donald davidson-events and particulars

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Events and ParticularsAuthor(s): Donald DavidsonSource: Noûs, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1970), pp. 25-32Published by: Wiley

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SECOND SYMPOSIUM:SECOND PAPER

Eventsas Particulars

DONALDDAVIDSON

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

AND

CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN THE BEHAVIORALSCIENCES

Things change; but are there such things as changes? Apebble moves, an eland is born, a land slides, a star explodes.Arethere, in addition to pebbles and stars, movements,births, land-

slides, and explosions?Ourlanguageencouragesus in the thoughtthat there are, by supplying not only appropriatesingularterms,

but the full apparatusof definite and indefinite articles, sortal

predicates, counting, quantification,and identity-statements;allthe machinery,it seems, of reference. If we take this grammarliterally, f we accept these expressionsand sentences as havingthe

logical form they appear to have, then we are committed to an

ontology of events as unrepeatable particulars ("concrete indi-

viduals"). It is to such events that we refer, or purportto refer,when we use descriptions ike 'the death of Monteverdi',his second

interview after the trial', 'the storm in the hills last night'; it is

such events at least one of which we assert to exist when we

assert 'There was a loud party in Gwen's apartmentlast week';it is events of this kind one of which is said to be self-identical n

'His first attempton the North Face was his last. And it is eventsof this sort that we quantifyover in 'All wars are preventable'and

'Not every lie has evil consequences'.That it is dated, particularevents that seem to be requiredif such sentences are to be true

is apparent from the principles of individuation implicit (for

example) in the applicationof counting ('The third explosionwas

far more destructivethan the first two', 'Morethan a third of all

freeway accidents are caused by excess speed').

25








26 NOUS

We have learned to be wary, however, of what the surfaceof languagesuggests, especially when it comes to ontology. In thepresent case, it is a striking fact that many sentences with whatseems to intuition much the same subject matter as the sentences

we have been quoting get along withoutobvious appeal to events.('A pebble moved', 'the land slid', 'Monteverdi died', etc.). Soevents as particularsmay not, after all, be basic to our understand-ing of the world. How can we tell?

We would be better placed to judge, if we had a coherent,comprehensiveaccount of the conditionsunder which our commonbeliefs (or believed-true sentences) are true. If we were in com-mand of such a theory, and that theory called for a domain ofparticular events, while our best efforts found no theory that

worked as well without events, then we would have all the reasonwe could have for saying events exist; we would have all thereason we could have for saying that we do say that events exist.

We don't begin to have such a comprehensive theory, ofcourse, but we can learn by trying. A few years ago I proposedan analysisof sentences about events and actions that assumedauniverse containing (inter alia) particularevents.' This analysiscopes with a variety of problemsin what seems to me an attrac-tively simple way; and at the time I put it forward, anyway, I

knew of no other theory that did as well. The theory won somesupporters,2was criticized from various points of view,3 and hasacquirednew rivals.4In his contribution o the present symposium,

1 "The Logical Form of Action Sentences,"in The Logic of Decision andAction, N. Rescher (ed.), University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967. I further dis-cuss the theory in "Causal Relations," The Journal of Philosophy 21 (1967)691-703, in my contributionto a symposium on events and facts in Facts andExistence,J. Margolis (ed.), Blackwell, 1969, pp. 74-84, and in "The Individ-uation of Events," in Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, N. Rescher et al.(eds.), D. Reidel, 1969.

2 John Lemmon and Hector-Neri Castafieda concurred in my criticismsof earlier theories, and accepted my proposal in general outline (though notdetail) in their contributions to The Logic of Decision and Action. In thesame volume Roderick Chisholm, also commenting on "The Logical Form ofAction Sentences," wrote, 'I think that my theory, on the whole, is consistentwith [Davidson's] and indeed that these two theories may supplement eachother." (p. 113).

3 For example, Zeno Vendler's "Causal Relations," The Journal ofPhilosophy 21 (1967) 704 ff., Charles Landesman, "Actions as Universals,"American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1969) 247-252, and Richard Martin,"Reply,"in Fact and Existence, pp. 97-107.

