 But if ‘that’-clauses are singular terms, what sorts of objects do they refer to? Well, it might seem that they refer to facts, or states of affairs. For instance, it might seem that ‘that snow is white’ refers to the fact that snow is white. This, however, is a mistake (at least in connection with the ‘that’-clauses that appear in belief reports). For since beliefs can be false, it follows that the ‘that’-clauses in our belief reports refer to things that can be false. E.g., if Sammy is seven years old, then the sentence ‘Sammy believes that snow is powdered sugar’ could be true; but if this sentence is true, then (by our criterion of ontological commitment) its ‘that’-clause refers to a real object; but then it cannot refer to a fact, because (obviously) there is no such thing as the fact that snow is powdered sugar.