dretske referring to events

7/28/2019 Dretske Referring to Events

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MIDWEST STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHY, I1 (1977)

R E F E R R I N G TO E V E N T SFRED I . DRETSKE

I N memorable footnote J. L. Austin descr ibes himself as shooting someones donkeyby mistake. He then describes himself as shooting the donkey by accident. Th e tw ostone s go something like this: You and I both own a donkey and they are grazing in thesame field. Th e day comes when I conceive a dislike for mine. I go to shoot it, draw abead, and fire; the bru te falls in its tracks. I inspec t the victim and find to my horror that itis your donkey. Sorry , old sport, my mistake. In the second case I go to shoot my donkeyas before, draw a bead on it, and fire; at the last critical moment the beasts move and myshot fells your donkey instead ofm y own-the one I was aiming at. There is n o mistakethis time; jus t an unfortunate accident.

In both cases I shot your donkey , no dispute about that. Nonetheless, in saying that Ishot your donkey by mistake, or by accident, I say something that is ambiguous, unclear,or, at least, fairly unspecific abou t the nature of th e accident or the mistake. For example,Austin describes one sort of accident when he depicts the donkeys as moving at the lastmoment. I n th is version of the story what is accidental is not the shooting but the factthat your donkey, not mine, got shot. But we may have had quite a different sort ofaccident: I could have been cleaning my rifle and discharged it accidently, killing yourdonkey. We sometimes express the difference between situations of this sort byemphasizing or stressing certain words in our description oft he accident. In the circum-stances described b y Austin we can report th e incident by saying that your donkey wasshot by accident-thereby indicating that what was accidental was your donkeysgetting in the line of fire, not there be ing 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 sayingthat I accidentally shot your donkey. Th e stress on the word shot (or the lack of anyspecial contrastive stress on the words your donkey) generally signals the fact thatthe accident pertains to th e discharge of th e gun, not to the ultimate recipient of thedischarged bullet.

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FRED I. DRETSKE 91Austins example is ideally s uite d to illustrating the way subt le shadings in stress,

intonation and pitch can alter what we mean to be asserting when we talk about acci-dent s and mistakes. The re is a difference betwe en saying that I shot your donkey b ymistake (or by accident) an d saying that I shot y o u r d o n k e y by mistake (or by accident),and this difference is not merely a difference in how we say wh at we say. It is , or so Ihave argued, a genuine difference in w h a t we say, a difference in the proposition b eingexpressed. I have explored these matters at length in several previous publications.*What I wish to do in this pap er is to offer an account of why an d how such pragmaticfactors (or what a re commonly taken to be pragmatic factors) as stress, pitch a nd intona-tion influence the meani ng of what we say. I shall argue that the fundamental explana-tion for this semantic phenomenon lies in the peculiar way we have of referring toevents and describing the ir causal relatedness.

In order to make my account intelligible, let alone plausible, i t will prove useful togive a brief review of the type of semantic peculiarity that this paper is devoted toexplaining. We are all familiar with the way stress, intonation and what I have else-whe re called contrastive focusing can significantly affect the ch aracter of what we say.If Susan stole th e bicycle, w e can describe this fact with t he very sa me seque nce ofwords in a variety of different ways. To someone who wants to know who stole thebicycle we say S u s a n stole the bicycle, an d to someone els e, someone who doesntknow what sh e stole, we say Susan stole the bicycle. Such differences have s eem ed ofonly marginal significance in semantical studies because such variations appe ar toaffect , not w h a t is said, bu t how it is said; they modify the delivery o fa proposition, notthe proposition delivered.

