Events

Events are particular happenings, occurrences or changes, such as
Rob's drinking the strong espresso at noon, the 1864 re-election of
Abraham Lincoln in the US, and so on. At least at first blush, events
all seem to have something in common, metaphysically speaking, and
some philosophers have inquired into what this common nature is. The
main aim of a theory of events is to propose and defend an identity
condition on events; that is, a condition under which two events are
identical. For example, if Brutus kills Caesar by stabbing him, are
there two events, the stabbing and the killing, or only one event?
Each of the leading theories of events is surveyed in this article.
According to Jaegwon Kim, events are basically property
instantiations. In contrast, Donald Davidson attempts to individuate
events by their causes and effects. However, Davidson eventually
rejects this view and, together with W.V.O. Quine, individuates events
with respect to their location in spacetime. According to David Lewis,
an event is a property of a spatiotemporal region.

1. Kim's Property-Exemplification Account of Events.

Events, according to Kim, are structured: they are constituted by an
object (or number of objects), a property or relation, and a time (or
an interval of time). For simplicity, the discussion will be
restricted to monadic events, that is, events with a monadic property
exemplified by a single object at a time. Kim's theory of events
consists of two basic principles, the first states the conditions
under which any given event exists, the second gives the conditions
under which events are identical. In stating the principles Kim
represents events by expressions of the form

[x, P, t]

where the operator "[. . .]" is intended to be a special case of the
description operator, read "the unique event, x's having P at t."
Kim's two principles are the following:

Existence Condition: [x, P, t] exists iff object x exemplifies the
n-adic property P at time t.

That is, the unique event of object x's having property P at time t
exists if and only if the object x has P at a given time.

The second principle is the following:

Identity Condition: [x, P,t] = [y,Q, t'] iff x = y, P = Q, and t = t'.

This principle reads: the unique event, x's having P at a given time
t, is identical to the unique event, y's having Q at a given time t',
if and only if x is identical to y, P is identical to Q, and t is
identical to t'. It is sometimes also called the "non-duplication
principle."

According to Kim, (i) events are non-repeatable, concrete particulars,
including not only changes but also states and conditions. (ii) Each
event has a spatiotemporal location. (iii) Although events may
exemplify any number of properties, only one property, the
constitutive property, individuates the event. The constitutive
properties are not exemplified by the event, but are exemplified by
the constitutive substance:

Events themselves have (exemplify) properties; Brutus' stabbing
Caesar has the property of occurring in Rome, it was intentional, it
led to the death of Caesar and caused grief in Calpurnia, and so on….
The properties an event exemplifies must be sharply distinguished from
its constitutive property (which is exemplified, not by an event, but
by the constitutive substance of the event)…. (Kim, 1993, p. 170).

With this in mind we might call attention to the difference between an
event's exemplifying a property from an event's being an
exemplification of a property. According to Kim the event is an
exemplification of only the constitutive property while the event
exemplifies any number of non-constitutive properties. (iv) Kim gets a
type-token relation for events by regarding the constitutive property
as the generic event. Particular exemplifications of the constitutive
property by a constitutive object are tokens of the generic event. (v)
Kimean events are not just ordered triples of the form . Consider the
event of Oedipus' marrying Jocasta at t. A triple exists when
Oedipus,t, and marrying Jocasta exist. But the triple can exist while
the event does not, namely, Oedipus may fail to have the property,
marrying Jocasta, at t.

What follows are the main criticisms of Kim's theory of events.

a. Constitutive Object or Region.

Myles Brand criticizes the account for not being able to accommodate
the intuition many have that an event might not have a constitutive
object: "Leaving aside the controversial case of mental events, there
are changing weather conditions, changing light conditions, changing
fields, and so on." (Brand, 1997, 335) Brand suggests that Kim modify
his account by taking spatiotemporal regions as the constituents of
events, rather saying that objects are the constituents. So, if an
event involves a flash of lightning or a magnetic field increasing in
strength, the event occupies (at minimum) the space in which the flash
or field increase occurs. It is certainly open to Kim to modify his
theory accordingly.

b. Properties.

Since, on Kim's view, events are property exemplifications, a natural
question to ask is: what sorts of properties are acceptable as
constitutive properties (and thereby as event types)? Kim provides
little specification of what sort of view of properties the theory is
to be wedded to. Indeed, Kim's discussion of events does not even
specify whether such properties are universals, tropes (as
non-repeatables), natural classes, or something else. (Readers
unfamiliar with the different views on the nature of properties should
see Oliver, 1996). And we might ask whether the properties are sparse
(such as Armstrong's theory of universals) or abundant, corresponding
to every predicate (or nearly every predicate). (Again, see Oliver,
1996). The following passage gives us a rough idea how Kim would
answer this latter question:

. . . [T]he basic generic events may be best picked out relative
to a scientific theory, whether the theory is a common-sense theory of
the behavior of middle-sized objects or a highly sophisticated
physical theory. They are among the important properties, relative to
the theory, in terms of which lawful regularities can be discovered,
described, and explained. The basic parameters in terms of which the
laws of the theory are formulated would, on this view, give us our
basic generic events, and the usual logical, mathematical, and perhaps
other types of operations on them would yield complex, defined generic
events. We commonly recognize such properties as motion, colors,
temperatures, weights, pushing, and breaking, as generic events and
states, but we must view this against the background of our
common-sense explanatory and predictive scheme of the world around us.
I think it highly likely that we cannot pick out generic events
completely a priori. (Kim,1993, p.37)

So Kim would like a theory of events which provides a framework to
develop theories of causation, explanation, and to explore the
mind-body problem and the relation between micro and macro events more
generally (Kim,1993, p.36). Such desiderata seem reasonable and, at
least at first blush, Kim's rough gesturing at a notion of properties
seems suitable to such desiderata.

This passage also tells us that Kim is open to the view that an answer
to the question, "What properties are there?" might involve an a
posteriori element, left to scientific theory. But there are further
issues that a proponent of the exemplification theory should
eventually address. For instance, which properties can be constitutive
of events? (i) If the account of properties selected allows that
(purported) properties like being equal to the square root of two are
in fact properties, such properties do not seem to be properties that
can constitute events. (Brand, 1997, p. 335) (ii) If walking is a
property constitutive of events, is walking slowly? (We will turn to
ii. shortly).

