Reading Group: Davidson: Actions, Reasons, and Causes

The Learning Zone Reading Groups
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The issue raised in the previous section was that of the link between “He exercised” and “He wanted to reduce his weight and thought exercise would do it” and “He exercised because he wanted to reduce his weight and thought exercise would do it”. Hence the suggestion:

C2. A primary reason for an action is its cause.

The line of thinking now is that Davidson takes it to have been shown that in order to count as an explanation for the exercise routine, a mere pattern of behaviour is insufficient. A pattern might provide a sufficient explanation, but not a necessary one - not one that will lead to this act rather than some other. Hence because. This brings up the issue of the nature of causes, which we might address once Davidson’s argument is understood.

In Part IV we move on to considering objections to treating reasons as causes.

The first objection notes that causal chains are chains of events; and points out that attitudes and beliefs might be states or dispositions, but are hardly events; and therefore cannot count as causes. The first reply is that we do list states and dispositions as causing events (top p. 694). However Davidson agrees this is insufficient; that what is needed is a preceding event. He goes on to say that states and dispositions can be used in causal explanations since the “onslaught” of such state or disposition is an event.

We can use a state - the plate being cracked - in a causal account of why the plate broke, since the crack led directly to the plate breaking. So why not the state of being angry as the cause of a desire to hurt your feelings? “States and dispositions are not events, but the onslaught of a state or disposition is.” For Davidson, the event that precedes an action is a mental event, but an event nevertheless. So wanting to reduce can count as the cause of engaging in exercise, and wanting to signal can count as the cause of waving one’s arm. Further our deliberate actions are explainable in this way - as the outcomes of desires and beliefs, mental events that preceded our acting. And here Davidson is happy that we are not always able to provide an account of the preceding event; just as we are not always able to provide such an account for the collapse of a bridge (top p695).

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The problem with this analogy, as Davidson came to realize very well, is that we know what we’re talking about when we talk about a crack in the plate, but we have no such confidence in something like “an onslaught of a state or disposition” to be angry. It’s not even clear whether such an event has to be described in mental or physical terms, or some combination of both. And finally, this formulation only takes us as far as “a desire to hurt your feelings,” which is presumably something mental and not an action at all. But plates have no desire to break.

Hmmm . . . I hear anomalous monism lurking in the wings. But reading this paper carefully helps us understand Davidson’s later commitments.

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There’s two points here, one already addressed, the other as you say leading into later work by Davidson.There are two points here, one already addressed, the other as you say leading into later work by Davidson.

The bridge example goes to heading off our not having at hand the specific cause; when the bridge collapses, folk go looking for the cause, confident that there is one. The driver waiving his hand also had a cause - was the hand wave about signalling or swatting a fly? We may not know, but the presumption that there was a cause remains. We might well not be able to tell which form a description of the event alone - the movement of the hand might be the same in both cases; something else is needed, a problem also faced by the pattern account. Here, Davidson can point to the pro-attitude, wanting to swat the fly or wanting to signal, is exactly what decides which is the case. The causal account fares better here than the pattern account.The bridge example goes to heading off our not having at hand the specific cause; when the bridge collapses folk go looking for the cause, confident that there is one. The driver waiving his hand also had a cause - was the hand wave about signalling or swatting a fly? We may not know, but the presumption that there was a cause remains. We might well not be able to tell which form a description of the event alone - the movement of the hand might be the same in both cases; something else is needed, a problem also faced by the pattern account. Here Davidson can point to the pro-attitude, wanting to swat the fly or wanting to signal is exactly what decides which is the case. The causal account fairs better here than the pattern account.

The second point is more interesting, since it concerns the difference between a description of the physiology of swatting a fly and the physiology of signalling. The difference in two descriptions of the same event is what indeed leads to the anomalous of the mental. We need first to be clear about what is the cause here - that’s an event. it is events that cause events. The event for Davidson is the “onset” of the reason, the metal event of recognising the upcoming turn, the pro-attitude and belief, causing the signalling, or the recognising of the fly, and differing pro-attitude and belief, causing the attempt at swatting…

