Dispute Between Holism and Anti-holism in the Study of Meaning

The dispute between holism and anti-holism in the study of meaning is the result of the profound study of intentionality or meaning in philosophy of mind. It concerns the individual conditions or reasons of each meaning,and whether they should be individualized according to the intrinsic physical properties they are supervenient on.With the deepening research and debates on individualism and anti-individualism around the above-mentioned problems,meaning holism emerges as a kind of comprehensive and balanced theory. Anti-holism made an overall criticism of holism,which triggered widespread debates between the two. Holism thinks that meaning is determined by substances with the holistic properties,while anti-holism thinks the meaning of a symbol is not affected by its relations with other symbols. The creative argument and debate between the two have not only deepened the understanding on the nature and the decisive conditions of meaning,but also produced a tremendous boost to the study of philosophy of mind and even to the holistic study of metaphysics.