… #Holism of #meaning. A #word has meaning only within a #lexicon & a context of #language practices, which are ultimately embedded in a form of life. * * * This insight flows from the recognition of the #linguistic dimension as #Herder formulated it. Once you articulate this bit of our background understanding, an #atomism of meaning becomes as untenable … . To posses a word of human language is to have some sense that it’s the right word … . [p. 93]

… A being who emitted a #sound when faced with a given object but was incapable of saying why … would have to be deemed to be merely responding to #signals [like a parrot, like a computer].

This is what the holism of meaning amounts to: individual #words can be words only within the context of an articulated language [a #grammar]. Language is not something can be built up one word at a time. [p. 94]

Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), pp. 93-94