My dossier for Grice: the philosopher without the beautiful handwriting

Dale notes in chapter 5 to his "Theory of meaning":

"What Lewis is noting about ascriptions taken in sensu diviso is that even when a term in the "that"-clause complement of a verb of propositional attitude is given wide scope, the person to whom the attitude is ascribed is still required, somehow, to have some sort of description - or picture, or other representation."

I would agree. While I find it rather boring -- where 'it' is Evans's book -- I think McDowell did a good job in editing Evans's notes into a book, "Variieties of reference". If you find it boring (as my brother did), skip the book and go to the 'name index' and check "Grice". I THINK Evans, for one, quotes a basic notion in Grice that has been underestimated in the literature (even if Oestertag did reprint the relevant section of Grice's Vacuous Names in his influential reader on Definite descriptions for MIT).

Evans relies on Grice's idea of a 'dossier'.

Apparently, it is an Americanism. Americans keep dossiers of things -- and notably people --. I think Grice uses the delta Greek letter to symbolise a 'dossier'.

I think Grice wants to say:

"Grice" = "the philosopher who taught for years at St. John's"
---------- "the author of "Studies in the Way of Words"

Of course, that's the dossier for "Herbert Paul Grice".

The dossier for

"Herbert Grice", simpliciter, is for Grice's father (called "Herbert Grice"). And the dossier for

"G. Russell Grice" is for "the moral philosopher who taught at UEA/Norwich"

and so on.

If, with Quine, we skip 'proper names' and re-symbolise

"G" as the predicate "griceises"

(Ex)Gx

there is something that griceises

we may do without dossiers.

But on the whole I seem to agree with the late Lewis point that some sort of 'representation' or dossier is needed when we use a singular term, and that the set of 'definite descriptions' that are attached to them is the way to go to make sense of any possible reference we may make to them. Or not?