Myles Brand has criticized the property exemplification view because
it lacks a criterion for property identity. (Brand, 1997, p. 335) The
problem is that Kim's account is incomplete because we cannot
determine when events are identical. We cannot do this because we do
not know when they have the same properties. This objection may strike
one as weak because it seems to require too much of the property
exemplification account. As Brand notes ". . . solutions to a number
of central philosophical problems — for instance the mind-body
problem, scientific theory reduction and meaning change — also require
identity conditions for properties." (Brand, 1997, p.335) It seems
excessive to require Kim to solve such problems to give a viable
theory of events. We now turn to more serious criticisms of the
theory.

c. Excessive Fine-Grainedness.

Although Kim's above passage gives us a better idea of what sorts of
properties constitute events, it does not answer the following
question: if "F" is a predicate or verb designating some generic
event, (e.g., walking), and "M" is a predicate modifier, (e.g.,
slowly) does "M(F)" name a new generic event (walking slowly), or does
the modifier indicate that the generic event (the walk) exemplifies
the property (being slow)? If Sebastian strolls leisurely through the
streets of Bologna at t is the stroll the same event as the leisurely
stroll? Most people's intuition is that they are the same event. Let's
call the need for a satisfactory answer to this question "The Problem
of Predicate Modification."

Indeed, the most serious criticism of Kim's theory is that it yields
events that are too fine-grained. That is, events are regarded as
being distinct that, intuitively, are the same event. There are two
basic types of prolificacy that worry critics. (i) First, there is the
Problem of Predicate Modification. (ii) Second, there are sorts of
prolificacy not arising from the M(F) operation but from the question:
if S does x by doing y is S's doing x the same event as S's doing y?
Let's begin with a discussion of type (ii) cases.

Type (ii) prolificacy. To employ a well-known example, on Kim's view
the stabbing of Caesar is a different event from the killing of
Caesar, because the properties of being a stabbing and being a killing
are, by any reasonable account of property individuation, distinct.
(Bennett, 1991) The criticism begins by noting that it is a historical
fact that the method of killing was a stabbing. The critic interprets
this as saying that the properties were co-instantiated. To this the
critic adds that co-instantiation is sufficient for property identity,
although, not, of course, sufficient for event identity. Kim's account
of events turns events into property tokens, getting the nature of
events wrong. (Bennett, 1991)

Jonathan Bennett provides a detailed objection along such lines, but
adding an additional, informative element to his claim that Kimean
events are too fine-grained. First, his general claim:

Kim maintains that two nominals can pick out a single event only
if (roughly speaking) their predicative parts are equivalent: so it
cannot be true that the kick he gave her was the assault he made on
her. I argue against this, contending that most of Kim's prima facie
evidence for it depends on his running events together with facts. It
is beyond dispute that his kicking her is not the same as his
assaulting her, these being different facts. (Bennett,1991, p.626)

His contention that Kim conflates events and facts is fueled by an
informative distinction between imperfect and perfect nominals, which
he links to a distinction between fact language and event language,
respectively:

Following Vendler, I take it that these [event names] will be
perfect and not imperfect nominals. Quisling's betrayal of Norway
(perfect) was an event; Quisling's betraying Norway (imperfect) is a
fact, namely the fact that Quisling betrayed Norway. Quisling's
betraying Norway is different from his doing Norway a disservice;
these are two facts. His betrayal of Norway was his disservice to
Norway; there was only the one event. (Bennett,1991, p. 625)

Perfect nominals, according to Vendler's research, are our main device
for event talk, passing all of the tests for being an event sortal.
(Bennett, 1998, p. 6) (However, it should be noted that not all
perfect nominals name events. For discussion of this see Bennett,
1988, p. 7). In contrast, imperfect nominals never refer to events
because they ". . . don't behave syntactically as though they were
applicable to located particulars: they don't take articles or
attributive adjective, they don't have plural forms, and so on. Their
semantic behavior is wrong too: they don't go comfortably into
contexts about being observed, occurring at stated times or lasting
for stated periods, and so on." (Bennett, 1988, p.7) Instead of naming
events imperfect nominals name facts (that is, states of affairs that
obtain) and more generally, states of affairs. Vendler and Bennett
provide the following argument to the conclusion that imperfect
nominals name facts. First, they claim that there is a sort of
imperfect nominal that contains a complete sentence in it, sentence
nominals, which function as noun phrases which pass all the tests for
being imperfect nominals. Bennett takes it that such constructions
name facts. He calls these "that [S] constructions." Bennett further
claims:

I contend that any sentence using an imperfect gerundial nominal
is synonymous with one in which that gerundial nominals work is done
instead by a "that [S] nominal. Test this, and if you find no
counterexamples you will agree that imperfect gerundial nominals are
basically interchangeable with "that [S] nominals and are therefore
names of facts. If you do find counterexamples, Vendler and I must
back off, saying merely that many gerundial imperfect nominals name
facts and that none name events, and it will be a further problem to
know what marks of the fact names from the rest. But I shall stay with
the stronger claim until it is refuted. (Bennett, 1988, p.8)

Bennett applies his claim that perfect nominals are our main device
for referring to event kinds while imperfect nominals always refer to
facts to help settle the dispute concerning type (ii) prolificacy
cases. Bennett illustrates how the distinction is useful with respect
to this issue by calling our attention to the following interchange
between Kim and Davidson:

It is not at all absurd to say that Brutus' killing Caesar is not
the same as Brutus' stabbing Caesar. Further, to explain Brutus'
killing Caesar (why Brutus killed Caesar) is not the same as to
explain Brutus' stabbing Caesar (why Brutus stabbed Caesar). (Kim,
1993, p 232)

Davidson remarks:

I turn. . . to Kim's remark that it is not absurd to say that
Brutus' killing Caesar is not the same as Brutus' stabbing Caesar. The
plausibility of this is due, I think, to the undisputed fact that not
all stabbings are killings. . . . But [this does not show] that this
particular stabbing was not a killing. Brutus' stabbing of Caesar did
result in Caesar's death so it was in fact, though not of course
necessarily, identical with Brutus' killing of Caesar. (Davidson,
1980, p. 171)

It does appear that, as Bennett aptly puts it, while Kim is saying
true things about facts, Davidson is saying true things about events.
The provisional conclusion that I draw on the criticism that Kimean
events turn events into facts, getting the nature of events wrong, is
the following: if one is impressed by the view that the stabbing of
Caesar and the killing of Caesar are the same event then one must make
sure that it is not because they find it plausible that Brutus'
killing Caesar and Brutus' stabbing Caesar are distinct. For Bennett
has given us reason to believe that such plausibility derives from the
plausible distinctness of facts. (Further, Kim has not disputed
Bennett's distinction or its application to the type (ii) prolificacy
dispute). On the other hand, perhaps a proponent of the
property-exemplification view would like to dispute the linguistic
data, or, instead, claim that while the data capture our ordinary
event concept, a philosophical theory of events should not seek to
satisfy the ordinary event concept, but should instead engage in a
conceptual revision.