4 Jaegwon Kim, "On the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory," American

PhilosophicalQuarterly3 (1966) 227-235; RichardMontague, "On the Natureof CertainPhilosophicalEntities," The Monist 53 (1969) 159-193 and "Prag-








EVENTS AND PROPOSITIONS 27

Roderick Chisholmemphasizesa problem I did not discuss, andto solve it he propoundsan interestingand novel theory. He arguesthat his theory solves the new problem more efficientlythan minecan, and deals with the original problemsat least as well. In what

follows I briefly comparethe two approaches.What looms in the foregroundin Chisholm's heory is "thefact of recurrence . . . the fact that there are some things thatrecur, or happen more than once." Perhaps this would be an

example:last night I dropped a saucer of mud, and tonight I didit again (exactly the same thing happened). The 'it' of 'I did it

again'looks for a reference,a thing that can recur.One natural way to supply an appropriateentity would be

to say that one and the same event, namely by droppinga saucer

of mud, was instantiated both last night and tonight. Or wecould say that one member of the class of my droppingsof saucersof mud occurred last night, and another tonight. Chisholm ob-serves that these analyses require two sorts of events, universalsor classeson the one hand, and instancesor memberson the other:he hopes for greater ontological economy. His own solution is toinvoke repeatableevents that can be said to occur althoughthere

are, strictly speaking, no such things as their occurrences.The

recurrenceof my dropping a saucer of mud would be handled

this way: my droppinga saucer of mud occurredboth before andafter the event of my not droppinga saucer of mud occurred.I

find certain difficulties n this ingenious account, to which I shall

(as one says) recur.But first I should like to make a more or less

gratuitousremark about ontologicalparsimony,namely, what's so

good about it? Clarityis desirable,but parsimonymay or may not

make for clarity. Of course, once one has a viable theory, it is

interesting to learn that part only of the ontology one thoughtwas needed will suffice;but such reductionmust come after the

provision of a working theory. One may also have intuitionsthatsuggest what entities it is appropriate o call on in the interpreta-tion of a given stretch of linguistic territory.I feel myself that to

summonup classesor universals o explain'I did it again'is usinga cannon to shoot a mouse; so even if there are classes, I would

prefera theorythat didn'tcall on themhere. But again,economyis

not the motive.

matics" in Contemporary Philosophy, R. Klibansky (ed.), Florence, 1968;Nicholas Rescher, "Aspects of Action," in The Logic of Decision and Action,

pp. 215-219; Richard Martin, "On Events and Event-Descriptions,"in Factand Existence; the article by Charles Landesmanlisted above.








28 NOtTS

I sympathize, hen,with Chisholm'sgoal of giving an account

of talk about recurrence that does not require two categorially

differentkinds of event. But I thinkparticular,unrepeatableevents

will do the job. One way is this: events have partsthat are events,

and the parts may be discontinuous emporallyor spatially (thinkof a chess tournament,an argument,a war). Thus the sum of all

my droppingsof saucersof mud is a particularevent, one of whose

parts (which was a droppingof a saucerof mud by me) occurred

last night; another such part occurred tonight. We need three

events to carrythis off, but they have the same ontologicalstatus.

Even if one allows only particular,unrepeatableevents, then,

it is possible to give a literal meaningto the claim that the same

event occurs on two or more occasions.It is possible; but is this

strange event-sum really what we refer to when we say 'Thesame thing happened again'?A meeting can reconvenein another

place, a play can continue after an intermission,a floating crap

game can spring up again and again, and with new members.In

these cases, we can talk of the same event continuing, perhaps

after a pause. Is it plausible that when we say 'Jackand Jill got

married n May, and Dolly and Georgedid the same thing in June'

we are saying that the event-sumof all marriagescontinued after

a pause?Perhaps:'The marryingresumedin Junewith Dolly and

George.'But I confess that this seems strained,and the reasonis,I think, that we normallydo not require a single entity as refer-

ence to back every use of 'the same thing'.As Chisholmobserves,

our commontalk is careless when it comes to identify: 'the same

thing' often means 'somethingsimilar'or 'another'. Jonesbrought

a leopard, and Smith bought the same thing' does not normally

entail that there is a leopardboth Jones and Smithbought. Anal-

ogously, 'Jones bought his wife a leopard, and Smith did the

same thing'need not entail that there is a single action both per-

formed. Smith and Jones did similar things: the characterof thesimilarity s suggested, if not made explicit, by the context (did

Smithbuy his wife the same leopard that Jones bought his wife,

or did Smith buy Jones' wife a leopard, etc.?). Recurrence may

be no more than similar,but distinct, events following one after

another.

