[lit-ideas] "And That's That" (Was: Tautology)

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:23:25 EDT

 
 
Erin Holder asks:
 
>>Is "That's that" a tautology?
 
I replied, 'yes'.
 
She further inquires:
>So it's only a tautology if it 
>has fixed indexicals?


 
I would think so. Indexicals are a trick, as you know. "I met this man at  
the park, and he said,...". In this case, 'this' ('this man') is _not_ really  
'indexical'. 
 
On the other hand, some people have argued that 'the' (as in 'the king of  
France is bald') _is_ indexical -- and I see the point (Grice lists 'the' along 
 
with the other logical operators, and 'some' and 'all' in Logic and  
Conversation, for treatment in the implicature theory).
 
When it comes to 'that', it's somewhere between 'the', 'a', 'this' and --  I 
love to add -- 'yonder'. The spectrum being from total indefiniteness ('a') to 
 definiteness ('the'), via demonstration -- which can be 'proximate' -- 
'this'  --, 'medial' -- 'that' -- and 'distal' -- 'yonder').
 
In this logic, 'That's that' should be understood as involving some level  of 
'variable': "That x is that x". This is controversial. Russell noted that  
"this" (rather than "this x") was the primitive sense-datum.
 
It's best to regard the 'that' in "That's that" as a nominalised  
demonstrative", then. Qua indexicals, in conversation, sometimes, the 
_referent_  is 
taken for granted ("this is this and that is that"). But of course there may  
be 
occasions where what is otherwise obvious is not ("Actually, I beg to  
disagree: this is that and that is this" [this {a} is that {b} and that {c} is  
this 
{d}]."
 
So, in the explicature, "That's that" becomes, using something like Grice's  
theory of quasi-demonstration (see 'Presupposition and Conversational  
Implicature'), something like:
 
      "That [Î±] is that  [Î±]."
 
and, to make a short story long, is only tautologous under that specific  
deictic interpretation or universe of discourse.
 
I would be curious to know how many occurrences google.com gives for  "that's 
that" which is _not_ followed by the conjunction "and", though.
 
Cheers,
 
JL





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[lit-ideas] "And That's That" (Was: Tautology)

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