This neglect seems justified as long as we concentrate our attention on the isolatedstatement, Susan stole the bicycle sinc e different patterns of stress and intonation donot appear to change wh at is asserted when w e use this s ente nce to make a statement.Th e acoustical variations can b e.a cco unt ed for in terms of the speakers beliefs aboutwhat his listeners know or what they ar e interested in. A rising intonation , characteristicof a question, can indicate that no assertion is being made at all, but if we confine ourattention to th e p r o p o s i t i o n s such sentences may be used to express, intonation andcontrastive emphasis appea r to be qui te irrelevant. Things ch ange dramatically, how-ever, when w e e mbe d this form of words into certain larger contexts. For example, wesay such things as: George kne w that Susan stole the bicycle, he r emem bere d that Susanstole the bicycle, h e was sorry that sh e stole the bicycle, or he advised he r to steal thebicycle. In the last example w e have a transformation of the sen ten ce Susan stole thebicycle em bed ded in th e context George advised . . . and suddeniy w e find that itmakes a great deal of difference wheth er w e emphasize the w ord stole or the wordsthe bicycle. For George may have advised Susan to steal the bicycle without advisingher to steal it. This soun ds paradoxical only because w e havent set the stage properly.Suppose George has be en trying to dissuade a dete rmin ed Susan from stealing one ofthe vehicles parked on a deserted street. Susan is adamant, however, and Georgesmoral and legal appeals fall on deaf ears. Recognizing Susans unalterable intentions,George sets about trying to convince Susan to steal the unatte nded bicycle instead oft heMercedes or Cadillac parked nearby with their keys in th e ignition. Given this back-ground, it is, I submit, false to say that George advised Susan to steal the bicycle. H eadvised he r to steal the bicyc le , yes, but that is something quite different. The truthvalue, and hen ce the meaning, of the larger expression is a function of the emphaticfocus of the smaller expression emb ed de d in it.

This semantic effect can be observed in a large variety of contexts. Con side r the con-


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92 MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHYtext I remember. . . . Suppose I find a notebook in my office and t r y to rememberwho left it there. After mentally sorting through the many students who have been inmy office during the day, I finally rem ember that Mildred left the notebook in my officethis morning. Consider, now, Mildred searching her memory as to where s he left hernotebook. If she is lucky sh e will remember that she left the notebook i n my office thismorning. And, finally, consider some third party trying to remember what Mildred leftin my office this morning. I remember that Mildred left her notebook in my office thismorning; Mildred remembers that she left her notebook i n my office this morning; andth e third party remembers that Mildred lefther no tebook in my office this morning. In afairly obvious sense, the th ree of us remember quite different things though the proposi-tion describing what we remember is the same in all three cases. I remember w h o ;Mildred remembers w h e r e ; and the secretary remembers w h a t . It is false, no tjus t con-versationally inappropriate, to say that I remember that Mildred left her notebook i nm y o ff tc e 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 depend ing on its intonational and contrastivecontour. I have called these different embodiments of (P) the allomorphs of (P).Someof 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 th i s morning .There are, of course, other possibilities. When we embed the proposition (P) into acontext such as S remembers . . . we automatically embed one of these allomorphsinto this context; or, if no allomorph is indicated or understood, the resulting statementis ambiguous. The truth value, hence the meaning, of the larger statement, Sremembers that Mildred left her notebook in my office this morning depends on whichallomorph is understood to be embedded in the context S remembers. . . .Different propositions result when different allomorphs are substituted. Many contextsbetray this feature; I have already mentioned a few-advise, remember, know andsorry that. I will call such contexts allomorphically sensitive contexts.

So much b y way of review and technical terminology. Th e chief purpose of this quickreview was to permit me to use the notion of a propositional allomorph and the alliednotion of an allomorphically sensitive context in the remainder ofthis paper. By propo-sitional allomorph, I shall mean one of the many variant forms a proposition can begiven by t he device of focusing on one ele ment rather than another in a given verbalrepresentat ion of that proposition. By allomorphically sens itive context, I shall meanany larger statement whose truth, and therefore meaning, is dependent on whichallomorph it contains.I think these facts, assuming they are facts, have important implications for a varietyofphilosophical topics. My own interest i n epistemology has l ed me to examine the wayallomorphic differences alter what w e mean to be claiming when we claim to knowthat something is so, remember that such-and-such happened, or see that something i sso-and-so.

