The basic problem for any view such as Mill's is how we can determine what the referent of a name, as used by a given speaker, is.
1978, John A. Hawkins, Definiteness and Indefiniteness[2]:
Thus, the act of referring anaphorically involves a form of instruction to the hearer to match the linguistic referent of the definite description with a particular object in his mind, an object which has been entered into his memory store in the course of some previous conversation with that speaker.
2005, Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century[3]:
Second, even if we assume that speakers always have an appropriate parasitic description associated with a name, it would have to be shown that they somehow accord this description priority in determining the referent of the name over all other descriptions that they associate with it.