So is there an objection to talking of mental events? or is the objection to their re-description as physical processes? I think Davidson answered the first in §IV (a), that we can and do usefully talk of metal events causing actions; that 's enough for this paper. But you are right to mark the re-description of a mental event as a physical event as a topic for later discussion - maybe anther thread on anomalous monism.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Yes. In fact, if we drop “cause” entirely for the moment and just talk about “explanation,” I’d be willing to say that, by adding the pro-attitude, we’ve explained why the hand was waved. This is certainly in line with our ordinary understanding of actions, and also mirrors our ordinary uninterest in the causal question. By that I mean: If someone came along and said, “OK, you’ve explained the wave, but how did the pro-attitude cause the wave?” we would (unless we were philosophers) probably show little interest in the matter. Sample reply: “I don’t know; no one does. Sure, if you drill down into it, there’s a problem about how my thoughts can cause things to happen, but I don’t need to have an answer to that in order to have a satisfactory answer to why [explanation] the guy waved their hand.”

There it is. For now, I would answer your questions by saying that no, the objection is not to talking of mental events. I don’t see how we can make sense of Davidson’s discourse at all without allowing mental events. (And besides, I’m pro-mental-event because I have them all the time!)

So yes, the objection is to the redescription as physical processes. Or perhaps it’s not so much an objection as a puzzle. Why do we feel the need to do this? Davidson, operating on a more or less scientific model, says that only an event can cause another event. If he keeps the description “mental event,” then he’s stuck with a mental event as the cause of a physical event. This seems occult. Since we know – or think we know – that mental events supervene upon a physical (brain) structure, perhaps then we ought to point to that physical structure as the “real” cause. But hang on! Is the mental event separate from the physical event or isn’t it? If it isn’t, then all that’s going on here is redescription in terms that can dispel the problem of how the mental can cause the physical. Is this Davidson’s position? To me it smacks of arm-waving. And it introduces the other problem with this move . . .

. . . which is that we don’t actually experience anything like what this model describes. Our experience is basic and clear: I wish to swat the fly so I move my hand. Are we wrong to say this, rather than, “Brain event X occurred [my desire] which caused physical event Y [the waving hand]”? Is “redescription” really as neutral as it sounds? I think Davidson has to say that the physical description is primary, since it does the causal work.

Let’s grant all that. Where does that leave us with mental events such as desires? What do they do, under that description? My answer would be: They provide reasons, not causes. They operate in the space of reasons, not the space of physical cause and effect. This might actually be consistent with a version of anomalous monism.

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So to (B), the objection that a cause must be logically distinct from the effect; and the accusation that reasons are not sufficiently distinct from actions.

That we may redescribe an action in terms of reasons reinforces this objection.

Davison’s response is to carefully delineate the sequence of events and descriptions. Here is one event, under three descriptions: flipping the switch, turning on the light, illuminating the room. Here is a different event: my wanting to flip the switch, turn on the light and illuminate the room. That these two are different is shown by noting that one might want to turn on the light, yet not do so.

The two are logically distinct, just as Meldon says they must be.

More interesting perhaps is the subsequent point, (top p. 696) that the truth of a causal statement is dependent on what event is described, while its logical status depends on how it is described. The causal relation is extensional; it holds regardless of what description one chooses. We are nearly at footnote 7.

So does it follow that a reason only explains an action under some descriptions, and not others - these were the descriptions are not logically distinct? Davidson considers the case of something being soluble and its dissolving in water - prima facie, there is a logical connection between something dissolving when it is dropped in water and its being soluble: being soluble just is dissolving in water. Again, great finesse is needed here; there is a directionality to the causal statement. Some things that dissolve in water may not be soluble - if, perhaps, the water must also be boiling, or acidic. So while something that is soluble will dissolve in water, it is not true that something that dissolves when dropped in water is soluble.

Is the case of wanting to illuminate the room like this? If the logical relation between a rationalisation and an action were like the prima facie relation between solubility and dissolving, we could not suitably distinguish the rationalisation from the action. However, the desire to flip the switch might be exhibited in various ways, not only by immediately flipping the switch; (they might say so, or look longingly at the switch) hence the desire and the action are distinct. The relation between rationalisation and action is not like the prima facie relation between solubility and dissolving.

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Yes - so is the unwillingness to call this a cause mere prejudice? that we would keep the word “cause” only for specifically physical explanations - and why? This is to be played out.