Type (i) prolificacy. Although Kim is not interested in renouncing the
prolificacy of type (ii) he believes that it is a more serious matter
that his view might allow adverbial modification to give rise to
distinct generic events, (e.g., Sebastian's strolling and Sebastian's
strolling leisurely are distinct events). That is, he takes such cases
as being more plausible examples of excessive fine-grainedness: "it is
more plausible to deny identity in cases like it (the stabbing case)
than in cases like Sebastian's stroll and Sebastian's leisurely stroll
(where we suppose Sebastian did stroll leisurely)." (Kim,1993, p. 44)
Kim does not say why the stabbing case is more plausible case of
distinct events; but he is certainly in tandem with most people's
intuitions in this regard. He offers two ways to deal with the Problem
of Adverbial Modification, advancing one as "the official line" and
the other as a fallback position.

i. The official line.

Kim's strategy is to regard the events as being different, but not
entirely distinct events, by claiming that leisurely stroll includes
the stroll. Kim does not explain the sort of inclusion that he is
appealing to. It is certainly a different sort than a type of
inclusion that we might normally apply to events: for example, we
might conceive of a war as an extended event consisting of a number of
battles, a buying a book as a standing at the register and handing the
money and so forth. In each of these cases the extended event has the
events of shorter duration as temporal parts. We might say that
Sebastian's stroll is like these by stipulating that there was a
temporal part of the stroll that was not leisurely — say he leapt over
a puddle. But this would be missing the point as one could just
specify a different case such that an entire stroll was leisurely. Kim
offers the following point to motivate the non-standard sort of event
inclusion that he has in mind:

Take this table: the top of the table is not the same thing as the
table. So there are two things, but of course one table — in fact,
there are lots of things here if you include the legs, the molecules,
the atoms, etc., making up the table. (Kim,1993, p. 46)

One can construct individuals, as counterintuitive to the layperson
they may be, from the mereological sum of any spatio-temporal parts.
But given a particular table, it would be quite odd to claim that the
mereological sum of all of its parts is a new individual, and not,
instead, that very same individual. Since the stroll and the leisurely
stroll occupy the same space-time worm, the analogy with physical
objects will not go through: for a physical object x to include
distinct physical object y it requires at least one proper part that
is had by object x that is not had by object y and that x have all of
y's parts as proper parts. There is no proper part (time-space region)
occupied by the stroll that is not also occupied by the leisurely
stroll. We thus have motivation for turning to the second option that
Kim provides for dealing with the Problem of Adverbial Modification.

ii. The fallback position.

The remaining option is to deny that modifiers, or at least a certain
class of them, give rise to new generic events, instead, they indicate
properties of the generic events. (For example, strolling leisurely is
not a generic event, but being leisurely is exemplified by Sebastian's
stroll.) Kim views this option as bringing with it a major drawback:
namely, it compromises his original motivation for supplying a theory
of events in the first place — that events be the sort of entities
that enter into causal relations and are objects of explanations: "But
it is clear that we may want to explain not only why Sebastian
strolled, i.e., Sebastian's stroll, but also why he strolled
leisurely, i.e., his leisurely stroll. Under the approach being
considered, the second explanation would be of why Sebastian's stroll
was leisurely; we would be explaining why a certain event had a
certain property, not why a certain event occurred." (Kim,1993, p. 45)

d. Is the Constitutive Object (Time, Property) Essential?

A second major challenge to the property-exemplification view is the
claim that it relies on dubious claims about the essential properties
of events. Consider the constitutive object: could the very same
event, the changing of the guard, have occurred if a guard was a
different person? Could it have been the same event if, instead, it
was slightly earlier? Both of these questions raise plausible
possibilities.

Kim agrees that the time is not an essential feature of certain events
: "it seems correct to say that the stroll could have occurred a
little earlier or later than it actually did."(Kim,1993, p. 48) Kim is
also sympathetic to the claim that the property is not essential,
although his concern is limited to cases in which modifiers give rise
to new generic events. (Kim,1993, p. 47) However, Kim rejects the view
that the constitutive substance is not essential.

The fact that someone other than Sebastian could have taken a
stroll in his place does not make it the case that the very stroll
that Sebastian took could have been taken by someone else. If Mario
had been chosen to stroll that night, then there would have been
another stroll, namely Mario's. (Kim, 1993, p. 48)

One natural reaction is to disagree with this assessment because it
seems plausible that in the changing of the guard case, the very same
event, the changing of the guard, could have occurred if a guard was a
different person. But perhaps it is better to not haggle intuitions;
the real issue is how Kim, of all people, can be sympathetic to
challenges to the non-essentiality of the constitutive time and
property. Doesn't he have to deny this? The matter hinges on whether
it is plausible, as Kim seems to believe, that the following claims be
held in tandem:

(1) The constitutive time and (in cases of modification) the
constitutive property are non-essential

(2) Both of the following are true:

Identity Condition: [x, P,t] = [y,Q, t'] iff x = y, P = Q, and t = t'.

Existence Condition: [x, P, t] exists (occurs) iff object x
exemplifies the n-adic property P at time t.

