Editing Sense and reference (section)

===John Stuart Mill===
The sense-reference distinction is commonly confused with that between [[connotation]] and [[denotation]], which originates with [[John Stuart Mill]].<ref>See section §5 of Book I, Chapter II of Mill's [[A System of Logic]].</ref> According to Mill, a common term like 'white' ''denotes'' all white things, as snow, paper.<ref>[[:nl:Willem Remmelt de Jong|Jong, W. R. de]], ''The Semantics of John Stuart Mill'' ([[Dordrecht]]: [[D. Reidel]], 1982), [https://books.google.com/books?id=q2gqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 pp. 11–13].</ref>{{rp|11–13}} But according to Frege, a common term does not refer to any individual white thing, but rather to an abstract concept ([[wikt:Begriff|''Begriff'']]). We must distinguish between the relation of reference, which holds between a proper name and the object it refers to, such as between the name 'Earth' and the planet [[Earth]], and the relation of 'falling under', such as when the Earth falls under the concept ''planet''. The relation of a proper name to the object it designates is direct, whereas a word like 'planet' does not have such a direct relation to the Earth; instead, it refers to a concept under which the Earth falls. Moreover, judging of anything that it falls under this concept is not in any way part of our knowledge of what the word 'planet' means.<ref>Frege, A Critical Elucidation of Some Points in E. Schroeder's [https://books.google.com/books?id=P95LAAAAYAAJ ''Vorlesungen Ueber Die Algebra der Logik''], ''Archiv für systematische Philosophie'' 1895, pp. 433-456, transl. [[Peter Geach|P. T. Geach]], in Geach & [[Max Black|Black]] pp. 86-106.</ref> The distinction between connotation and denotation is closer to that between concept and object than to that between 'sense' and 'reference'.