Locke and Mill [Alberto Torrigiotti]

       I agree with Locke that when one uses a word, he cannot help but use it to stand for his idea of an object; he is bound to operate within his particular language or apparatus for perception, understanding, etc. There are in my mind strong reasons to reject that anything like a direct experiencing of objects is possible or even intelligible, but I suppose I am presently open to the possibility that words can "stand for" objects, depending on the sense of "stand for" employed. Still, Mill's example of the sun causing day purports to show that words actually "stand for" objects and not ideas, but merely demonstrates the trivial truth that we take them to correspond to a level of reality outside of our own minds.

Locke: I am curious what Locke would regard as the important difference, if indeed he contends there is one, between ritualized utterances with signification, e.g., "it's a piece of cake" and natural utterances, e.g., "it's sunny outside".

Mill: Mill raises a very interesting point in his example of Dartmouth in which a wide range of conditions could obtain to drastically change its elements, but we may still regard it as Dartmouth. Mill seems to think this is only possible for proper names, but I can think of many examples of words which are not proper names with this quality--water for instance.