蒯因與戴維森均以討論「意義」和「整體論」而著名，但是，很多人在討論他們的哲學時，卻經常忽略了存在於他們之間一些很基本的差異。本文的目的在於，透過對於蒯因的「徹底翻譯」和戴維森的「徹底詮釋」之比較與闡釋，幫助大家看到蒯因的「意義整體論」和戴維森的「整體的意義理論」其實有他們不同的考量與主張；而蒯因基於幼兒語言學習和語言學家的徹底翻譯所得出的「溫和整體論」，又和戴維森的「極端整體論」大異其趣，其中最大的差異在於戴維森基本上反對蒯因所採取的行為主義式的處理問題方式，戴維森意義理論是以一種類似塔斯基的真理理論為基礎所建構起來的詮釋理論。無論如何，兩人都同意，整體論是在研究「意義」和「語言」的問題時一個正確的途徑，也只有在成功無礙的溝通（翻譯或詮釋）情境之下，「意義」的觀念才會真正顯示出其價值與功能。

Both Quine and Davidson have been well-known for their works on meaning and holism. Many discussions of their points of view, however, fail to see the significant differences between them. In this article, I shall show that Quine's project of radical translation paves the way for his distinctive semantic thesis of meaning holism, while Davidson's project of radical interpretation leads him to construct his own holistic theory of meaning. Through a naturalistic account of children's language learning and the thought experiment of radical translation, Quine argues for and arrives at what he calls a “moderate” meaning holism. Davidson's disagreement with Quine's behavioristic approach toward semantic studies results in an “extreme” holistic theory of meaning which employs a Tarski-style theory of truth as part of its fundamental structure. It is concluded that the approach to the notion of “meaning” or to the study of language in general must be holistic for both of them. It is only in the context of a successful translation for Quine and in the context of a successful interpretation for Davidson that the notion of “meaning” can become intelligible.