Begin with the first condition. Identity Conditions do not need to
entirely specify an entity's nature. As Kim notes: "It is at least a
respectable identity criterion for physical objects that they are the
same just in case they are completely coincident in space and time.
From this it does not follow that a physically object is essentially
where and when it in fact is." (Kim,1993, p.48) Now consider the
Existence Condition. It tells us something about the modal character
of events: events are necessarily exemplifications of properties by
objects at times. Kim agrees: "There is an essentialist consequence I
am willing to accept: events are, essentially, structured complexes of
the sort the theory says they are. Thus, events could not be
substances, properties, and so on." (Kim,1993, p.49) But it doesn't
tell us about the modal character of the event in the following sense:
it doesn't say whether the event can occur without any, or even all,
of the constitutive entities. Hence, it doesn't tell us whether any of
the constitutive entities are essential. From these observations once
can conclude that the conjunction of (1) and (2) are consistent.
Consistent, but informative? Although our brief discussion concludes
with the observation that Kim avoids a serious criticism, the
discussion has also raised the point that Kim has only given a partial
specification of the nature of events. To fully specify the nature of
events more needs to be said about the modal character of the
constitutive entities. Here, intuition haggling comes into play. As
Kim comments, on this score, "the general problem is still open."
(Kim,1993, p.49)

2. Davidson's Theories of Events.

Kim defends a relatively fine grained theory of events, but Davidson
types events in a rather coarse way. Davidson has advanced two
conditions. Initially, he proposed the principle that no two events
can have exactly the same causes and effects. Then, after discarding
this principle, he proposed that no two events can occur in exactly
the same space-time zone, a view which Quine also advanced. The
following sections evaluate both non-duplication principles. The
discussion of Davidson's work on events concludes with some general
remarks about his influential argument for the existence of events
from the use of action sentences.

a. The Causal Criterion.

In "The Individuation of Events," Davidson sets himself the task of
determining a criterion for the sameness and difference of events,
where events are understood as particular, non-repeatable occurrences.
After considering and rejecting various proposals Davidson settles on
the following:

(DT1) events are identical iff they have exactly the same causes
and effects

Noting "an air of circularity" about this suggestion, he formulates
(DT1) as the following:

(DT1′) (Ax)(Ay)(Az)[x = y iff (z caused x iff z caused y) and (x
caused z iff y caused z)]

He then writes: "No identities appear on the right of the
biconditional." (Davidson, 1980, p.179) Well, this is true, but (DT')
is nonetheless circular because, of course, x,y and z are events. The
circularity is not excisable either, for the gist of Davidson's
suggestion is that events can be individuated by their causes and
effects, but what is a cause or effect, for Davidson, if not an event?
Davidson claims (inter alia) that events e and e' are identical only
if e and e' have all the same causes. But causes are events, and to
determine if e and e' have the same causes we need to determine
whether each of e's causes has all the same effects as some cause that
e' has. And among these effects are e and e', the very events we are
trying to distinguish or, alternately, identify. (Lombard, 1998)

Davidson later concedes that (DT1′) is indeed circular and, in light
of this, moves to a theory that he had previously rejected in his
discussion of Lemmon's proposal at (Davidson, 1980, p.178).

b. The Spatiotemporal Criterion.

Lemmon's proposal was:

(DT2) events are identical iff they occur in the same space at the
same time

Davidson had previously rejected (DT2) because ". . . I thought one
might want to hold that two different events used up the same portion
of space-time. . ." (Davidson, 1985, p.175) Davidson's discussion of
Lemmon's proposal will come back to haunt him. In particular, Davidson
provided an intriguing example. This example, many believe, is
decisive against DT2, the proposal that Davidson himself continued to
favor.

Doubt comes easily in the case of events, for it seems natural to
say that two different changes can come over the whole of a substance
at the same time. For example, if a metal ball becomes warmer during a
certain minute, and during the same minute rotates through 35 degrees,
must we say that these are the same event? (Davidson, 1980, p.178)

There are two ways of interpreting the example which the discussions
of this example sometimes fails to distinguish. Let us begin with one
specification, which we will discard as not even superficially
challenging the view that there can be different events in the same
spacetime location.

(i) The rotation, although occurring during the same minute,
temporally precedes the warming. This interpretation takes "at the
same time" in the above passage as meaning, "during the same minute."
This could happen if both events occur at, say, 2:51 and the rotating
precedes the warming by, say, ten seconds. This seems to be Simone
Evnine's interpretation of the case. (Evnine, 1991, p. 29) This
reading of the problem is much easier to solve because the events
would be (at least partly) spatiotemporally distinct. Evnine's
interpretation was probably encouraged by the fact that rotating an
object will cause the object to warm slightly, in such cases the
rotating will precede the warming. It doesn't seem useful to conceive
of the example in this way because it is not, even at first blush, a
potential counterexample to the sufficiency of spacetime location for
sameness of event because the spacetime locations obviously differ,
although they partly overlap.

(ii) It may be suggested that we forget that rotating causes slight
warming, and suppose, for the sake of argument, that some additional
warming of the object occurs at the same time as the object rotates.
Although Davidson does not note this, we can fairly construe his
puzzle as being about the additional warming and its having the same
spatiotemporal location as the rotating. We have the strong intuition
that the additional warming (hereafter "warming") and the rotating are
different events; this is the interesting interpretation of the case
because it raises a potential counterexample to (DT2).

Construed in this way, the matter is quite tricky. First, a general
observation. When things warm up their molecules randomly jiggle
about. This is a different sort of molecular motion than is involved
in a thing's rotating. Given this observation, it might seem like
(DT2) is not challenged by the example, after all. One might have the
belief that, given this observation, there should be some way to prove
that different, (but not completely distinct), spacetime regions are
involved. It is natural to be skeptical that such a maneuver is
available, however. The same molecules that are randomly jiggling
about, because of the heating, are also revolving. Similarly, one
cannot assign different spacetime regions to Joe's Northeasterly walk,
although it is, in a sense, both a Northerly walk and an Easterly
walk. So this appears to be a counterexample to Davidson's proposal.

Now, assuming that one is a proponent of DT2, how should one respond
to Davidson's own example of a top's spinning and heating up? The
proponent could swallow the unintuitive result that the spinning and
the heating are very same event, saying that DT2 is still in the
running, as a non-duplication, principle, because other leading
theories of events also have counterintuitive results in some cases.
For recall that Kim holds that

(KT) [x,P,t] exists (occurs) iff object x exemplifies the n-adic
property p at time t.