My concern here, however, is not to use these distinctions in the service of otherphilosophical projects, but to account for them. What makes some contexts, but not


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FRED I. DRETSKE 93othr r s , s ens i t ive to al loinorphic di f ferences? What are proposi t ional al lorr iorphs? Arethey merely a feature of l an g u a ge , an e p i p h e n o m e n o n o f t h e w a y w e d e s c ri b e w h a t w edesc r ibe , OT lo they o we thei r or igin to som ething ext ra l inguis t ic , to someth ing in what\.ie describe? Proposi t ions are myst r r ious eno i igh , a n d we are now rri i i l t iplyingmyster ies a t an a larming ra te . Is t he re any th ing ir i t h e wor ld t ha t cor r esponds to th isproliferation US abstract ent i t ies?

11: order to get a grip o n t h e w questions I th ink i t useful to look at what we ge t whenw e nom inal ize proposi t ional allomorphs. T he conven t iona l w i sdon i has i t that w h e n wenominfiliztt a pro po sition , w e ge t a rioiin phrase that refers , or purpor t s to refer, to anevcilt, state ofaffairs, condition oi s i tuat ion. Even ts , s ta tes of affairs , and condit ionsare not as concre t e and kick-able as one m i gh t l ike, b u t t h e y a r e at l e a s t i n t h e world i n away tliat nieanings and proposi t ions are not . Proposi t ions have their counterpar t int hese even t s , conditions and states of affai rs ; the se la t ter e nt i t ies p rovide the ext ra-l inguis tic poin t of r e f e rence for individuat ing an d iden t i fying the more abs t ract er it it i cswe c d l proposi t ions . This is pret ty c r u d e , b u t I am not now t rying to be precise orrefixled. I am trying to give expression to w h a t I expec t wiil be a sev ere discomfor t,perhaps a repu gn an ce , for proposi t ional a l lomorphs . Whe re do they touch horne? I fthey have any ontological s igni f icance, if they correspo nd to an y ext ra- linguis t ic rea li ty ,on e woi:Icl ex pe ct this t o e m e r g e when we looked a t nom ina l i ze d a ll omorphs . D i f fe r en ta l lnmolphs, w he n nom ina l ized , shou ld have a d i ff e r en t r e f e ren t ( j u s t as d i f fe r en t p ropo-s i t i ons , when nomina l i zed , have a d i f h e n t r ef e re n t) . W e s h o u l d b e t al ki ng a b o u tsometh ing d i f f e r rn t when w e t alk abou t Susans steulirig t he b ike t han wh en w e ta lkabout Susans s tea l ing the M e . Reference, af ter all, is t h e w a y l a n g u ag e hooks up witht he wor ld , an d if t he re a r e n o r e fe ren ti a l d i ff e rences be tw een nomina l i zed a l lomorphs ,one can hardly regard them as h a v i n g any ul t imate s em an t ic s igni f icance. For semant icsis concerned w ti1 truth, a n d tru th has to d o witt i t he r e la t ion b e tw ee n l anguage and t heworld: if al lomorphic di f ferences have no worldly countcrpnr t , then they have n osernaritic s igni f icance.

To meet this kincl of object ion, and to track d o wn t h e source of the al lomorphicdi f ferences w e l iavc ticen disci iss ing, conside r the g er i indive nominal iza t ion of twoa1i omorp h s :

(Nup,) S usan s stealing the bicycle{NP,) Susans s teal ing the b i c y c l e

I n u s i n g t h e s e p h r a se s i n a refer r ing way (suppo sing Susan did s teal the hicycle) are weref er r in g to di f feren t th ings? Dif ferent eve nts ? Phi losophers h av e a s tandard negat ivetest f or d e t e r m i n i n g w h e t h e r tw o express ions , A a n d B, are coreferent ia l , wh etherthey refer to the s x n e t h ing . The y s imply ask w h e t h e r t h e e x p r e ss i o n s A a n d Bcan b e sub s t i tu t ed o ne fo r t he o the r i n certain so-called extens ional or t ransparentcontexts wi thout a l ter ing th e t ruth vaii ie of the co nta inin g context . For example ,proposi t ion A cannot he i den ti ca l to proposi t ion B b e c a u s e A is h e nd B is not a n d t h ec o n t e x t . . . is tnie is extensional . To apply this t e st o n e must k n o w , of course , whiclicontexts are extens ional a nd w hich are not. I t wil l not do to argue that t h e number o fplaricis is not nine because n ine is necessar i ly greater than e ight while t h e n u m b e r ofplanets is uo t r iccessari ly greater than eight . B I I I supposing we have fairly re1ial)leintui tions abo ut w hich contexts are extens ional md w h i c h a r e not, we can try to applythis test, . Are th er e exten sional co ntexts # such that (p (Susans stealing the bicycle) ist r u e whi l e c$ (S usans s t ea l i ng th e bicyc le ) is not? If so, then w e may conc lude t hat t hesephrases refer to di f ferent th ings . If not, we have no r ecour se bu t t o conc lude tha t t hese


