The Predicament And Thinking About Individualism And Holism

The relationship between individual and society is the basis to establish ontology and methodology of social philosophy. It is also a central issue of conception of society and history. This issue of relationship is fundamental to existence and development of human beings, a focus of divergence of social conception and logical premise to resolve other problems of social philosophy. Atomism and Holism in the history of philosophy is result of substantial and one-dimensional mode of thinking, whose defects consist of two-value logic, mechanical cycle and halfway criticism to the premise of theory. They research related objects and issues by non-related mode of thinking. In the views of practice, the investigation of relationship between individual and society becomes more and more important. Under the highly concentrated planned-economy system, academic research lacks critical dimension to social reality, and takes social entity for grant, emphasizing abstract Collectivism as well as Idealism, regarding individual as means to realize the aims of social entity, obliterating individual's principal status and functions in society. In recent years, along with the deepening of reform and open, the base points of social relationship is transferred to individual form society, and this transfer is so questionable that the thought trends of subjectivity advocating singularity gets cooling after a long rush. At present, the issue of reasonably understanding relation between individual and society is still an important subject and needs deepened research. Form viewpoints of relation, this paper searches sticking point causing opposition between individualism and holism, and then considers the way to clear up opposition in methodology between them.