On this view the stabbing of Caesar is a different event from the
killing of Caesar because the properties are distinct (according to
any plausible property theory). This strikes many as being too
fine-grained; the killing and the stabbing are not distinct events,
although being a killing and being a stabbing are distinct properties.
Selecting a theory of events involves an all-things considered
judgment that weighs the various strengths and weaknesses of the
competing theories. If other non-duplication principles have equally
counterintuitive results, then, ceteris paribus, DT2 is still in the
running.

c. Events or Objects?

Any critical evaluation of Davidson's theory of events should (at
least briefly) consider the other influential objection to DT2. A
common view is that objects are identical if and only if they occupy
the same space-time location. And this is precisely DT2, causing some
to believe that it gets the nature of events wrong. The objector's
intuition that events are not objects is grounded in the view that
events are occurrences and objects are not. So, by Leibniz' Law,
events and objects are distinct. For Davidson's position to be
convincing he needs to explain away the strong intuition that events
are occurrences and objects are not. Davidson is concerned with the
conflation, and in light of it offers the following suggestion:

. . . events and objects may be related to locations in spacetime
in different ways; it may be, for example, that events occur at a time
in a place while objects occupy places at times.

Occupying the same portion of spacetime, event and object differ.
One is an object which remains the same object through changes, the
other a change in an object or objects. Spatiotemporal areas do not
distinguish them, but our predicates, our basic grammar, our ways of
sorting do. Given my interest in the metaphysics implicit in our
language, this is a distinction I do not want to give up. (Davidson,
1980, pp.176)

It does seem correct that when we conceive of events, we generally
think of changes, or occurrences. This feature seems to rest at the
kernel of our event-concept.

Evnine's reaction to Davidson's claim is that "this attempt to resist
the assimilation of events to objects will only work if we are able to
make a convincing distinction between occurring and occupying which
does not itself rely on the distinction between events and objects."
(Evnine, 1991, p. 31) If Evnine is suggesting that an account of
events would be circular should it fail to cash out the notion of
occurring in a way that doesn't presuppose eventhood this is not an
entirely decisive objection — the concept of an occurrence could
simply be taken as primitive in an analysis. However, some would find
it unattractive that an unexplained notion, and one that seems so
close to the concept of an event, that of an occurrence, is doing all
the work in dividing objects from events.

The following, more decisive objection to Davidson's suggestion may
occur to one: there is an intuitive distinction between occurring and
occupying — we see events unfold and objects occupy spaces — but it is
important to note that many, including Lewis and Kim, consider events,
as a metaphysical category, to include some non-happenings or
non-occurrence as well as all happenings. And Bennett notes that
Davidson himself has "never said that events must be changes and . . .
did once express tolerance for the idea of such movements as standing
fast.'" (Bennett, 1988, p.176, quoting Davidson) Davidson's manner of
distinguishing events from objects, in so far as it involves the claim
that events are essentially occurrences, seems, at least at first
blush, incompatible with the view that events are non-occurrences. If
Davidson believes that some non-occurrences are events then, in order
to preserve his original point, in addition to telling us more about
his occurrence/occupation distinction he needs to answer the question:
if non-occurrences can be events why are such non-occurrences not
objects? Perhaps the only manner of preserving the idea that events
are an ontological kind is by renouncing the view that some
non-occurrences are events.

At this point it is not clear if Davidson would be interested in doing
so. Here I can only gesture in the direction of a possible difficulty.
In his chapter on adverbial modification, Bennett suggests that
Davidson needs to consider unchanging events in order to

. . . smooth the way for applying his theory to many uses of
adverbs to modify not verbs but adjectives. 'Marvin was icily silent'
entails 'Marvin was silent' and it would be uncomfortable for a
Davidsonian to have to exclude such entailments from the scope of his
theory. It would be better for him to say that the former sentence had
the form: For some x: x was an episode of silence, and Marvin was the
subject of x, and x was icy. (Bennett, 1988, p.76)

It is likely that the Davidsonian would be interested in applying his
theory to uses of adverbs that modify adjectives. This attractive
feature will have to be balanced against any desire to distinguish
events from objects.

d. Davidson and Ontological Commitment to Events.

Finally, in our discussion thus far the existence of events has been
taken for granted, the issue being how to individuate them. But
Davidson's work on events is not limited to a defense of a
non-duplication principle, indeed, he argues that we need to posit
events (inter alia) to explain the meanings of statements employing
adverbial modifiers. In "The Individuation of Events" he writes:

. . . without events it does not seem possible to give a natural
and acceptable account of the logical form of certain sentences of the
most common sorts; it does not seem possible, that is, to show how the
meanings of such sentences depend upon their composition. The
situation may be sketched as follows. it is clear that the sentence
'Sebastian strolled through the streets of Bologna at 2 a.m." entails
"Sebastian strolled through the streets of Bologna", and does so by
virtue of its logical form. This requires, it would seem, that the
patent syntactical fact that the entailed sentence is contained in the
entailing sentence be reflected in the logical form we assign to each
sentence. Yet the usual way of formalizing these sentences does not
show any such feature: it directs us to consider the first sentence as
containing an irreducibly three-place predicate 'x strolled through y
at t' while the second contains the unrelated predicate 'x strolled
through y.' (Davidson, 1980, p.166-7)

Davidson suggests that we solve this puzzle by accepting the intuitive
idea that "there are things like falls, devourings, and strolls for
sentences such as these to be about." The sentence

Sebastian strolled though the streets of Bologna at 2 a.m.

has the following logical form:

There is an event x such that Sebastian strolled x, x took place
in the streets of Bologna, and x was going on at 2 a.m.

This logical form yields the problematic entailments. Davidson's view
is that this correct logical form for action sentences motivates the
ontological commitment to events because quantification over a kind of
entity involves an ontological commitment to the existence of entities
of that kind.

Is Davidson's argument plausible? (i) Although it is plausible in
standard cases, it is unclear how Davidson's account can be extended
to manage various sorts of nonstandard modifiers. How, for instance,
will Davidson analyze (S)"Sebastian almost strolled" to reveal that
(S) entails "Sebastian didn't stroll"? (ii) Terry Horgan objects that
Davidson's account is counterintuitive because most adverb
constructions do not contain explicit quantification over events.
(Horgan,1978, p.47) Horgan is correct, and in light of this,
Davidson's argument is significantly weakened if there is an equally
attractive or (more damaging yet) superior alternate account of
adverbial modification available that does not involve quantification
over events. In light of (i) we can add that a competing account would
be even more attractive if it could handle non-standard cases of
modification that Davidson's theory, as it stands, does not.