If I am right, talk of the same event recurringno more re-

quiresan event that happens twice than talk of two tables having

the same width requires there to be such a thing as the width

both tables have. Of course this doesn'tshow Chisholm'sview of








EVENTS AND PROPOSMONS 29

events to be wrong; it shows at best that the theory of events asparticulars s "adequate o the fact of recurrence." turn now towhat seem to me the difficultiesin the way of developing Chis-holm's theory.

Perhaps it will be agreed that in order to infer 'Meyerclimbed the highest mountain in Africa' from 'Meyer climbedKibo' we need no more than the premise 'Kibo is identical withthe highest mountain in Africa'. But then no analysis of thesesentences in terms of events can be correctthat does not preservethe validity of the inference. On my proposal, 'Meyer climbedKibo' is analyzed as saying that there exists an event that is aclimbing of Kibo by Meyer: in symbols, '(3 x) (climbed (Kibo,Meyer, x) )'. Clearly the desired inference is valid. According to

Chisholm,however,we cannotinfer the identity of Meyer'sclimb-ing of the highest mountain in Africa and Meyer's climbing ofKibo from the fact that Kibo is the highest mountain in Africa.Since 'Meyerclimbed Kibo' is analyzed,on Chisholm'saccount, as'The climbing of Kibo by Meyer occurred',the inference withwhich we began is no longer shown to be valid. It would bepossible, of course, simply to lay down additional rules of infer-ence, but then these rules would have lost the connection withthe conditions of truth of sentences that it is the business of sys-

tematic semantics to elicit. When we hazard a theory in responseto the question,what kind of events, if any, must there be if ourstatements are to be true, we should be preparedto test the theoryby consideringwhat entailments between statements it shows, orfails to show, hold.

Chisholm does not give a convincingreason (it seems to me)for denying that the climbing of Kibo by Meyers is not identicalwith the climbing of the highest mountain in Africa by Meyers.Chisholm argues (to switch to his example) that Nixon's beingin Washingtonis not the same event as Johnson's uccessorbeingin Washington,since we can say of the first event, but not of thesecond, that had Humphreywon, it would not have occurred.Ifthis were a good argument,we could unhinge other true identity-statements: compare'Ve can say of Nixon, but not of Johnson'ssuccessor, that had Humphrey won, he would not have beenpresident. Therefore Nixon is not Johnson'ssuccessor.'

Should Chisholmsimply give up the attempt to distinguish

between eventsunder these conditions?The

difficultyis that

thiscourse, given the fact that events for Chisholm are (speaking








30 NOUS

very roughly) entitiesthat correspond o sentences, or sentence-likestructures, s very apt to implement a proof that there are onlytwo events altogether-the one that occurs, and the other. The

trouble is a standard one, of admitting substitutivityof identity

while denying extensionality.I am not saying it cannot be done,only that Chisholmhas not spelled out a theory for doing it inthe case of statementsabout events and actions.5

An adequatetheory must give an accountof adverbialmod-ification;for example, the conditionsunder which (1) 'Sebastian

strolled through the streets of Bologna at 2 A.M.' is said to betruemustmakeclear why it entails (2) 'Sebastianstrolledthroughthe streets of Bologna.'If we analyze (1) as 'There exists an x

suchthat Sebastianstrolledx, x tookplace in the streetsof Bologna,

and x was going on at 2 A.M.' then the entailment is explainedas logicallyparallel with (many cases of) adjectivalmodification;but this requires events as particulars.Chisholmanalyzes (1) as

(1') 'There exists an x such that x is identical with the strollingof

Sebastian,x occurredin the streets of Bologna,and x occurredat2 A.M.'This does entail (2), but fails to entail,as it should,'Sebas-tian strolled.'(Chisholm'sversionof this last must be 'There exists

an x such that x is identical with the strollingof Sebastian,and x

occurred.') Chisholm might try modifying (1') to (1"): 'There

exists an x such that x is identical with the strollingof Sebastianandx is in the streets of Bolognaand x is at 2 A.M.andx occurred.'But (1") shareswith (1') the defect that it may be true when (1)is not: for example,if Sebastianstrolledin Bologna at 8 P.M. andin Innsbruckat 2 A.M., but never in Bologna at 2 A.M. Indeed,

(1") is true if Sebastian ever took a stroll anywhereat any time.

