A Griceian Priority

As we consider the implicature of

'x is free' (in Ancient Greece): +> He is not a slave.
'x is free' (in 'freeER' societies): +> He is out of jail. (Danto, "Free
will and the paradigm case argument")

it may do to consider different orders of Griceian priorities.

One could claim that 'free' (and indeed 'enslaved', 'half-enslaved', etc.)
were originally _legal_ or political terms. Yet, when Mele uses 'free
will' he does not necessarily mean _legal_.

Grice:

"The complexities introduced by the
possibility that there is no original, unconstructed,
area of reality ... suggests that debates about
the foundations of metaphysics" are complicated.
... "...I would look
for a list, which might not be all that different from
the list provided by Aristotle, of different kinds, or
interpretations, of the idea of PRIORITY with a view
to deciding when the supposition that A is prior to B
allows or disallows the possibility that B may also be
prior to A, either in the same, or in some other
dimension of priority".

the stone fell free.
the albatross flew free.
Peter was free.

----

"Relevant kinds of priority would perhaps include
LOGICAL priority, definitional or conceptual
priority, epistemic priority, and priority in
respect of value."

"For different m and n, it might be legitimate
to suppose that the priority-sub-m of A to B
would NOT be a barrier to the priority-sub-n of B
to A."

----

Grice's example:

"The legal concept of right is prior to the moral
concept of right."

----

"The moral concept is only understandable by
reference to, and perhaps is even explicitly
definable in terms of, the legal concept."

cfr. 'free' -- he is not a slave -- "politically free" PRIOR to 'the stone
fell free'.

----

"But, if that is so, we are perhaps NOT
debarred from regarding the MORAL concept
as valuationally prior to the legal concept; the
range of application of the legal cocnetp
OUGHT TO BE always determined by criteria
which are couched in terms of the moral concept."

----

"Behavioural" 'freedom' PRIOR to 'anthropic' free-will, say.

Grice goes on:

"Again, it might be important to distinguish
two kinds of CONCEPTUAL priority."

"The properties of sense data are posterior
to corresponding properties of material things. Properties
of material things render the properties of sense-data
intelligible. But when it comes to the
provision of a suitably motivated THEORY of
material things"

---- or 'freedom' ---

"and their properties, the idea of making these
DEFINITIONALLY explicable in terms of sense-data
... may NOT be ruled out by the holding of the
aforementioned conceptual priority in the reverse
direction."

----

And so on. This from "Prejudices and predilections, which become the life
and opinions of Paul Grice" by Paul Grice, otherwise known as "Reply to
Richard Grandy and Richard Warner, or 'Richards' for short".