Locke and Mill [Korey Nuehs]

I agree more with Locke, in that I believe that our words stand for our ideas and not the things in themselves. We only have direct epistemic access to the ideas within our minds and not to the actual objects in themselves, to which we have only indirect access. For example, when we call something green, we are not saying that greenness is a part of the actual object outside of our conception of it, but that the sensation of greenness is produced simultaneously with the object whenever we encounter the object, i.e. the idea of the object is only green and not the actual object itself.

Mill seems to say contrary things in that he says names are of things themselves, but then later on says that “we put a mark”, (a name), “not indeed upon the object itself, but, so to speak, upon the idea of the object.” I’m confused, is Mill contradicting his earlier statement about names being about things in themselves, or is this statement only referring to proper names, and if so, how are proper names different than regular names in this regard?

For Locke’s view my question would be: can two lifeforms with entirely different ideas of objects, i.e. receiving vastly different sensations upon their encounter with the same objects, communicate with another? For example, can a bat or an alien communicate with a human? Under his view, this seems to me to be impossible, and any communication with any future species seems unlikely.