Given monism, whether wanting to illuminate the room is a mental event or a physical event depends on the description chosen. One event. multiple descriptions. Events, not descriptions, are what are causally related; Hence the mental description and the physical description are of the very same event, and the mental event of the wanting causes the physical event of the flipping…

Bringing us to considering what sort of thing a cause is.

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This is why “efficient cause” and “final cause” are two very different senses of “cause”. If we trace backward, a chain of efficient causes, we often find that it ends at a final cause, therefore “final” in the name. E.g., the burglar was scared away, and this was caused by the light coming on, which was caused by the electrical current, caused by flipping the switch, which was caused by wanting to…

And similarly to the way that there is a chain of efficient causes, the final cause exists within a hierarchy of values, or pro-attitudes, whatever. The person wanted to throw the switch for the sake of having light, which was for the sake of being able to see (or for the sake of scaring burglars, or maybe someone asked for it, etc.). Different senses of “cause”, different types causal chains.

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Right, that question about mere prejudice is definitely in order. Can we keep the concept of an “event”, as Davidson wants to, but allow that some events are not physical? If so, why couldn’t such a non-physical event cause something? If there’s a prejudice in play here, it’s probably what I was alluding to earlier – that “redescription” isn’t a neutral term. Davidson needs the physical description because it’s more basic than the mental description, according to his semi-physicalist lights. Or so I believe; he doesn’t specifically say that here, does he? But I think he’s very uncomfortable with the lack of a theory that would give genuine causal power to a mental event.

This is tricky. Why would a description – something we give, and that might well not be given – affect what an event is? Surely the event is what it is, independent of what we say about it? “One event, multiple descriptions,” yes, but that one event has to be unchanged by whatever description we apply. . . . Or does it? What if we expanded our concept of what an event can be, so that to “change it by description” would not be like a magical physical transformation? There’s an example of this ready to hand: When we dub something “art,” that’s exactly what we’re doing. Nothing physical changes, but now it is art, and not just an object. How can this happen? Because “being art” is a mental event, not something that inheres in the physical (though it usually requires the physical to supervene upon).

Problems still await us about whether my adopting a certain description (say, “I wanted to turn on the light and so I did” vs. “[description in terms of neural/brain events]”) carries with it a way of understanding what a cause can be – just as you say at the end of your post.

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The “art” example is clear. A small disk of metal can be, on a different description, a coin. It’s not uncommon at all for something’s status to depend on the description involved: he moved his arms up and down; he operated the pump; he pumped water into the cistern; he poisoned the people. Davidson is building on a method for individuating events and acts that is found in Anscombe, and elsewhere; that the one event can have multiple descriptions, each bringing a different import; and in turn builds on the practical syllogism.

The key in the present paper is that an event is individuated by its extension; and here “extension” is used as a logical term, the item picked out by an individual constant. And as for any individual, multiple names can be used, and so can multiple descriptions.

Davidson’s overall project, outside this paper, was to give an interpretation of natural languages in a first-order predicate language. This paper begins his interpretation of the language of action in those terms. We could individuate differently, but if we do we must change the way this sits with our logic; what Davidson proposes here is in lock step with a simple first-order logic including equality; individual constants for events, differing constants for the same event being related by “=”, and the usual quantification. There might be ways to individuate using say intensional descriptions and a more complex intuitionist logic – perhaps someone has even attempted this. But this is the most direct account.

The later development is to take the monism seriously, while maintaining the import of intentional language; so he concludes that all events are physical, and some, not all, are also mental. But he blocks reducing the mental to the physical. That’s another paper.

On the method of individuation used, the event described in terms of reasons just is, extensionally, the very same thing as the event described in terms of causes. Hence reasons are causes. If you are going to gainsay this, you will be individuating in some other way, and now the ball is in your court to set out the logic thereof explicitly. And it will be a more complex account.

So rejecting the structure given here will have complications.

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I haven’t read that article for decades, so please forgive my misunderstandings.

[quote=“Jay, post:44, topic:1696”]
Where does that leave us with mental events such as desires? What do they do, under that description? My answer would be: They provide reasons, not causes. They operate in the space of reasons, not the space of physical cause and effect.[/quote]
There’s no doubt that there are different language games involved here. Reasons justify, while causes don’t - they (merely) explain. Explanation by reasons is embedded in value and meaning. Explanation by cause strips all that away. That’s a starting-point. But I’m not sure we have an answer here unless we also map the differences between the games. The question how they intersect, if they do, will be a particular focus.