'Thereexistsan x such that x is the strollingof Sebastian n Bolognaat 2 A.M. and x occurred'restores the connection between timeandplace, but at the cost of breakingthe inferential ink with (2).

It is not clear, then, how Chisholm's heory can cope withthe problemof adverbialmodification. f I am right, the followingpuzzle is at the bottom of much of the trouble.In order to accountfor recurrence,Chisholmsays there is just one event of each kind:there is just one event that is the strollingof Sebastian, just one

event that is the strolling of Sebastianin the streets of Bologna.In orderto articulate he inferencefrom (2) to 'Sebastianstrolled',

5 This difficulty for theories that try to make events propositional in

characterI discuss in more detail in "The Logical Form of Action Sentences"and "CausalRelations."








EVENTS AND PROPOSITIONS 31

the event that is the strollingof Sebastian n the streetsof Bolognamust be complex: it is identical with the strolling of Sebastian,and it is in the streets of Bologna.But the strollingof Sebastianin the streets of Bologna cannot be identical with the strollingof

Sebastian, ince the second may recur and the first not. It is, how-ever, a contradiction o assertthat there is exactlyone thing a thatis both F and G, exactly one thing b that is F, and a e b.

The most breathtaking part of Chisholm's theory is hisattempt to analyze what seem to be counting ('White failed theexams three times'), singularity('The seventh round'), and quan-tification ('Every approachfailed') without the expected entitiesto be counted, individuated or quantified over. Central to theattempt are two concepts, that of the negation of an event, and

that of an event occurring before another (or the same one)begins. Both concepts need further explanation.Since event nega-tion differs from ordinarynegation, we need an account of the

semanticrole of 'not-p'on the basis of the meaning of 'p'. Chisholmunderstandably nsists that the occurrence of not-p is not to beconfused with the non-occurrenceof p. But this does not answerthe following question. If Sebastian strolled in the streets ofInnsbruck, hen surely he took a stroll that was not in the streetsof Bologna. If we render this 'There exists an x such that x is

the strollingof Sebastian,and x was not in -thestreets of Bolognaand x occurred' hen it contradictsthe parallel analysis of 'Sebas-tian strolled in the streets of Bologna';yet the unanalyzed sen-tences are not contradictory.

The difficultyabout 'p occursbefore q begins'is that it doesnot suggest how to analyze this locution in terms of 'before' and'occurs'.But until this is done, the inference from 'p occurs beforeq begins' to 'p occurs' cannot be shown to be valid. Given indi-vidual events, the problem is easily solved: 'The moon rose afterthe sun set', for example, is rendered, 'There is an event x that isa rising of the moon, an event y that is a setting of the sun, and xcame aftery', and this plainlyentails the occurrenceof each event.

I think we must concludethat it is unclearwhether a viablealternative o the theory of events as particulars an be worked outalong the lines proposed by Chisholm. The difficulties I haveraised depend in most cases on my having placed one or anotherinterpretationon his suggestions; there may well be other ways

of developing the theory that I have missed. Chisholm'sapproachtreatsevent locutionsmuch like mass terms ('snow','water', gold',








32 NONS

'wood'), and many of the troubles I find with his analyses ofparticularsentences are similar to the troubles that arise in theattemptto give a semanticsfor mass terms.There must be a rightway to do it for mass terms (since 'Snow is white' is true if and

only if snow is white), and if we knew this way, we might beable to adapt the method to apply to talk of events.6 Chisholm'spaper gives us an idea of how interestingit might be if such atheorycould be successfullyelaborated.

6I am encouraged in these reflections by unpublished work of JohnWallace that suggests an analysis of mass terms, and attempts to apply it toevent sentences.

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