Grice must be having in mind Quine's qualms with 'ontological commitment' since he speaks of e-commitment, and e-commital, with 'e' standing for 'existence', rather.
I wonder how clever Quine was being when he spoke of 'ontological' rather than 'existential'.
Ontology is that branch of whatever that deals with what there is. As Quine says, 'to be is to be the value of a variable'.
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"Exist" is possibly a verb that shouldn't exist.
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We seem to do pretty well with the less pedantic 'is'.
Ex-ist means, literally ek-, i.e. out of -- sist. As opposed to IN-sist, into-sist.
So, if you exist, you insist.
I insist; therefore, I exist.
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Note that the reciprocal is implicatural only:
"I exist; therefore, I insist".
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