Eternal vs. Ephemeral Events
Donald A. Davidson · Noûs · 1971
Roderick Chisholm's States of Affairs Again removes some of the obstacles that separated us in an earlier exchange, and helps to sharpen the differences that remain.' Both of us think that there are events, but it is not clear that we agree about what events are; so joining the issue turns out to be tricky. Chisholm holds that timeless states of affairs (which may occur once, often, or never) are the ineluctable brand of event, but he has not denied that particular, unrepeatable events exist. I have not tried to show that states of affairs are supernumerary, only that particular events are not. What is directly in dispute, then, is not what sorts of entities exist. Where we disagree is on how entities are related to terms and sentences, on what kind of event must exist if certain typical sentences of ordinary language are to be true. If I am not mistaken, what emerges is a difference of opinion over how to do semantics, the study that relates language and ontology. The dispute seems to me potentially instructive because Chisholm and I share a number of assumptions. He writes: