Grice's Betes Noires

Among the betes noires pilgrim Grice meets on his path to the holy of holies, he selects to fight "Extensionalism" -- "a position imbued with the
spirit of Nominalism and dear both to those who feel that (b) is no more
informative an answer to the question (a) than would be (d) as an answer to
(c)."
a: Why is a pillar box called 'red'?
b: Because it is red.
c: And why is that person called 'Paul Grice'?
d: Because he is Paul Grice.
The picture of Extensionalism Grice presents is: "a world of PARTICULARS
as a domain stocked with tiny pellets ... distinguish[ed] by the clubs to
which they belong". "The potential consequences of the possession of in fact
UNEXEMPLIFIED features [or properties] would be ... the same." One may
want to "relieve a certain VACUOUS predicate ... by exploiting the
NON-VACUOUSNESS of other predicates which are constituents in the definition of the
original vacuous predicate." Grice exemplifies with two vacuous predicates:
1 -- " ... is married to a daughter of an English queen and a pope"; 2 -- "
... is a climber on hands and knees of a 29,000 foot mountain." By
appealing to different "relations" to the 'primitive' predicates, one can claim is
such _distinct_ relations, rather than the empty set which each vacuous
predicate is made equivalent to. His objection to this move has to do with
what he feels an adhocness in defining the relations as involving NON-VACUOUS
predicates. -- the relevant passage is available as google books --. (p.
70). A second way out to the alleged problem involves 'trivial' versus
'non-trivial' explanations: "the explanatory opportunities for vacuous predicates
depend on their embodiment in a system". His caveat here is purely
ontological: "I conjecture, but cannot demonstrate, that the only way to secure
such a system would be to confer SPECIAL ONTOLOGICAL privilege upon the
ENTITIES of PHYSICAL SCIENCE..." -- But that's Eddington "non-visible" 'table'.
Grice notes: "It looks AS IF states of affairs in the ... scientific world
need, for credibility, support from the vulgar world of ORDINARY
OBSERVATION..." -- Eddington's _visible_ 'table'.
And this, he feels would be an 'embellisment' in need of some
justification."

Etc.