon lies in the peculiar way we have of referring to events and describing their causal relatedness. I n order to make my account intelligible, let alone plausible, i t will prove useful to give a brief review of the type of semantic peculiarity that this paper is devoted to explaining. We are all familiar with the way stress, intonation and what I have elsewhere called contrastive focusing can significantly affect the character of what we say. If Susan stole the bicycle, w e can describe this fact with the very same sequence of words in a variety of different ways. T o someone who wants to know who stole the bicycle we say Susan stole the bicycle, and to someone else, someone who doesnt know what she stole, we say Susan stole the bicycle. Such differences have seemed of only marginal significance in semantical studies because such variations appear to affect, not what is said, but how it is said; they modify the delivery ofa proposition, not the proposition delivered. This neglect seems justified as long as we concentrate our attention on the isolated statement, Susan stole the bicycle since different patterns of stress and intonation do not appear to change what is asserted when w e use this sentence to make a statement. The acoustical variations can be.accounted for in terms of the speakers beliefs about what his listeners know or what they are interested in. A rising intonation, characteristic of a question, can indicate that no assertion is being made at all, but if we confine our attention to the propositions such sentences may be used to express, intonation and contrastive emphasis appear to b e quite irrelevant. Things change dramatically, however, when we embed this form of words into certain larger contexts. For example, we say such things as: George knew that Susan stole the bicycle, h e remembered that Susan stole the bicycle, he was sorry that she stole the bicycle, or h e advised her to steal the bicycle. In the last example we have a transformation of the sentence Susan stole the bicycle embedded in the context George advised . . . and suddeniy we find that it makes a great deal of difference whether we emphasize the word stole or the words the bicycle. For George may have advised Susan to steal the bicycle without advising her to steal it. This sounds paradoxical only because w e havent set the stage properly. Suppose George has been trying to dissuade a determined Susan from stealing one of the vehicles parked on a deserted street. Susan is adamant, however, and Georges moral and legal appeals fall on deaf ears. Recognizing Susans unalterable intentions, George sets about trying to convince Susan to steal the unattended bicycle instead ofthe Mercedes or Cadillac parked nearby with their keys in the ignition. Given this background, it is, I submit, false to say that George advised Susan to steal the bicycle. He advised her to steal the bicycle, yes, but that is something quite different. T h e truth value, and hence the meaning, of the larger expression is a function of the emphatic focus of the smaller expression embedded in it. This semantic effect can be observed in a large variety of contexts. Consider the con-

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text I remember. . . . Suppose I find a notebook in my office and try to remember who left it there. After mentally sorting through the many students who have been in my office during the day, I finally remember that Mildred left the notebook in my office this morning. Consider, now, Mildred searching her memory as to where she left her notebook. If she is lucky she will remember that she left the notebook in my office this morning. And, finally, consider some third party trying to remember what Mildred left in my office this morning. I remember that Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning; Mildred remembers that she left her notebook in my office this morning; and the third party remembers that Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning. In a fairly obvious sense, the three of us remember quite different things though the proposition describing what we remember is the same in all three cases. I remember who; Mildred remembers where; and the secretary remembers what. It is false, notjust conversationally inappropriate, to say that I remember that Mildred left her notebook i n m y offtce this morning. That is what Mildred remembers, not me. I have tried to systematize these differences in the following way. The proposition,

(P) Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning

may be given different embodiments depending on its intonational and contrastive contour. I have called these different embodiments of (P) the allomorphs of (P).Some of the different allomorphs of (P) are:

