Free fall in Locke, Golding and Grice

by JLS
for the GC

I wouldn't know about quantum-gravity free fall (but cfr. "Progress towards a space-borne quantum gravity gradiometer" -- "During the free fall, a sequence of laser pulses is used to ... to an entirely new class of gravity sensors: quantum gravity gradiometer (QGG) based on atom ...
trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/39082/1/04-1576.pdf).

In any case, talking of wavicles and nonlocality, which cannot fail to fascinate people, there's the free-fall proper. Oddly, Locke uses the example. He can be naive sometimes.

He says (using an example by Grice, later) -- 'why did the bridge collapse?'. 'Because the girders were made of cellophane' (Grice: "The reason why the bridge collapsed was that the girders were made of cellophane" Aspects of reason. Explanatory vs. justificatory reason.

"The girders of the bridge were made of cellophane" (Grice, "Aspects of reason" -- the logic of 'whys' and 'becauses'). The example by Locke is a man who, crossing a bridge, collapses.

Why did he fall?

Teleological explanation: "Because he was stupid enough not to see that parts of the bridge were made of cellophane".

Quantum-gravity: Because of gravity.

----- Free fall, I read, does not mean necessarily 'down':

From wiki:

"Since this definition does not specify velocity, it also applies to objects initially moving upward."

I often thought that

"London bridge is falling down" flouted a Gricean maxim. For surely, "falling up" seems oxymoronic. But apparently it ain't. Or something.

From R. B. Jones's handy online edition of the best philosophical book ever published in England:

http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/locke/ctb2c21.htm#8

Locke:

"Likewise a man falling into the water, (a bridge breaking under him), has not herein liberty, is not a free agent."

"For though he has volition, though he prefers his not falling to falling."

"Yet the forbearance of that motion not being in his power, the stop or cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition."

"And therefore therein he is NOT FREE."

-----

Even though, strangely (misleading, implicature-wise) he is falling 'free':

---- Oddly, they may be talking of the same bridge, since Locke was from Somerset, and Clifton used to be in Somerset (where Grice went to school) -- or Gloucestershire -- today: Avon.