"Free for lunch": the implicature of freedom

by JLS
for the GC

Grice was interested in the concept of freedom for various reasons. As a Kantotelian, he was bound to! Grice considers three stages in the concept of 'free':

First, an object (or thing) which moves freely. "Freely-moving" (Grice 1986). Here the adverbial should count as basic; yet it is analogical. We say the thing moves _freely_ perhaps echoing a focal meaning where 'free' applies to 'man'.

The other stages are: animal-vegetal free. How 'free' is a plant to move towards a better area which is sunnier -- a creeper, for example, such as an ivy. How free is a bird to search for the best place to construct a nest?

Finally, human freedom. Aristotle was right about 'healthy' applying notably to animals, and only analogically to things like 'urine' or 'food'. Mutatis mutandis, 'free'.

A person is free.

In Antiquity, as Grice comments, perhaps it would not have been too inappropriate for a slave to ask another:

"Are you free for lunch?"

The implicature, "I'm ALWAYS free" is cancelled -- in the case of slaves. Aristotle knew that.

In USA, when slavery was an _option_ similar circumstances held, also in all the other places that had slavery. In Italy, there is a relic of that:

"Ciao, bella"

is used as a greeting, initial and terminal. It literally means, oddly, "I am your slave". This may be a relic of the days when Rome was subservient of the Greek empire. Or not.

Kant's moral theory is different in that, while there were slaves in Germany THEN, he ignored them. Etc.