(Pa) Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning. (Pb) Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning. (P,) Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning. (Pd) Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning.
There are, of course, other possibilities. When we embed the proposition (P) into a context such as S remembers . . . we automatically embed one of these allomorphs into this context; or, if no allomorph is indicated or understood, the resulting statement is ambiguous. The truth value, hence the meaning, of the larger statement, S remembers that Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning depends on which allomorph is understood to be embedded in the context S remembers. . . . Different propositions result when different allomorphs are substituted. Many contexts betray this feature; I have already mentioned a few-advise, remember, know and sorry that. I will call such contexts allomorphically sensitive contexts. So much b y way of review and technical terminology. The chief purpose of this quick review was to permit me to use the notion of a propositional allomorph and the allied notion of an allomorphically sensitive context in the remainder ofthis paper. By propositional allomorph, I shall mean one of the many variant forms a proposition can be given by the device of focusing on one element rather than another in a given verbal representation of that proposition. By allomorphically sensitive context, I shall mean any larger statement whose truth, and therefore meaning, is dependent on which allomorph it contains. I think these facts, assuming they are facts, have important implications for a variety ofphilosophical topics. My own interest in epistemology has led me to examine the way allomorphic differences alter what we mean to be claiming when we claim to know that something is so, remember that such-and-such happened, or see that something is so-and-so. My concern here, however, is not to use these distinctions in the service of other philosophical projects, but to account for them. What makes some contexts, but not

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othrrs, sensitive to alloinorphic differences? What are propositional allorriorphs? Are they merely a feature of language, an epiphenomenon o f t h e way w e describe what we describe, OT clo they owe their origin to something extralinguistic, to something in what \.ie describe? Propositions are mystrrious enoiigh, and w e are now rriiiltiplying mysteries at an alarming rate. Is there anything iri t h e world that corresponds to this proliferation US abstract entities? 11: order to get a grip on thew questions I think it useful to look at what we get when we nominalize propositional allomorphs. The conventional wisdoni has it that when we nominfiliztt a proposition, we get a rioiin phrase that refers, or purports to refer, to an evcilt, state of affairs, condition oi situation. Events, states of affairs, and conditions are not as concrete and kick-able as one might like, but they are at leastin the world i n a way tliat nieanings and propositions are not. Propositions have their counterpart in these events, conditions and states of affairs; these latter entities provide the extralinguistic point of reference for individuating and identifying the more abstract erititics we c d l propositions. This is pretty crude, but I am not now trying to be precise or refixled. I am trying to give expression to what I expect wiil be a severe discomfort, perhaps a repugnance, for propositional allomorphs. Where do they touch horne? If they have any ontological significance, if they correspond to any extra-linguistic reality, one woi:Icl expect this to emerge when we looked at nominalized allomorphs. Different allnmolphs, when nominalized, should have a different referent (just as different propositions, when nominalized, have a d i f h e n t referent). We should be talking about something differrnt when w e talk about Susans steulirig the bike than when we talk about Susans stealing the M e . Reference, after all, is the way language hooks up with the world, a n d if there are no referential differences between nominalized allomorphs, one can hardly regard them as having any ultimate semantic significance. For semantics is concerned w i ti1 truth, and truth has to do witt i the relation between language and the world: if allomorphic differences have no worldly countcrpnrt, then they have n o sernaritic significance. To meet this kincl of objection, and to track down the source of the allomorphic differences we liavc ticen disciissing, consider the geriindive nominalization of two a1iomorp h s :

(Nup,) Susans stealing the bicycle {NP,) Susans stealing the bicycle
I n using these phrases i n a referring way (supposing Susan did steal the hicycle) are we referring to different things? Different events? Philosophers have a standard negative test for determining whether two expressions, A and B, are coreferential, whether they refer to the s x n e thing. They simply ask whether the expressions A and B can b e substituted one for the other i n certain so-called extensional or transparent contexts without altering the truth vaiiie of the containing context. For example, proposition A cannot h e identical to proposition B because A is h e and B is not and the context. . . is tnie is extensional. To apply this test one must know, of course, whicli contexts are extensional and which are not. It will not do to argue that t h e number of plaricis is not nine because nine is necessarily greater than eight while the number of planets is uot riccessarily greater than eight. B I I I supposing we have fairly re1ial)le intuitions about which contexts are extensional m d which are not, we can try to apply this test,. Are there extensional contexts # such that (p (Susans stealing the bicycle) is t r u e while c$ (Susans stealingthe bicycle) is not? If so, then w e may conclude that these phrases refer to different things. If not, we have no recourse but to conclude that these