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94 MIDWEST STUD IES IN PHILOSOPHYnominalized allomorphs are merely two ways ofreferring to the same event an d do notdiffer semantically.If we embed the nominalized allomorphs NP, an d N P ~nto a temporal context, nodifferences emerge. If Susans s tea l ing the bike occurred before she was arrested, thenSusans stealing he b ike occurred before sh e was arrested. This is not too surprising. Itis difficult to see how w e could get a di fference in this respect; for even if our nominalsrefer to something different, this difference is surely not a t e mp o r a l difference. Hence,we should not expect to demonstrate the difference between the allomorphs byexamining such temporal contexts as: I . . . occurred before . . . or . . . happenedat the same time as. . . .

There are, however, other things we can say about Susans stealing the bicycle. Wecan say that it was il legal, that it was observed by several people, or that it (the theft )occurred at such-and-such place. I t is not entirely clear that each of these contexts isextensional in character but, even if they are, they show little promise of revealing adistinction between our tw o nominalized allomorphs. There is a much more attractivecandidate for applying this test : causal contexts. Events and states of affairs, the sorts ofthings to which we refer with nominalized propositions, not only stand in temporal rela-tions 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 exten-sional in character. If event C1 causes E , a nd C1= C2, hen C2 causes E. This doctrineabout the extensionality or transparency of causal contexts should not be confused withth e much different, and far less plausible, thesis about the transparency of explanatorycontexts. It may be true that the twi tching of Susans nose caused a riot but, unaware ofth e special circumstances, we may not know w h y the one event touched off the other.This is simply to say that w e may refer to the cause of an event in such a way as to leaveunclear, or totally mysterious, why or how it could cause the event in question; bu t thefailure ofthe causal attribution to he lp in explanation does not mean that the one event isnot the cause of the other. If Susans nose twitching caused a riot, then that nose twitch-ing, however referred to, caused a riot.Some ways of referring to this event may make itmore obvious w h y it caused a riot (for example, the twitching of the dead girls nose),bu t 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 exten-sional for the event expressions embedded i n them. If C, causes E but C, does not, thenC, # C2.What I now wish to do is to apply th is test to our nominalized allomorphs. Canwe drive a wedge between Susans s tea l ing the bike and Susans stealing the b ike interms 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 . Itmay seem plausible to suppose that the nominalization of these two sentences producesa pair of noun phrases that are co-referential. That is,

I *

(1)Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant = Ss losing his wallet at time t .The reason this equation appears so plausible is that the tw o expressions appear to bemerely two differently truncated ways ofreferring to one and the same event: Ss losinghis wallet in the restaurant at time t . Surely, it may be said, deleting a small piece ofinformation from the referring phrase does not alter what the phrase refers to. Despitethis appearance, we get an anomalous result when w e embed the two expressions into acausal context. For example, I may not find it at all unusual that S lost his wallet in therestaurant, but my suspicions may be aroused by his losing his wallet just before thewaiter arrived with t he check (at time t ) . His losing his wallet just before the waiterarrived with t he check caused me to become suspicious, something that his losing his


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FRED I. DRETSKE 95wallet in the restaurant did not cause. If we took the identity expressed b y (1) eriously,we might suppose that we could substitute, salva ver i tate , and concl ude that Ss losinghis wallet in the restaurant caused me to become suspicious. But this doesnt soundright. This isnt what aroused my suspicions. Its w he n he lost it, not where h e lost it,that made me suspicious.Anyone convinced of th e transparency of causal contexts, an d simultaneously certainabout 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 anexplanation. Ss losing his wallet in t he restaurant did cause me to become suspicious,but this way of referring to th e cause does not reveal what it is abou t the ev ent referred tothat made me suspicious; it does not explain why his loss of the wallet made mesuspicious. But we can have a true causal attribution without und ersta ndin g why thecause brought about the effect, and this is just what we have i n this case.