Indeed, Horgan has formulated an alternate account that does not
involve quantification over events. (Horgan, 1978) Romane Clark's has
proposed an extension of standard first order quantification theory to
handle predicate modification. (Clark, 1970) Horgan's alternate
account involves modifying Clark's proposal in such a way that it does
not appeal to states of affairs, which are frequently taken as
ontological kinds that are either ontologically equivalent to events
or include events as a subcategory. Instead, Horgan appeals to set
theory, which is already appealed to in formal semantics. In light of
this should we apply Occam's Razor and deny the existence of events?
This move would be premature. Davidson has provided a number of other
reasons to quantify over events: "I do not believe we can give a
cogent account of action, of explanation, of causality, or of the
relation between the mental and the physical unless we accept events
as individuals."(Davidson, 1980, p.165) If any of these other
considerations are apt, then quantification over events would be in
order even if the Horgan/Clark proposal is superior, on balance, to
Davidson's account. Should all of the other considerations fail, the
issue will turn on the problem of adverbial modification and any
decision on this matter surely requires a detailed treatment of the
relative advantages and disadvantages of each of the proposals.

This concludes the treatment of Davidson's extensive work on events.
Davidson obviously takes events very seriously, going as far as
arguing that there are a number of reasons to quantify over them.
Lewis, in contrast, has a rather opportunistic approach to events: he
fashions a theory of events primarily to suit the theoretical needs of
his theories of explanation and causation. Nonetheless, Lewis' theory
is regarded by many as being important in its own right.

3. David Lewis' Theory of Events.

The core conception of Lewis' theory of events is that an event is a
property of spatiotemporal regions. (Lewis, 1986, p. 244) Properties,
like events, are not basic to Lewis' ontological scheme. Lewis holds
that, "By a property I mean simply a class. To have the property is to
belong to the class. All the things that have the property, whether
actual or merely possible, belong…The property that corresponds to an
event, then, is the class of all regions, at most one per world –
where the event occurs." (Lewis, 1986, 244) This being said, Lewis
proposes the following necessary condition for some entity e's being
an event:

(LT) e is an event only if it is a class of spatio-temporal
regions, both thisworldy (assuming it occurs in the actual world) and
otherworldly.

(LT) is a rough, first approximation of a theory of events. It only
tells us which entities are formally eligible to be events — only such
entities that are a class of thisworldly (assuming it occurs) and
otherworldly spacetime regions. Any member of the class that is the
event "occurs"; the event, itself, understood as the class, doesn't
occur. This would be a kind of category mistake because classes, as
abstract entities, don't occur, although they can exist.

We can get an intuitive grip on (LT) by noting a certain commonality
with the previously discussed Quine-Davidson account of events, which
holds that events are individuated by their spacetime locations: no
two events can occupy the same spacetime location. Recall that one
criticism of this theory of events is that it treats the simultaneous
rotating and the heating of the sphere as being, counterintuitively,
the same event. It can be noted that, in contrast, this is not a
drawback for Lewis' account. The Quine-Davidson account identified an
event with a certain spacetime region; Lewis, in contrast, can say
that an occurrence of an event can be located in the same region that
another event is, claiming that the events, as classes, are
nonetheless distinct because there will be some member that is in
class A that is not in class B, namely, an occurrence in some region
that is a member of A and not B. (Here, it is important to bear in
mind that the different regions may be at different possible worlds).
So it is available to Lewis to characterize the well known case of the
sphere that both heats and spins at t as involving two distinct events
because the rotating includes otherworldly regions that the heating
does not include. So far, so good for Lewis.

But before going further into the strengths and weaknesses of the
theory, it is necessary to say more about the theory.

a. Preliminaries.

A few preliminary remarks about the process of evaluating Lewis'
theory are useful to keep in mind. As noted, Lewis is an
event-opportunist, if you will, letting his interest in explanation
and especially, his counterfactual analysis of causation dictate his
theory of events; Bennett captures Lewis' route nicely:

There remains the less ambitious course of basing judgments about
the essences of events on the counterfactual analysis of event
causation: start with our firm beliefs about what causes what, put
them into their counterfactual form in accordance with the analysis
and draw conclusions about what the essences of events must be like if
we are not to be convicted of too much error in our causal beliefs.
That is the third of my three approaches, and it is the one that Lewis
adopts. (Bennett, 1988, p.61)

At least at first blush, there seem to be nothing objectionable about
this route into events. After all, even Bennett has urged that our
ordinary notion of events is not a notion that leads to a useful
philosophical theory of events. Why not, then, begin elsewhere?
Perhaps Lewis is less ambitious, but commendably more realistic.

. Given this route of entry into a theory of events it is natural that
those who are interested in Lewis' influential counterfactual theory
of causation would have a particular interest in his theory of events.
(Lewis, 1970) Of course, even with a strong antecedent interest in
Lewis' theories of causation and explanation, one might nonetheless
turn away from Lewis' theory if it entails Modal Realism. Those who
reject Modal Realism would agree that the following desideratum is a
requirement that Lewis' theory of events must satisfy:

D1: That the theory of events be formulable within the ersatz framework.

As is well known, Lewis is operating with a controversial notion of
"possible world" according to which possible worlds are as real as
this world, some containing flesh and blood creatures, solid mountains
and planets, and so forth. Such worlds are non-actual in the sense
that they are not in our world, but they are equally real as our world
is. A world, according to Lewis, is a big object containing all
objects that exist there as parts. (Lewis, 1986, p.69) So a world with
a talking donkey is a world that has a talking donkey as a literal
part.

Ersatzers attempt to avoid commitment to Lewis' possible worlds,
reducing possible worlds to other, more acceptable (but in at least
some cases still controversial) sorts of entities. (Armstrong, 1989;
Loux, 1980; Plantinga, 1976) Ersatz views hold that instead of a
plurality of worlds in the modal realist's sense, there is only one
concrete world, with various abstract entities representing ways that
our world might have been. Such theories are actualist; they hold that
the actual entities represent (in some sense of the word) possibilia.
Ersatz views take the abstract-concrete distinction as being well
understood, taking the world and the entities that occupy it as being
concrete, and taking the representations of the concrete entities as
being abstract. There is one correct abstract representation and there
are many misrepresentations; the former represents the concrete world,
the misrepresentations of the actual world represent the various ways
the concrete world might have been.