I agree with that. But I don’t see an alternative to calling that method into question. It is not straightforward to say that “he moved his arms up and down, he operated the pump, he pumped water into the cistern, he poisoned the people” are all descriptions of the same event. The event described in the first description is part of the event described in the last description. Each description introduces a wider context for the previous description, so in one sense, each description describes a different event. Events are not strung out along the string of time, each in its own capsule.

H’m. I think you have already embedded yourself in the coils of an insuperable problem.
The relationship between the fly and the wish and the swat is more complicated than that. It clearly isn’t causal, because I can wish to swat the fly even if I never swat the fly.

Perhaps we might get a somewhat different perspective on all this if we asked similar questions about a calculating machine, which somehow manages to instantiate rational and causal relationships at the same time in the same place - so long as it is working properly.

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Yes, we both agree here. I’m tempted to take it a step further and say that therefore our use of “is” or “existence” in these contexts simply can’t be limited or reduced to the physical. Doesn’t that follow from the art and coin examples (and many others)? This would oppose the idea (which I think Davidson sometimes flirts with) that the physicalist construal is always the more basic, and in some sense the “true” construal of what something is – what it “really” is, as many like to say.

Ah, but then we encounter this important point. If “extension” is merely a logical term, then we’re free to say that a round piece of metal and a coin have the same extension, without also claiming that one reduces to the other, or that the physical construal is primary. I think this is the right way to see it, but we have to be alert to the tendency to read “extension” as being about what is physical. This is fairly innocent in the case of the coin, but highly problematic in the case of mental and physical descriptions of an event like “desire” or “will.”

Yes, so this seems to be in line with the above reflections.

Yes, but as noted above, “extensionally” does not mean “physically.” “The event” is not a physical item, or perhaps we should say, “not a physical item alone.” So is it really “the very same thing” when described either as a reason or a cause? I think we should agree to this, but with the important proviso: Our choice of description affects the properties we can attribute to the item or event. The metal circle does not have the property “can be traded for food.” The coin does. So we should resist saying that what follows from all this is that reasons are causes. A cause and a reason carry with them different properties, different powers, if you will. We shouldn’t be seduced by the fact that the event has the same extension into believing that therefore it has all the same properties. And I think we need (something like) equivalence of properties in order to say that X simply is Y. Extension alone will not do it. (In this context. There are some contexts in which it will.)

Good.

Do you think that this way of looking at it is consistent with what I’ve been calling “different properties”? Clearly I’m not using “properties” in any very technical sense. I mean more or less what I think you mean: The description we give will change what we can say about the event. The “wider context” of money introduces truth-apt statements about the metal circle that were not possible before.

True, I was using a kind of shorthand. I meant to include all the other necessary factors that @Banno enumerated which would turn the “pro-attitude” into a cause. With that emendation, I still think it’s accurate to how we experience a simple event like swatting a fly. I meant to oppose the description to some ideal physical-only description in terms of neuronal action, rather than “I wish to . . .” Will the day ever come when a human automatically uses that description rather than the description of the mental event? I doubt it.

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One has to be a bit careful here. The emphasis on “are” suggests some unusual or special sense for the word. I think I might want, under some circumstances, to say that reasons are causes, while resisting reasons are causes. I think what is intended is something like reasons are causes and nothing else (or nothing more). Which is like saying that the medals you won in the war are lumps of metal and nothing else. It misses the point; though I admit that saying it might be a way of making a point. (Falstaff’s speech about honour being a breath and nothing more.)
The tricky bit is that the ice on the road can be the cause of my skidding and the reason why I am driving cautiously. The very same proposition or state of affairs can find a place in both games. That’s what, IMO, the emphasis on extensionality has got hold of, and it is hard to reject.

I think I’m pushing for a bit more detail. Each step in the sequence about the arm moving up and down includes an additional consequence of the arm’s movement - and a causal consequence at that. But that model does not apply, I think, to the actions of kicking the ball into the net, scoring a goal, winning the match, etc. I think it is better to talk more loosely about contexts, acknowledging that additional properties of the “core” event may also make a difference. (Not that I’m asserting that there is always a core event. Driving a tractor and ploughing a field don’t have a core event.)