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nominalized allomorphs are merely two ways ofreferring to the same event and do not differ semantically. If we embed the nominalized allomorphs NP, and N P into ~ a temporal context, no differences emerge. If Susans stealing the bike occurred before she was arrested, then Susans stealing the bike occurred before she was arrested. This is not too surprising. It is difficult to see how we could get a difference in this respect; for even if our nominals refer to something different, this difference is surely not a temporal difference. Hence, we should not expect to demonstrate the difference between the allomorphs by examining such temporal contexts as: . . occurred before . . . or . . . happened at the same time as. . . . There are, however, other things we can say about Susans stealing the bicycle. We can say that it was illegal, that it was observed by several people, or that it (the theft) occurred at such-and-such place. It is not entirely clear that each of these contexts is extensional in character but, even if they are, they show little promise of revealing a distinction between our two nominalized allomorphs. There is a much more attractive candidate for applying this test: causal contexts. Events and states of affairs, the sorts of things to which we refer with nominalized propositions, not only stand in temporal relations to each other; they also stand in causal relations to other events and states ofaffairs. Furthermore, if we accept a prevalent view about these contexts, they are also extensional in character. If event C1 causes E, and C1 = C2,then C2 causes E. This doctrine about the extensionality or transparency of causal contexts should not be confused with the much different, and far less plausible, thesis about the transparency of explanatory contexts. It may be true that the twitching of Susans nose caused a riot but, unaware of the special circumstances, we may not know why the one event touched off the other. This is simply to say that we may refer to the cause of an event in such a way as to leave unclear, or totally mysterious, why or how it could cause the event in question; but the failure ofthe causal attribution to help in explanation does not mean that the one event is not the cause of the other. If Susans nose twitching caused a riot, then that nose twitching, however referred to, caused a riot. Some ways of referring to this event may make it more obvious why it caused a riot (for example, the twitching of the dead girls nose), but this does not make the twitching of Susans nose any less the cause of the riot. I shall assume, therefore, without further argument, that causal contexts are extensional for the event expressions embedded in them. If C, causes E but C, does not, then C, # C2.What I now wish to do is to apply this test to our nominalized allomorphs. Can we drive a wedge between Susans stealing the bike and Susans stealing the bike in terms of their causal properties? I will attack this problem in a slightly indirect way. Suppose (1)S loses his wallet in the restaurant and (2) S loses his wallet at time t . It may seem plausible to suppose that the nominalization of these two sentences produces a pair of noun phrases that are co-referential. That is,
I.

I*

(1)Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant

Ss losing his wallet at time t .

T h e reason this equation appears so plausible is that the two expressions appear to b e merely two differently truncated ways ofreferring to one and the same event: Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant at time t . Surely, it may be said, deleting a small piece of information from the referring phrase does not alter what the phrase refers to. Despite this appearance, we get an anomalous result when we embed the two expressions into a causal context. For example, I may not find it at all unusual that S lost his wallet in the restaurant, but my suspicions may be aroused b y his losing his wallet just before the waiter arrived with the check (at time t ) . His losing his wallet just before the waiter arrived with the check caused me to become suspicious, something that his losing his