There are many ersatzers, although not all of the same variety; in
contrast, there was only one modal realist — Lewis himself. (For a
variety of ersatz theories see Loux, 1980) So it seems fair to say
that D1 must be met by Lewis' theory of events. If it turns out
otherwise, even if the theory is clear and consistent, there will be
very few adherents to the account of events. The following section
lays out the basic details of the theory, then attention focuses on
whether D1 is indeed satisfied.

b. The Details of Lewis' theory.

We have investigated Lewis' claim that some entity is an event only if
it is a class of spatio-temporal regions, both thisworldly and
otherworldy. We now turn to four more features of the theory.

i. A Non-Duplication Principle.

From (LT), the axiom of extensionality, (which holds that two sets are
identical if and only if they have all the same members) and the
predicate logic, we can derive a non-duplication principle for Lewis
events. Recalling that Lewis events are classes we can say:

(NP) (x)(y)(where x and y are events, x and y are different events
if and only if there is at least one member of x that is not a member
of y, (or vice versa)).

It is important to note that although (NP) may judge two events to be
different, it is consistent with (NP) that they not be entirely
distinct in the sense that one event may be a proper subset of
another. Here the term "different" is used in the sense of
"non-identical." Think of "different" as meaning, "at least partly
distinct."

ii. Regions.

Lewis outlines several features of the operative notion of spacetime
regions: "An event occurs in a particular spatiotemporal region. Its
region might be small or large; there are collisions of point
particles and there are condensations of galaxies, but even the latter
occupy regions small by astronomical standards." (Lewis,1983, p. 243)
Still, there are certain specifications on what can count as a region,
namely, that no event occur in two different regions of a world and
that an event occupy an entire region; in other words, an event can't
occur in any proper part of a region, although parts of it can.
(Lewis, 1983, p.243) Lewis leaves it open whether any region is a
region in which an event can occur, writing: "A smallish, connected,
convex region may seem a more likely candidate than a widely scattered
part of spacetime. But I leave this question unsettled, for lack of
clear cases." (Lewis, 1983, p. 243). It is not clear that there really
aren't cases that decide the issue: consider the televising of the
Superbowl, it seems scattered throughout the regions of multiple
homes, bars, and so forth. This seems a clear case of a very scattered
event, although every part of the event is spatially connected.

Lewis says that his theory of events relies on the following assumption:

(A) Regions are individuals that are parts of possible worlds.

He admits that this is controversial but says that he need not defend
(A) in his present discussion of events. Given the aforementioned
Modal Realist view of possible worlds, we can appreciate the
controversial nature of (A).

Now let us ask, can assumption (A) be recast in terms of an ersatz
conception of possible worlds? It appears so; indeed, we will now see
that desideratum (D1) can be met. That is, the theory of events,
including assumption (A), can be recast in terms of an ersatz theory
of possible worlds. This point will be illustrated by using a version
of linguistic ersatzism.

"Linguistic ersatzism" (LE) is the generic name for the family of
modal theories that takes worlds as being constructions out of words
of a language; in broad strokes, possibilities are represented via the
meanings that words are given. For instance, a typical LE view takes
worlds as being maximal consistent sets of sentences (where a set S is
maximal iff for every sentence B, S contains either it or its
negation, and S is consistent iff it is possible for all the members
of S to be true together). Notice that in contrast to Modal Realism,
the building blocks of this typical linguistic ersatz view involve
relatively uncontroversial entities (sentences and sets of things).
(Of course, someone who appeals to ersatz worlds will have her own
ontological scheme that is to account for such uncontroversial
entities. The particular details will differ – the important thing is
that ersatzism, unlike Modal Realism, does not prima facie require
anything metaphysically ornate). So let us assume an ersatz theory
along the above, generic, lines. As Lewis suggests, the linguistic
ersatzer can take a possible individual as a maximal consistent set of
open sentences. (Lewis, 1986, p.149) For instance consider what open
sentences correspond to Ersatz Hunter Thompson:

Ersatz Thompson: {x is 6′ tall, x is the author of Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas, x is in LA on 4/5/77, …}

The set is consistent because it is possible for there to be an object
such that all of the open sentences are true of it. It is maximal
because for every open sentence with only "x" as the free variable the
set contains either the sentence or its negation. We could do the same
for regions. In this way regions are not mereological parts of
possible worlds but are instead, subsets of ersatz possible worlds
taken as sets. So (A) can be modified this way:

(A) Regions are individuals that are subsets of possible worlds.

where "possible worlds" refers to ersatz worlds, e.g., on the view
considered here, maximally consistent sets of sentences. We can also
understand the following condition

(LT) e is an event only if it is a set of spatio-temporal regions,
both thisworldy (assuming it occurs in the actual world ) and
otherworldly

As involving sets containing sets (regions according to (A), as members).

Finally, we can note that although Lewis reduces events to properties,
and properties to classes of actual and otherworldy regions, the
ersatzer need not adopt Lewis' conception of properties to adopt (LT),
but can just skip the intermediate step of Lewis' reduction, taking
events as classes of regions. Why is this important? First, the
ersatzer may reject Lewis' account of properties. Second, doing so
avoids circularity worries for the proponents of ersatz theories that
employ properties in constructing possible worlds (e.g., Armstrong,
Plantinga). (Armstrong, 1989; Plantinga,1976) In any case, even if one
wants or needs to adopt Lewis' conception of properties, perhaps the
direction of explanation could still be preserved if one adopts two
conceptions of properties as Lewis does, one sparse and one abundant,
employing the sparse conception in formulating the modal theory. But
the ersatzer need not even do this.

iii. Event essences.

