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World view - Weltanschauung
A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word
Weltanschauung (pronounced [ˈvɛlt.anˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ]) meaning a "look onto the
world." It implies a concept fundamental to German philosophy and
epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it
refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual
interprets the world and interacts in it. The German word is also in
wide use in English, as well as the translated form world outlook.
(Compare with ideology).
Origins of World Views
Worldview and linguistics
A worldview describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral
sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining,
and applying knowledge.
The linguistic relativity hypothesis of Benjamin Lee Whorf describes how
the syntactic-semantic structure of a language becomes an underlying
structure for the Weltanschauung of a people through the organization of
the causal perception of the world and the linguistic categorization of
entities. As linguistic categorization emerges as a representation of
worldview and causality, it further modifies social perception and
thereby leads to a continual interaction between language and
perception.
The theory, or rather hypothesis, was well received in the late 1940s,
but declined in prominence after a decade. In the 1990s, new research
gave further support for the linguistic relativity theory, in the works
of Stephen Levinson and his team at the Max Planck institute for
Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen, The Netherlands [1]. The theory has also
gained attention through the work of Lera Boroditsky at Stanford
University.
Weltanschauung and cognitive philosophy
One of the most important concepts in cognitive philosophy and
generative sciences is the German concept of ‘Weltanschauung’. This
expression refers to the 'wide worldview' or 'wide world perception' of
a people, family, or person. The Weltanschauung of a people originates
from the unique world experience of a people, which they experience over
several millennia. The language of a people reflects
the Weltanschauung of that people in the form of its syntactic
structures and untranslatable connotations and its denotations.
If it were possible to draw a map of the world on the basis of
Weltanschauung, it would probably be seen to cross political borders —
Weltanschauung is the product of political borders and common
experiences of a people from a geographical region,
environmental-climatic conditions, the economic
resources available, socio-cultural systems, and the linguistic family.
(The work of the population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza aims to
show the gene-linguistic co-evolution of people).
If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is correct, the worldview map of the world
would be similar to the linguistic map of the world. However, it would
also almost coincide with a map of the world drawn on the basis of music
across people.
Worldview and folk-epics
As natural language becomes manifestations of world perception, the
literature of a people with common Weltanschauung emerges as holistic
representations of the wide world perception of the people. Thus the
extent and commonality between world folk-epics becomes a manifestation
of the commonality and extent of a worldview.
Epic poems are shared often by people across political borders and
across generations. Examples of such epics include the Nibelungenlied of
the Germanic-Scandinavian people, The Silappadhikaram of the South
Indian people, The Gilgamesh of the Mesopotamian-Sumerian civilization
and the people of the Fertile Crescent at large, The Arabian nights of
the Arab world and the Sundiata epic of the Mandé people.
Construction of worldviews
The 'construction of integrating worldviews' begins from fragments of
worldviews offered to us by the different scientific disciplines and the
various systems of knowledge. It is contributed to by different
perspectives that exist in the world's different cultures. This is the
main topic of research at the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary
Studies.
It should be noted that while Apostel and his followers clearly hold
that individuals can construct worldviews, other writers regard
worldviews as operating at a community level, and/or in an unconscious
way. For instance, if one's worldview is fixed by one's language, as
according to a strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, one would
have to learn or invent a new language in order to construct a new
worldview.
According to Apostel, a worldview should comprise seven elements:
1. An ontology, a descriptive model of the world
2. An explanation of the world
3. A futurology, answering the question "where are we heading?".
4. Values, answers to ethical questions: "What should we do?".
5. A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action.: "How should we
attain our goals?"
6. An epistemology, or theory of knowledge. "What is true and false?"
7. An etiology. A constructed world-view should contain an account of
its own "building blocks", its origins and construction.
Impact of worldviews
Structural aspects
The term denotes a comprehensive set of opinions, seen as an organic
unity, about the world as the medium and exercise of human existence.
Weltanschauung serves as a framework for generating various dimensions
of human perception and experience like knowledge, politics, economics,
religion, culture, science, and ethics. For example, worldview of
causality as uni-directional, cyclic, or spiral generates a framework of
the world that reflects these systems of causality. A uni-directional
view of causality is present in some monotheistic views of the world
with a beginning and an end and a single great force with a single end
(e.g., Christianity and Islam), while a cyclic worldview of causality is
present in religious tradition which is cyclic and seasonal and wherein
events and experiences recur in systematic patterns (e.g.,
Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and Hinduism).
These worldviews of causality not only underlie religious traditions but
also other aspects of thought like the purpose of history, political and
economic theories, and systems like democracy, authoritarianism,
anarchism, capitalism, socialism, and communism.
The worldview of linear and non-linear causality generates various
related/conflicting disciplines and approaches in scientific thinking.
The Weltanschauung of the temporal contiguity of act and event leads to
underlying diversifications like determinism vs. free will. A worldview
of Freewill leads to disciplines that are governed by simple laws that
remain constant and are static and empirical in scientific method, while
a worldview of determinism generates disciplines that are governed with
generative systems and rationalistic in scientific method.
Some forms of Philosophical naturalism and materialism reject the
validity of entities inaccessible to natural science. They view the
scientific method as the most reliable model for building and
understanding of the world.
