Meaning atomism, meaning holism and indeterminacy of meaning

This chapter (Meaning Atomism, Meaning Holism and Indeterminacy of Meaning) enshrines a liaison between the meaning atomism (a piecemeal procedure of representing the word in a sentence) and internalism or the meaning holism (corporate body of the sentence) with externalism. The primordial concern of the paper illustrates how Quine’s radical naturalism could divert towards the indeterminacy thesis of meaning that we may call meaning nihilism moderately. Quine pivots on an evidential acquisition of scientific knowledge, but language remains as a vehicle of knowledge that pertinently regimented in his naturalistic epistemology and philosophical grounds. What does the chapter resurgence from Putnam’s stance is that Quine was neither a meaning holist nor a confirmation holist. Quine’s stance on meaning can fit for a ‘meaning nihilism’ hypothesis that declines any confirmation holistic outlook anticipated by Fodor. Quine and Putnam snub the constitutive connection of meaning as a second grade notion since the concept of meaning in metaphysics sounds as heuristic and should not be taken critically in any ‘science worthy’ literature. The mistaken part arises when we consider that Quine’s understandings on holism of empirical meaning (in the sense of observational categories that science acknowledged) could suitable for the meaning in the semantical milieu.