This response will not pass muste r. What caused m e to becom e suspicious is not anevent, Ss loss of his walle t, which happened to occur in a restaurant a nd happen ed tooccurjust before th e waiter arrived with the check. Rather, what aroused my suspicionswas this events occurring a t t h i s t i m e . The specification of the ti me at which t he eventoccurred is not just an additional piece of information helping the listener to identifywhich event is being referred to; this time is part of what is being referred to. Therewas aparticular facet or fea ture ofthis event, its occurring at the ti me it did, that is havingcausal efficacy attr ibuted to it. We can refer to th e event that occurred at that time withthe phrase, Ss losing his wallet in t he restaurant but we cannot refer to Ss losing hiswalle t at that t im e with the same phrase, and it is Ss losing his wallet at that time thatis being said to be the cause of my suspicions.

Let me try to put this in another way. The phrase the man cutting the wood isambiguous in i t s reference. We may be referring to the man who is cutting wood, or wemay be referring to his cutting the wood. Linguists would say that the phrase isambiguous because it may b e inte rpret ed as a relative clause nominal-the man who iscutting wood-or as an interrogative nominal-the mans cutting wood. In th e first casethe information contained in the words cutting wood is information that helps toidentity 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 supple-mentary information, bu t to a facet of what is be ing talked about-the mans action ofcutting wood.

Th e same ambiguity infects the nominal Ss losing his wallet at time t. This may b einterpreted as a reference to the event Ss losing his wallet with t he time specificationbeing merely an additional piece of information to help in identifying w hi c h loss of hiswallet is being referred to. Or, the t ime specification may b e functioning as it does ininterrogative nominals, expressing a part of what one is talking about. I n this case oneis not referring, simply, to t he mans loss of his wallet; on e is referring to his losing ita t t . The re is as much difference bet wee n these t w o referents as there is between theman who is cutting wood and the mans cutting wood.

What this means is that equat ion ( I ) s ambiguous. Interpreted in one way th e identityis h e ; nterpreted in another way it is false. Interpreted on the model of a relativeclause nominal it is true

( la ) Ss losing his wallet (whi ch 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 an d using th e spatialand temporal specifications merely as helpful devices for identifying which loss of the


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96 MIDWEST STU DIES IN PHILOSOPHYwallet is in question. There is another interpretation of (1)however, an interpretationthat follows the model of an interrogative nominal:

( lb ) Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant = Ss losing his wallet at t ,where the words in the restaurant and a tt are functioning in the way that the wordscutting wood functions in the interrogative nominal the man cutting w00 d. ~Andthe reason we cannot use equation (1) indiscriminately within causal contexts isbecause within causal contexts (but not generally in other contexts-for example,purely temporal contexts) the different interpretations of the nominal expressionsmakes a great deal of difference to what we are asserting. For it turns out that thecausal efficacy is frequently being attributed, not to Ss losing his wallet (whichhappened to occurat t ) , ut to his losing his wallet at t . Hence, although in one sense theequat ion is perfectly valid, we cannot use i t to infer that because Ss losing his wallet at tcaused me to become suspicious that, therefore, his losing his wallet in the restaurantcaused me to become suspicious. This is the fallacy of equivocation. Th e sense of thephrase Ss losing his wallet at t und er which I can truly say that his losing his wallet att caused m e to become suspicious is not the sense of the phrase under which Ss losinghis wallet at t is identical to Ss losing his wallet in the restaurant.I have be en using the time parameter in these examples. We can use other featuresof the event. There is nothing particularly unusual or humorous in someone shoutinghello to an old friend. But when the old friend happens to be the president of theUnited States and the place happens to be a solemn occasion of state, the incident cancause mirth, embarrassment, and humiliation. Th e cause here is not someone shoutingHello Jerry to an old friend; it is shouting Hel lo Jerry to that old friend in this place.It is certainly true that w e can construct an equation of the form:

(2) Ss shouting Hello Jerry to his old friend = Ss shouting Hello Jerry to thepresident of the United States on a solemn state occasion,bu t this identity-sentence is, as the last one was, open to several different in terpreta-

tions. We can treat the additional specifications of the president of the United Statesand a solemn state occasion as merely supplementary pieces of information whichhelp to identify more precisely which shouting is in question. Under this interpretationthe equation is quite valid. But we can aIso interpret these words as picking out thoseaspects of the event which figure crucially in the causal attribution. In an obvious sensew e are talking about the same event with both phrases, but the sense in which what weare talking about is the same is not the sense in which what we are talking aboutcauses something to happen.

Let me try to make this clear with $nother analogy. Suppose a piece of clay isfashioned into a statue, call it S,. The clay is then re-worked into a different statue SThe se are different statues, yet, in po inting at them and referring to them as pieces ofclay, we can say that they are the same piece of clay. This is simply tosay that differentidentity criteria become operative when we refer to something as a piece of clay andwhen w e refer to it as a statue or a work of art. I can admire statue S1, find statue S uglyan d consistently admit that what I am looking at in both cases is the same piece of clay.Similarly, I can admit that event El is the same event as E2and yet insist that El causesthings that Ez oes not. T he reason I can do this is because to refer to an event as a causeis to invoke different identity criteria. Events fragment into a multiplicity of causalentit ies, just as pieces of clay can fragment into a multiplici ty of statues. Th e reasonfor this fragmentation is that causes (and, I might add, effects) arefacets orfea tures of


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FRED I. DRETSKE 97events, not the events themselves. T o use on e of Goldmans examples, i f George walksslowly, or talks loudly, then his walkin g is identical to his walkin g slowly and his talkingis identical to his talking loudly. Yet his walking slowly, and his talking loudly, maystand in causal relations that his walking an d his talking do not. His irritation may havecaused him to talk loudly, but it did not cause him to talk. And his walking slowly mayannoy me, but I may be h appy that h e is walking.

To pick up some earlier terminology I will say that within the framework of causaldiscourse events multiply or diversify into allomorphic events. Ss losing his wallet inth e restaurant is the same event as Ss losing his walletjust before the waiter arrived, butthey ar e different allomorphs of this even t. This is simply to say that under t he genuscause (or effect) we canno t identify th ese entities anymore than w e can identifypieces of clay under the ge nus statue. To refer to an event is to refer to som ethi ngwhich occurs at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular manner. Areference to the allornorphs of this eve nt is a reference, not to th e event which occurs atthat time, in that place, and in that m anne r, but to its occurring at that time, in that place,or in that manner. We may identify

(3 ) Th e e which occurs at t = the e whi ch occurs at place P = the e which occurs inmanner M ,

but we cannot identify the corresponding allomorphs:(4) s occurring at t # es occurring at place P # es occurring in manner M .T he thesis of this paper can now b e stated rather briefly. Propositional allomorphs

designate allomorphic events. The latter are the worldly counterpart to propositionalallomorphs. When we nominalize different propositional allomorphs w e obtain nounphrases that refer to quite different things, allomorphic events, and t he difference inwhat is being referred to manifests its elfw hen we begin to talk abo ut the causal related-ness of these items. Furthermore, allomorphically sensitive contexts, such contexts asrem embe r, know, perceive, advise, and to be sorry, are sensitive in this way becausethey a re all, in one way or another, causal locutions. T he semantic change witnessedwhen we embed different propositional allomorphs in these sensitive contexts is tobe explained by th e fact that these contexts all, more or less explicitly, descri be acausal relation between entities; hence, the truth of this description will depend onwhich allomorphic event is alleged to stand in the causal relation expressed b y thiscontext.

