I agreed with Mill more on this one because ultimately your ideas are meant to map onto the world. I think that the meaning of the words themselves are directly linked to the ideas in your mind, but those ideas are not in isolation from the world, they are motivated by real world objects. Thus, when we say bananas are yellow, we are not only communicating about an idea of bananas in our heads; we are trying to assert a fact about actual bananas themselves.
Does Locke want to claim words only refer to thoughts and nothing more, that is, that there is no connection between the ideas in our heads and the real world? If so, this view seems a little bit extreme because it does seem like our thoughts are connected to the world in some way, even loosely.
Mill's view is problematic too because different people may have different ideas about what a certain word refers to. When I use the word 'bank', the idea in my head may be different from someone else's idea (for instance, the edge of a river instead of a financial institution), so how could 'bank' possibly refer to the same actual object itself between people and in different contexts without referring to the idea of those things?
--Sean Wammer
Mill would likely have a name for words which do that as well. He doesn't seem keen on interpretation be individuals as with out do so without his label maker of a system.
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ReplyDeleteI think when Locke claims that words only refer to thought/ideas, it takes into account the fact that those ideas are constructed by the connection of our senses to the real world. What we see/feel/etc. something, therefore we think of it.
Delete--Henry Tran