I don’t want to trespass into formal logic here, not least because I don’t understand what intensional logic looks like. But it seems to me that Davidson is in the grip of the traditional analysis of symbols into sign and signifier, which demands a relationship between two objects as essential to meaning. But I don’t see any reason good enough to take what is true and helpful about some terms to be true and helpful of all terms.

I agree with your intention and “pro-attitude” seems to work as a catch-all for the range of features that can be involved in wishing for something. I’m just questioning the status of the claim that every action is preceded by a wish, which is something we experience beforehand. I’m following Wittgenstein here, in his examination of what comes before action, and finds empirical connections between various thoughts, feelings, etc., but not necessarily anything that could reasonably be regarded as a necessary or even causal relationship. If push comes to shove, I shall argue that the action of swatting the fly is (part of) the wish to swat the fly, of the annoyance at its buzzing, etc. Cf. the private language argument.

Too many words. I’m sorry, but I hope some of this is clear and helpful.

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The example is of course from Anscombe, Wittgenstein’s student and confidant. She uses it in intention to show that an action is intended only under certain descriptions. The difference between moving one’s arm up and down and poisoning the cistern is one of intent. Yet these are the very same event. The poisoning is how the event might be understood in a court of law, the arm movement perhaps significant in a discussion of the physiology of the body; you are right to point out that this is a difference in the language game being pursued, and that is Anscombe’s point. The description differs depending on what one is doing. The event, however, is the very same.

This whole apparatus can be understood as Anscombe elaborating on PI §611–628, especially §621 — “Let us not forget this: when ‘I raise my arm’, my arm goes up. And the problem arises: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?”; the answer being presumed to be the intent with which the action was performed, as set out in Anscombe’s book.

So keep in mind that the individuation of action and the notion of the one action having many descriptions that Davidson is using is borrowed from Anscombe who is expanding on Wittgenstein. Not a bad pedigree.

And there are consequences if it be rejected. If each description is considered a seperate act, then the sheer number of explanations for those actions explodes. We go from “he was moving his arms up and down in order to poison the population” to needing a seperate explanation for each description as a mooted act. “I was only moving my arms up and down” is not a defence.

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This is quite at odds with what Davidson is suggesting; and that this is so is the very point of treating causes as between the extension of events.

The description in physical terms is no more basic than the description in intentional terms. If event A causes event B, then it will do so regardless of how the two events are described.

Some philosophers tend to treat “extension” only as a physical body . That is a somewhat restricted view, due to Descartes. The Fregean account is that extension of a proper name is exactly and only the thing named; the extension of some description is similarly the thing named; that different proper names and descriptions refer to the vary same thing is the purpose of treating things extensionally. Davidson is not saying “causation is extensional, extension is physical, therefore the causally relevant description must be physical.”

Well, no. Extensionally, the metal disk and the coin are the very same; so the disk can be traded for food. Indeed, one cannot trade the coin for food without also trading the metal disk. Now to be sure, that the metal disk has a certain value is a property of the disk under a certain intensional description, but that does not render it not a description of the disk. Rather the opposite.

Reiterating, “extension” is here not understood as Descartes’ res extensa; it is understood as Frege’s extensional context, in which to say a context is extensional is to say co-referring terms are interchangeable there salva veritate.

The physical description has no special place, not yet. We can go on to a treatment of Mental Events after this paper, if you like; and look at how Davidson treats of casual laws in more detail; there, the “special” place of a physical description is shown to be nomological. not ontological. Here, what we have is footnote seven.

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There is a context in which moving one’s arm up and down and poisoning the cistern could be applied to distinct events. What unites them is that I move my arm in order to fill the cistern in order to poison the inhabitants, or, more simply, the intention or purpose. So I prefer to say that they are distinct events, but one action.
In this case, I find it awkward to say that the action is the very same event under all the descriptions. I think that’s because the relationship is a causal chain or a series of steps in a means-ends structure.

There are cases in which the multi-level descriptions are indeed the very same event. Signalling my distress by waving a white flag is an example. Handing over some money and buying the vegetables is another. Making a promise and uttering certain words is yet another. One model does not cover all the multifarious actions that we undertake.

The relationship between actions and events (neither of which have strong criteria of individuation) is a relationship across categories and I’m not at all sure that equating one action to one event is always helpful.

