I think Mill does a better job in defining the meaning and reference of our terms. Locke has a point that we as humans give names to things, and that those names have no meaning whatsoever outside of our perspective, however Mill admits as much and goes into much further detail (admittedly, mostly about names) on the categorization of words and their uses.
Does Locke in saying "Till he has some ideas of his own, he cannot suppose them to correspond with the conceptions of another man; nor can he use any signs for them: for thus they would be the signs of he knows not what, which is in truth to be the signs of nothing" mean that if someone were to give me a sentence consisting of words that I do not know or understand, and repeat this sentence to another who does know and understand those words, that the sentence is meaningless to another? He seems to put a heavy emphasis on the use of words to express ideas, and that words themselves have no life of their own except what an individual gives to them.
When Mill says that there is good sense in calling "the word sun the name of the sun, and not the name of our idea of the sun" he does not mean that everyone will think of the physical object itself, or even think of the object in the same way. He admits that it is inevitable that conception alone be thought of when a name is said. However he does not address the topic of homophones. He does discuss the relation of words to each other, such as his example with "the present prime minister of England," however I would like to know his thoughts on the matter.
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