Editing Belief (section)

=== Atomism, molecularism and holism ===
The disagreement between ''atomism, molecularism and holism'' concerns the question of how the content of one belief depends on the contents of other beliefs held by the same subject.<ref name="Block"/> Atomists deny such dependence relations, molecularists restrict them to only a few closely related beliefs while holists hold that they may obtain between any two beliefs, however unrelated they seem.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Pitt"/><ref name="Block"/> For example, assume that Mei and Benjamin both affirm that [[Jupiter]] is a planet. The most straightforward explanation, given by the atomists, would be that they have the same belief, i.e. that they hold the same content to be true. But now assume that Mei also believes that [[Pluto]] is a planet, which is denied by Benjamin. This indicates that they have different concepts of [[planet]], which would mean that they were affirming different contents when they both agreed that Jupiter is a planet. This reasoning leads to molecularism or holism because the content of the Jupiter-belief depends on the Pluto-belief in this example.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Block"/>

An important motivation for this position comes from [[W. V. Quine]]'s [[confirmational holism]], which holds that, because of this interconnectedness, we cannot confirm or disconfirm individual hypotheses, that confirmation happens on the level of the theory as a whole.<ref name="Block"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wagner |first1=Steven J. |title=Quine's Holism |journal=Analysis |date=1986 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.2307/3328733 |jstor=3328733 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3328733 |issn=0003-2638 |access-date=5 April 2021 |archive-date=1 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601042957/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3328733?seq=1 |url-status=live }}</ref> Another motivation is due to considerations of the nature of learning: it is often not possible to understand one concept, like [[force]] in [[Newtonian physics]], without understanding other concepts, like [[mass]] or [[kinetic energy]].<ref name="Block">{{cite book |last1=Block |first1=Ned |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=1996 |publisher=Routledge |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BLOMAS |chapter=Holism, Mental and Semantic |access-date=5 April 2021 |archive-date=15 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160815130429/http://philpapers.org/rec/BLOMAS |url-status=live }}</ref> One problem for holism is that genuine disagreements seem to be impossible or very rare: disputants would usually talk past each other since they never share exactly the same web of beliefs needed to determine the content of the source of the disagreement.<ref name="Schwitzgebel"/><ref name="Block"/>