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wallet in the restaurant did not cause. I f w e took the identity expressed by (1)seriously, we might suppose that we could substitute, salva veritate, and conclude that Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant caused m e to become suspicious. But this doesnt sound right. This isnt what aroused my suspicions. Its when he lost it, not where he lost it, that made me suspicious. Anyone convinced of the transparency of causal contexts, and simultaneously certain about the validity of equation (I), will have an immediate rejoinder to this example. He will say that I am, despite my protestations, confusing a causal statement with an explanation. Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant did cause m e to become suspicious, but this way of referring to t h e cause does not reveal what it is about the event referred to that made me suspicious; it does not explain why his loss of the wallet made me suspicious. But w e can have a true causal attribution without understanding why the cause brought about the effect, and this is just what w e have in this case. This response will not pass muster. What caused m e to become suspicious is not an event, Ss loss of his wallet, which happened to occur in a restaurant and happened to occurjust before the waiter arrived with the check. Rather, what aroused my suspicions was this events occurring at this time. The specification of the time at which the event occurred is not just an additional piece of information helping the listener to identify which event is being referred to; this time is part of what is being referred to. There was aparticular facet or feature ofthis event, its occurring at the time it did, that is having causal efficacy attributed to it. We can refer to the event that occurred at that time with the phrase, Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant but we cannot refer to Ss losing his wallet at that time with the same phrase, and it is Ss losing his wallet at that time that is being said to be the cause of my suspicions. Let m e try to put this in another way. The phrase the man cutting the wood is ambiguous in its reference. We may b e referring to the man who is cutting wood, or we may be referring to his cutting the wood. Linguists would say that the phrase is ambiguous because it may b e interpreted as a relative clause nominal-the man who is cutting wood-or as an interrogative nominal-the mans cutting wood. In the first case the information contained in the words cutting wood is information that helps to identity which man is being referred to, but it is not part of what is being referred to. In the second case these words give expression, not simply to some helpful supplementary information, but to a facet of what is being talked about-the mans action of cutting wood. The same ambiguity infects the nominal Ss losing his wallet at time t. This may b e interpreted as a reference to the event Ss losing his wallet with the time specification being merely an additional piece of information to help in identifying which loss of his wallet is being referred to. Or, the time specification may b e functioning as it does in interrogative nominals, expressing a part of what one is talking about. I n this case one is not referring, simply, to the mans loss of his wallet; one is referring to his losing it at t . There is as much difference between these two referents as there is between the man who is cutting wood and the mans cutting wood. What this means is that equation ( I )is ambiguous. Interpreted in one way the identity is h e ; interpreted in another way it is false. Interpreted on t h e model of a relative clause nominal it is true ( l a ) Ss losing his wallet (which occurred in the restaurant) = Ss losing his wallet (which occurred at time t ) . In this case we are referring to his loss of the wallet in both cases and using the spatial and temporal specifications merely as helpful devices for identifying which loss of the

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wallet is in question. There is another interpretation of (1) however, an interpretation that follows the model of an interrogative nominal: ( l b ) Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant = Ss losing his wallet at t , where the words in the restaurant and a t t are functioning in the way that the words cutting wood functions in the interrogative nominal the man cutting w00d.~ And the reason we cannot use equation (1) indiscriminately within causal contexts is because within causal contexts (but not generally in other contexts-for example, purely temporal contexts) the different interpretations of the nominal expressions makes a great deal of difference to what we are asserting. For it turns out that the causal efficacy is frequently being attributed, not to Ss losing his wallet (which happened to occurat t ) ,but to his losing his wallet at t. Hence, although in one sense the equation is perfectly valid, we cannot use it to infer that because Ss losing his wallet at t caused me to become suspicious that, therefore, his losing his wallet in the restaurant caused me to become suspicious. This is the fallacy of equivocation. The sense of the phrase Ss losing his wallet att under which I can truly say that his losing his wallet at t caused me to become suspicious is not the sense of the phrase under which Ss losing his wallet at t is identical to Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant. I have been using the time parameter in these examples. We can use other features of the event. There is nothing particularly unusual or humorous in someone shouting hello to an old friend. But when the old friend happens to be the president of the United States and the place happens to be a solemn occasion of state, the incident can cause mirth, embarrassment, and humiliation. The cause here is not someone shouting Hello Jerry to an old friend; it is shouting Hello Jerry to that old friend in this place. It is certainly true that we can construct an equation of the form:

(2) Ss shouting Hello Jerry to his old friend = Ss shouting Hello Jerry to the president of the United States on a solemn state occasion,
but this identity-sentence is, as the last one was, open to several different interpretations. We can treat the additional specifications of the president of the United States and a solemn state occasion as merely supplementary pieces of information which help to identify more precisely which shouting is in question. Under this interpretation the equation is quite valid. But we can aIso interpret these words as picking out those aspects of the event which figure crucially in the causal attribution. In an obvious sense w e are talking about the same event with both phrases, but the sense in which what we are talking about is the same is not the sense in which what we are talking about causes something to happen. Let me t r y to make this clear with $nother analogy. Suppose a piece of clay is fashioned into a statue, call it S,. T h e clay is then re-worked into a different statue S,. These are different statues, yet, in pointing at them and referring to them as pieces of clay, we can say that they are the same piece of clay. This is simply tosay that different identity criteria become operative when we refer to something as a piece of clay and when we refer to it as a statue or a work of art. I can admire statue S1, find statue S , ugly and consistently admit that what I am looking at in both cases is the same piece of clay. Similarly, I can admit that event E l is the same event as E2and yet insist that El causes things that Ezdoes not. The reason I can do this is because to refer to an event as a cause is to invoke different identity criteria. Events fragment into a multiplicity of causal entities, just as pieces of clay can fragment into a multiplicity of statues. The reason for this fragmentation is that causes (and, I might add, effects) arefacets orfeatures of

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events, not the events themselves. To use one of Goldmans examples, if George walks slowly, or talks loudly, then his walking is identical to his walking slowly and his talking is identical to his talking loudly. Yet his walking slowly, and his talking loudly, may stand in causal relations that his walking and his talking do not. His irritation may have caused him to talk loudly, but it did not cause him to talk. And his walking slowly may annoy me, but I may be happy that h e is walking. To pick up some earlier terminology I will say that within the framework of causal discourse events multiply or diversify into allomorphic events. Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant is the same event as Ss losing his walletjust before the waiter arrived, but they are different allomorphs of this event. This is simply to say that under the genus cause (or effect) we cannot identify these entities anymore than we can identify pieces of clay under the genus statue. To refer to an event is to refer to something which occurs at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular manner. A reference to the allornorphs of this event is a reference, not to the event which occurs at that time, in that place, and in that manner, but to its occurring at that time, in that place, or in that manner. We may identify

( 3 ) The e which occurs at t = the e which occurs at place P manner M,

but we cannot identify the corresponding allomorphs:

the e which occurs in

(4)es occurring at t

# es occurring at place

# es occurring in manner

M.

T h e thesis of this paper can now b e stated rather briefly. Propositional allomorphs designate allomorphic events. The latter are the worldly counterpart to propositional allomorphs. When we nominalize different propositional allomorphs w e obtain noun phrases that refer to quite different things, allomorphic events, and the difference in what is being referred to manifests itselfwhen we begin to talk about the causal relatedness of these items. Furthermore, allomorphically sensitive contexts, such contexts as remember, know, perceive, advise, and to be sorry, are sensitive in this way because they are all, in one way or another, causal locutions. T h e semantic change witnessed when we embed different propositional allomorphs in these sensitive contexts is to be explained by the fact that these contexts all, more or less explicitly, describe a causal relation between entities; hence, the truth of this description will depend on which allomorphic event is alleged t o stand in the causal relation expressed b y this context. To illustrate this thesis consider t h e allomorphically sensitive context: S is sorry that . . . . The truth of the statement

(5) S is sorry that Susan stole the bicycle

depends on which allomorph of Susan stole t h e bicycle w e embed in this context. If you will recall our previous story, George is sorry that Susan stole the bicycle but not at all sorry, in fact quite relieved, that s h e stole the bicycle. What bothers George is that she stole, not what she stole. Now, the context S is sorry that . . . is, I suggest, a causal construction. I havent time to defend this claim with the kind of arguments it deserves, so let me merely suggest a crude causal paraphrase:

