Locke and Mill [Hayley Thompson]

While I believe the truth lies somewhere in between, Locke's views of meaning and reference lies closer to it than those of Mill. In Mill's sentence, "the sun is the cause of day," the words "sun", "cause", and "day" each have connotative meanings. Even though they may each denote a single and specific object, action, or idea, every person still must make their own mental representations of what these words mean. Even the seemingly simple and concrete concept of "the sun" may be interpreted differently; someone might know of it only as a bright object in the sky, while another may know it as the yellow star that their home planet orbits around. It is in fact the sun's brightness that causes day rather than the fact the earth orbits around it. Therefore, Mill's idea of the sun implied by this sentence is that it is extremely bright. Other descriptions and ideas of the sun would not necessarily cause "day". This said, Locke's view that words refer purely to perceptions ignores the fact that, in the physical realm (at least of our solar system), there only exists one sun. If someone said "the object that the earth orbits is the cause of day", they use the reference object as a stepping stone between two meanings: that of the earth's center of orbit, and that of the object bright enough to cause daylight.  Only knowing the first meaning, one might think the sun causes the day magic, yet knowing the reference allows them to infer that another of its property (perhaps its brightness) may cause the day.