Lewis rejects the view that events are structured entities constituted
by an essential time, object and property. Consider the nominalization
"the death of Socrates at t", while we may pick out the event,
Socrates' death, by this nominalization, it is conceivable that the
very same death happened sooner. Now it might be reasonable, in this
case, to say that the very same event couldn't have had a different
(so called) "constitutive" individual or property, but there seem to
be other cases suggesting that the "constitutive" property and
individual are also problematic: e. g, the firing squad shooting was
done by Ned but it could have been done by Ted; the strolling could
have been a striding. But this is not to say that Lewis is claiming
that events don't have essences; it is just that events aren't
structured in a Kimean way, rather, the essences are read off from the
similarity between the members. This latter point is perhaps best
illustrated by way of example: according to Lewis an event is
essentially a change if and only if for each region something changes
in it; an event essentially involves Socrates if and only if Socrates
(more specifically, a temporal segment of Socrates' counterpart) is
present in each region; an event essentially occurs in spacetime
region R if and only if each member is either R or a counterpart of R,
and so on. (Lewis, 1983, p.248-9)

Essences are not to be mainly extrinsic, such as, for instance, an
event that is essentially a widowing, nor are they to be overly varied
disjuncts, that is, essences like, "an event that is essentially a
walking and another that is essentially a talking." Lewis' rationale
for these requirements stems from his interests in tailoring a theory
of events to his accounts of explanation and counterfactuals. For
instance, he rules out mainly extrinsic events, using the (purported)
event of the widowing of Xantippe as an example, on the following
grounds:

They offend our sense of economy. We would seem to count the death
of Socrates twice over in our inventory of events. . .(2) they stand
in relations of non-causal counterfactual dependence to those genuine
events in virtue of which they occur. Without the death of Socrates
the widowing of Xanthippe would not have occurred. (She might still
have been widowed sooner or later. But recall that the widowing of
Xanthippe, as I defined it, had its time essentially.). . .(3) They
also stand in relations of non-causal counterfactual dependence to
other genuine events, events logically independent of them. Without
the widowing of Xanthippe, the subsequent cooling of Socrates' body
would not have occurred. (For in that case he would not have died when
he did.) (Lewis, 1983, p.263)

iv. Fine-Grainedness and Logical Relations Between Events.

The needs of Lewis' counterfactual analysis of causation motivate
Lewis to adopt a fine-grained notion of event. Suppose that John
greets someone, and being rather tense, he says hello loudly. If he
wasn't tense he would have merely said hello softly. Lewis claims that
two events of greeting occur:

John says "Hello." He says it rather too loudly. Arguably there is
one event that occurs which is essentially a saying "hello" and only
accidentally loud; it would have occurred even if John had spoken
softly. Arguably there is a second event that implies, but is not
implied by, the first. This event is essentially a saying "Hello"
loudly, and it would not have occurred if John had said "Hello" but
said it softly. Both events actually occur, but the second could not
have occurred without the first. (Lewis, 1983, p.255)

On this view two events of greeting occur, one with a richer essence
than the other. The richer event, call it e1, is essentially a loud
greeting and would not have occurred if the greeting was soft, e2 is
essentially a greeting and is only accidentally loud. It would have
occurred if the greeting was soft. As with Kim's theory, many of those
interested in a theory of events that tracks our ordinary event
concept would find this result too fine-grained. From the vantage
point of Lewis' interests in his theory this unintuitive result is not
a serious problem — again, capturing our ordinary event concept is not
Lewis' stated project. Lewis makes his motivation for the
fine-grainedness clear in the following passage:

The real reason why we need both events. . . is that they differ
causally. An adequate causal account of what happens cannot limit
itself to either one of the two. The first event (the weak one) caused
Fred to greet John in return. The second one (the strong one) didn't.
If the second one had not occurred — if John hadn't said "Hello" so
loudly — the first one still might have, in which case Fred still
would have returned John's greeting. Also there is a difference on the
side of causes: the second event was, and the first wasn't, caused
inter alia by John's state of tension. (Lewis, 1983, p. 255)

The rather counterintuitive fine-grainedness seems to be a necessary
evil. As it happens, the events are regarded as being different in
order that the theory of events can satisfy the needs of Lewis' theory
of causation. But doing so raises a problem: to regard the events as
being distinct, when coupled with Lewis' counterfactual theory of
causation, would yield the undesirable result that the first event
causes the second. This would be undesirable because the one event
implies the other and intuitively, logically related events do not
stand in causal relations with each other. Lewis' way of handling this
case is to regard the two events as being different, but not distinct,
and to claim that non-distinct events do not stand in causal
relations.

4. Conclusion.

The selection of a theory of events is not a matter which one decides
independently of one's other metaphysical interests and commitments.
In the context of our discussion, we have noted a number of relative
strengths and weaknesses which can help to guide the reader's own
selection of a theory of events. Of course, further philosophical
developments may yield a theory of events which is more attractive
than the approaches discussed here. And there are some truly
worthwhile, although less-influential, theories of events that have
not been discussed in this article.

5. References and Further Reading

Armstrong, David. A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Bennett, Jonathan Francis. Events and Their Names. Indianapolis:
Hackett Pub. Co., 1988.

Bennett, Jonathan Francis. "Precis of Events and Their Names,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1991): 625-628.

Brand, Myles. "Identity Conditions for Events." American Philosophical
Quarterly 14 (1997): 329-337.

Casati, Roberto, Varzi, Achille, "Events," The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Fall 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2002/entries/events/.

Clark, Romane. "Concerning the Logic of Predicate Modifiers," Noûs. 4
(1970): 311-335.

Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980.

Davidson, Donald. "Reply to Quine on Events," In Actions and Events:
Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. eds. Lepore, E. and
B. Mc Laughlin. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 172-176, 1985.

Evnine, Simone. Donald Davidson. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1991.

Horgan, Terence. "The Case Against Events," Philosophical Review 87
(1978): 28-47.

Kim, Jaegwan. Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Lewis, David. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell, 1973.

Lewis, David. "New Work for a Theory of Universals," Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 61 (1983): 343-377.

Lewis, David. Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Lawrence Lombard, "Ontologies of Events" in Macdonald, Cynthia and
Stephen Laurence, Eds. Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of
Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Loux, Michael. The Possible and the Actual: Readings in the
Metaphysics of Modality. New York: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Oliver, Alex. "The Metaphysics of Properties," Mind 105 (1996): 1-80.

Plantinga, A., 1976, "Actualism and Possible Worlds," Theoria 42.

Quine, W.V.O. "Events and Reification" in Actions and Events:
Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. eds. Lepore, E. and
B. Mc Laughlin. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 162-171, 1985.