(6) S is sorry that P = df T h e fact that P is causally responsible for Ss feeling sorry.
There are some difficulties with this, b u t let them pass for the moment. Since the truth of the claim that S is sorry that P depends on the existence of a causal relation between

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the event or state of affairs expressed by P and Ss feelings, it becomes important for evaluating the truth of this claim {and, hence, for understanding what claim is being made) that we b e clear about what, exactly, is being alleged to be the cause of Ss feelings. Which allomorphic event is doing the causing? Which facet of this event, Susans stealing the bicycle, is it that generates in S the feelings that we describe b y saying he is SOT? When we begin to ask about the causal role of Susans stealing the bike, the allomorphic embodiments of this event become relevant. Two of the allomorphs are:

(NP,) Susans stealing the bike; (NPJ Susans stealing the bike.
T h e fact that these have different causal efficacy can b e seen by noting that it is NP, that leads to her arrest (not NP,,) and it is NP,, that caused Jimmy such unhappiness because it was the bike, custom designed and promised to him by the salesman, that Jimmy planned to buy the next day. The fact that Susan stole the bike isnt what made Jimmy unhappy (he would have been equally unhappy if Susan had bought the bike); its her theft of the bike that is responsible for his grief. Hence, if S is sorry that Susan stole the bike, we must ask whether it is Susans stealing the bike or Susans stealing the bike that is causally responsible for his feelings. Until we know this we cannot evaluate the claim that he is sorry about it. Propositional allomorphs of the sort we have been discussing constitute our way of describing or expressing which of the allomorphic events is causally involved in the transaction, and it is for this reason that propositional allomorphs can affect the truth of a larger claim in which they are embedded. To embed a different propositional allomorph in an allomorphically sensitive context is to make a different causal claim. I have failed to argue that a Z Z allomorphically sensitive contexts are ultimately causal in character. The most that I can do in this paper is suggest that the most prominent ones appear to be causal. We have, first, the epistemic verbs: know, see, remember, discern, discover and learn. On a causal theory of knowledge, each of these would, of course, be causal in character and thereby be allomorphically sensitive. Even if one is not convinced by a causal theory of knowledge, one might still, $one found the argument in this paper convincing, treat this itself as a reason to suppose that such epistemic constructions did involve some causal connection. Another set of terms that display allomorphic sensitivity are such psychological (but not openly epistemic) verbs as sorry that, pleased that, hope that and angry that. There are also such verbs as convince, persuade, tell, advise, explain and be responsible for. I have already, in the opening page of this paper, mentioned accident and mistake. If all these verbs are not obviously causal in character, I hope, for the sake of my argument, that they are not obviously non-causal in character. If nothing else, I think that the thesis of this paper provides one with a sort of instrument for locating and identifying causal contexts. For if I am right, any context manifesting allomorphic sensitivity will be causal in character. In conclusion, let me say that the semantic variations that occur when we embed propositional allomorphs into larger contexts are merely a symptom of an underlying ontological difference in what we are talking about. These differences are not merely pragmatic by-products of the way we talk about what there is; they are a direct manifestation of what there is and the way what there is is related to what else there is.

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(October, 1972): 411-437, and The Content of Knowledge to appear in a collection of papers read to the Philosophy Colloquium, University of Western Ontario (1972), Forms of Representation (Amsterdam, 1975). If one thinks of events as the exemplifying of properties, then the ambiguity can b e traced (which to the ambiguity about which property is in question. Is the property exemplified happens to be exemplified at t ) or is it 9 at t? Since these are different properties, the state of affairs (or event) consisting of their exemplification will be different. See Alvin Goldmans 4 Theory of Human Action (Englewood Cliffs, 1970), pp. loff., and Jaegwon Kim, On the PsychoPhysical Identity Theory, American Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1966): 231.

* Constrastive Statements,Philosophical Reuiew

A Plea for Excuses, in Philosophical

Papers (Oxford, 1961), p. 133.