Yes. Wittgenstein is a master of getting us to see things differently. It would be tempting, wouldn’t it, to answer that the difference lies in the intention, and that wouldn’t be wrong. But an intention is a mental event which, let us say, causes the physical event. Davidson seems unbothered by this.

Yes. I’m trying to suggest an exploration of the intricacies of this idea.

When I was reading the article, I noticed that Davidson is concerned to defend the view that a reason is only a reason if it causes the relevant action. There is good reason for this, because there is a difference between having a reason to do X and doing X.

Davidson is defending the view that reasons are a species of cause and this, to some extent, is a solution. But the only distinguishing mark for reasons is that reasons justify their actions, while causes don’t. Is that really enough?

This reminds me of the classic issue about Aristotle’s practical syllogism. He concludes his description of the major and minor premisses with “and straightway he acts”. There’s a jump here from thinking to doing. I don’t think anyone has come up with an answer.

Yes. I think his critique of Humean causality in this context amounts to a rejection of that argument. But then, someone needs to elaborate what conception of causality might apply to both reasons and causes.

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You may say as you wish, and accept the consequences. Since we are here discussing Davidson and Anscombe, we might do well to continue with the structure they use.

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On to objection C, then, and further consideration of the notion of causality being used here. The objection is that causal statements involve an appeal to a generalisation; but rationalisations are not governed by these sorts of generalisations. “In brief, laws are involved essentially in ordinary causal explanations, but not in rationalizations.”

Davidson agrees that “generalizations connecting reasons and actions are not-and cannot be sharpened into-the kind of law on the basis of which accurate predictions can reliably be made.” The accepted reason is only one among many considered a the time of the action, only one (or at most some) of which is displayed by a practical syllogism; the practical syllogism is ex post facto, after the fact, a rationalisation made after some action is decided on, and so not a candidate for either a causal or a normative generalisation.

Here for the second time Davidson downplays the role of the practical syllogism.

Instead, in answering the objection Davidson points out that the objection applies to the quintessential cases of physical causation as well; we are certain hat the rock broke the window, despite being unable to provide a suitable generalisation: “We are usually far more certain of a singular causal connection than we are of any causal law governing the case”.

That we cannot state a general law does not entail that there is none. This is true of physical causation as well as rationalisations for our acts.

So to footnote seven, “A caused B” entailing a law is ambiguous between:

  1. entailing some particular law using the very predicates in “A” and “B” (strong reading), or
  2. entailing merely that there exists a causal law true of some true descriptions of A and B (weak reading)

Only the weak reading survives. No particular law is entailed by a singular causal claim, so the claim can be defended without defending any law. Put more simply, there may indeed be a casual law, but not every description of the sequence of events need include that causal law. Not all true generalisations are causal laws. The hurricane example shows exactly this.

Here he is leaving open the possibility that the causal laws are “neurological, chemical or physical”, a topic to which he returned in Mental Events. But here it suffices that reasons can cause actions even though no law is statable in the vocabulary of reasons and actions.

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Objection D is that one’s knowledge of one’s own reasons is infallible, non-inductive, non-observational; no ordinary causal relation can be known this way. Causes are not known in this way; therefore reasons are not causes.

Davidson first points out that one can be wrong about our own reasons for some action. But he agrees that despite this, it is true that we do not learn of our reasons for action from the evidence presented; but we do learn causes from the evidence. However, while examining the evidence may be one way to learn that a law is true, it might not be the only way. Having non-inductive knowledge of one’s reasons simply doesn’t preclude those reasons standing in a causal relation to the action.

So while we may have special access to our reasons, this is not grounds for concluding that our actions are not caused by our reasons.

The response to both objection C and objection D is grounded in noting that we can and do ground singular causal claims without explicitly presenting the covering generalisation.

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Objection E is that presenting our actions as caused threatens to turn us into automata, into “a helpless victim of all that occurs in and to him”.

Davidson points out the contradiction in agreeing that bodily movements have causes while denying that actions have causes, when actions are in a strong sense bodily movements.

He diagnoses the philosophical unease as deriving from a perhaps unstated presumption that a cause must itself have a causer, so that if it is not I who cause my actions, it must be something else. Davidson rejects this presumption by noting that some cases have no agent; that the reason is the cause is exactly what makes the action voluntary. The agent for the cause is I.

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Fair enough. Forgive my interruption.