A meaning holistic (dis)solution of subject-object dualism - its implications for the human sciences

This article presents and analyses a social-practice contextualist version of meaning holism, whose main root lies in American pragmatism. Proposing that beliefs depend on systems of language-use in social practices, which involve communities of people and worldly objects, such meaning holism effectively breaks down the Enlightenment tradition's philosophical subject-object dualism (and scepticism). It also opens the human mind up for empirical research - in a sociologizing', anthropologizing' and historicizing' vein. The article discusses the implications of this approach for the human sciences, for instance certain parallel developments in anthropology and archaeology.