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In philosophy, the principle of Holism (which comes from the Greek "holos" meaning
"all" or "total") was concisely summarized by Aristotle in his "Metaphysics": "The
whole is more than the sum of its parts". However, the term "holism" was only
introduced into the language by the South African statesman Jan Smuts as recently
as 1926.
There are two main types, Epistemological Holism (or Confirmation Holism) and
Semantic Holism which are discussed in more detail below.
Types of Holism
Epistemological Holism (or Confirmation Holism) is the claim that a single
scientific theory cannot be tested in isolation, because a test of one theory
always depends on other theories and hypotheses. One aspect of this is that the
interpretation of observation is "theory-laden" (dependent on theory); another
aspect is that evidence alone is insufficient to determine which theory is correct.
In the 1950's and 1960's, philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V.O. Quine
and Donald Davidson broadened this principle still further to arrive at the
position that a sentence (and therefore a word) has meaning only in the context of
a whole language. However, problems arise with the theory because, given the limits
of our cognitive abilities, we will never be able to master the whole of any
language, and it also fails to explain how two speakers can mean the same thing
when using the same linguistic expression (and how communication is even possible
between them).
Confirmation Holism and Semantic Holism are inextricably linked, and yet, although
Confirmation Holism is widely accepted among philosophers, Semantic Holism is much
less so. The question remains as to how the two holisms can be distinguished, and
how the undesirable consequences of "unbuttoned holism" can be limited.