Other aspects
In the language of the Third Reich, Weltanschauungen came to designate
the instinctive understanding of complex geo-political problems by the
Nazis, which allowed them to act in the name of a higher ideal and in accordance to their theory of the world. These acts
perceived outside that unique Weltanschauung are now commonly perceived
as acts of aggression, such as openly beginning invasions, twisting
facts, and violating human rights.
Worldviews in Religion and Philosophy
Philosophical basis
Various writers suggest that religious or philosophical belief-systems
should be seen as worldviews rather than a set of individual hypotheses
or theories. The Japanese Philosopher Nishida Kitaro wrote extensively
on "the Religious Worldview" in exploring the philosophical significance
of Eastern religions[1]. According to Neo-Calvinist David Naugle's
Worldview: The History of a Concept "Conceiving of Christianity as a
worldview has been one of the most significant developments in the
recent history of the church"[2].
The Christian thinker James W. Sire defines a worldview as "a set of
presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or
entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously,
consistently or inconsistently) about the basic makeup of our world."
and suggests that "we should all think in terms of worldviews, that is,
with a consciousness not only of our own way of thought but also that of
other people, so that we can first understand and then genuinely
communicate with others in our pluralistic society."[3] The Rev.
Professor Keith Ward bases his discussion of the rationality of
religious belief in Is Religion Dangerous? on a consideration of
religious and non-religious worldviews.[4]
The philosophical importance of Worldviews became increasingly clear
during the 20th Century for a number of reasons, such as increasing
contact between cultures, and the failure of some aspects of the
Enlightenment project, such as the rationalist project of attaining all
truth by reason alone. Mathematical logic showed that fundamental
choices of axioms were essential in deductive reasoning[5] and that,
even having chosen axioms not everything that was true in a given
logical system could be proven[6]. Some philosophers believe the
problems extend to "the inconsistencies and failures which plagued the
Enlightenment attempt to identify universal moral and rational
principles"[7]; although Enlightenment principles such as universal
suffrage and (the universal declaration of) human rights are accepted,
if not taken for granted, by many.[8]
A worldview can be considered as comprising a number of basic beliefs
which are philosophically equivalent to the axioms of the worldview
considered as a logical theory. These basic beliefs cannot, by
definition, be proven (in the logical sense) within the worldview
precisely because they are axioms, and are typically argued from rather
than argued for[9]. However their coherence can be explored
philosophically and logically, and if two different worldviews have
sufficient common beliefs it may be possible to have a constructive
dialogue between them[10]. On the other hand, if different worldviews
are held to be basically incommensurate and irreconcilable, then the
situation is one of cultural relativism and would therefore incur the
standard criticisms from philosophical realists. [11] [12][13].
Additionally, religious believers might not wish to see their beliefs
relativized into something that is only "true for them".[14][15]
A third alternative is that he Worldview approach is only a
methodological relativism, that it is a suspension judgment about the
truth of various belief systems, but not a declaration that there is no
global truth. For instance, the religious philosopher Ninian Smart
begins his Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs with
"Exploring Religions and Analysing Worldviews" and argues for "the
neutral, dispassionate study of different religious and secular systems
- a process I call worldview analysis"[16]
References
1. ^ indeed Kitaro's final book is Last Writings: Nothingness and the
Religious Worldview
2. ^ David K. Naugle Worldview: The History of a Concept ISBN 0802847617
3. ^ James W. Sire The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog
p15-16 (text readable at Amazon.com)
4. ^ see article on the book for details and ref
5. ^ Not just in the obvious sense that you need axioms to prove
anything, but the fact that for example the Axiom of choice and Axiom
S5, although widely regarded as correct, were in some sense optional.
6. ^ see Godel's incompleteness theorem and discussion in eg John
Lucas's The Freedom of the Will
7. ^ Thus Alister McGrath in The Science of God p 109 citing in
particular Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality? - he
also cites Nicholas Wolterstorff and Paul Feyerabend
8. ^ "Governments in a democracy do not grant the fundamental freedoms
enumerated by Jefferson; governments are created to protect those
freedoms that every individual possesses by virtue of his or her
existence. In their formulation by the Enlightenment philosophers of the
17th and 18th centuries, inalienable rights are God-given natural
rights. These rights are not destroyed when civil society is created,
and neither society nor government can remove or "alienate" them."US Gov
website on democracy
9. ^ see eg Hill & Rauser Christian Philosophy A-Z Edinburgh University
Press (2006) ISBN 9780748621521 p200
10. ^ In the Christian tradition this goes back at least to Justin
Martyr's Dialogues with Trypho, A Jew, and has roots in the debates
recorded in the New Testament. For a discussion of the long history of
religious dialogue in India, see Amartya Sen's The Argumentative Indian
11. ^ Cognitive Relativism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
12. ^ The problem of self-refutation is quite general. It arises whether
truth is relativized to a framework of concepts, of beliefs, of
standards, of
practices.[http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/relativism/ Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
13. ^ The Friesian School on Relativism
14. ^ Pope Benedict warns against relativism
15. ^ Ratzinger, J. Relativism, the Central Problem for Faith Today
16. ^ Ninian Smart Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human
Beliefs (3rd Edition) ISBN 0130209805 p14
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