To illustrate this thesis consider t he allomorphically sensitive context: S is sorrythat . . . . The truth of the statement

(5) S is sorry that Susan stole the bicycledep end s on which allomorph of Susan stole th e bicycle we e mbe d in this contex t. Ifyou will recall o u r previous story, George is sorry that Susan stole the bicycle bu t not atall sorry, in fact quite relieved, that s he stole the b icyc l e . What bothers George is thatshe stole, not w h a t she stole. N o w , the context S is sorry that . . . is, I suggest, acausal construction. I havent time to def end this claim with the kind of arguments itdeserves, so let me merely suggest a crud e causal paraphrase:

(6) S is sorry that P = df T h e fact that P is causally responsib le for Ss feeling sorry.Th er e are some difficulties with this, b u t let the m pass for the moment. S ince the truthof the claim that S is sorry that P dep end s on the existence of a causal relation be twe en


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98 MIDWEST STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHYthe event or state of affairs expressed by P and Ss feelings, it becomes important forevaluating the truth of this claim {and, hence, for understanding what claim is beingmade) that we be clear about what, exactly, is being alleged to be the cause of Ssfeelings. 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 descr ibe bysaying he is SOT?

When we begin to ask about the causal role of Susans stealing the bike, the allo-morphic embodiments of this event become relevant. Two of the allomorphs are:

(NP,) Susans stealing the bike;(NPJ Susans stealing the bike.The fact that these have different causal efficacy can be seen by noting that it is NP, thatleads to her arrest (not NP,,) and it is NP,, that caused Jimmy such unhappiness becauseit was the bike, custom designed and promised to him by the salesman, that Jimmyplanned to buy the next day. The fact that Susan stole the bike isnt what made Jimmyunhappy (he would have been equally unhappy if Susan had bought the bike); its hertheft 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 Susansstealingth e bike or Susans steal ing the bike that is causally responsible for his feel ings. Until weknow this we cannot evaluate the claim that he is sorry about it. Propositional allo-morphs of the sort we have been discussing constitu te our way of describing or express-ing which of the allomorphic events is causally involved in the transaction, and it isfor this reason that propositional allomorphs can affect the truth of a larger claim inwhich they are embedded . To embed a different propositional allomorph in an allo-morphically sensitive context is to make a different causal claim.

I have failed to argue that aZZ allomorphically sensitive contexts are ultimately causalin character. The most that I can do in this paper is suggest that the most prominent onesappear 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 con-vinced by a causal theory of knowledge, one might still, $one found the argument in thispaper convincing, treat this itself as a reason to suppose that such epistemic construc-tions did involve some causal connection.Another set of terms that display allomorphic sensitivity are such psychological (butnot open ly epistemic) verbs as sorry that, pleased that, hope that and angrythat. There are also such verbs as convince, persuade, tell, advise, explainand be responsible for. I have already, in the opening page of this paper, mentionedaccident and mistake. If all these verbs are no t obviously causal in character, Ihope , 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 instrumentfor locating and identifying causal contexts. For if I am right, any context manifestingallomorphic sensitivity will b e causal in character.

In conclusion, let me say that the semantic variations that occur when we embedpropositional allomorphs into larger contexts are merely a symptom of an underlyingontological difference in what we are talking about. These differences are not merelypragmatic by-products of the way we talk about what there is; they are a direct mani-festation of what there is and the way what there is is related to what else there is.


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FRED I . DRETSKE 99FOOTNOTES

A Plea for Excuses, in Philosophical Papers (Oxford, 1961), p. 133.* Constrastive Statements,Philosophical Reuiew (October, 1972): 411-437, and T he Content

of Knowledge to appear in a collection of papers read to the Philosophy C o l l o q u i u m , Universityof Western Ontario (1972),Forms of Represen ta t i on (Amsterdam, 1975).

If one thinks of events as the exemplifying of properties, then the ambiguity can be tracedto the ambiguity about which property is in question. Is the property exemplified + (whichhappens to be exemplified at t )or is it 9 at t? Since these are different properties, the state ofaffairs (or event) consisting of their exemplification will be different. See Alvin Goldmans 4Theory of Human Action (Engle wood Cliffs, 1970),pp. loff., an d Jaegwon Kim, On the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory, American Philosophical Quar ter ly 3 (1966): 231.

dretske referring to events

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