World view

This article is about the concept. For the WorldView satellite class, see DigitalGlobe. For the WorldView near-space balloon technology, see World View Enterprises. For the WorldView near-space flight company, see Paragon Space Development Corporation.

A comprehensive world view or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point of view. A world view can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.[1] The term is a calque of the German word Weltanschauung [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ], composed of Welt ('world') and Anschauung ('view' or 'outlook')[2] The German word is also used in English.

It is 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 forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it.

Origins

Linguistics

The founder of the idea that language and worldview are inextricable is the Prussian philologist, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt argued that language was part of the creative adventure of mankind. Culture, language and linguistic communities developed simultaneously, he argued, and could not do so without one another. In stark contrast to linguistic determinism, which invites us to consider language as a constraint, a framework or a prison house, Humboldt maintained that speech is inherently and implicitly creative. Human beings take their place in speech and continue to modify language and thought by their creative exchanges. Worldview remains a confused and confusing concept in English, used very differently by linguists and sociologists. It is for this reason that Underhill suggests five subcategories: world-perceiving, world-conceiving, cultural mindset, personal world, and perspective (see Underhill 2009, 2011 & 2012).

Edward Sapir also gives an account of the relationship between thinking and speaking in English.

The linguistic relativity hypothesis of Benjamin Lee Whorf describes how the syntactic-semantic structure of a language becomes an underlying structure for the world view or 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.[3]

The 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, Netherlands.[4] 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 cognitive sciences is the German concept of Weltanschauung. This expression has often been used to refer 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.

The term 'Weltanschauung' is often wrongly attributed to Wilhelm von Humboldt the founder of German ethnolinguistics (see Trabant). As Jürgen Trabant points out, however, and as Underhll reminds us in his 'Humboldt, Worldview and Language' (2009), Humboldt's key concept was 'Weltansicht'. 'Weltanschauung', used first by Kant and later popularized by Hegel, was always used in German and later used in English to refer more to philosophies, ideologies and cultural or religious perspectives, than to linguistic communities and their mode of apprehending reality.

'Weltansicht' was used by Humboldt to refer to the overarching conceptual and sensorial apprehension of reality shared by a linguistic community (Nation). But Humboldt maintained that the speaking human being was the core of language. Speech maintains worldviews. Worldviews are not prisons which contain and constrain us, they are the spaces we develop within, create and resist creatively in speaking together.

Worldview can be expressed as the fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives.[5]

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,[6] environmental-climatic conditions, the economic resources available, socio-cultural systems, and the language family.[6] (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.[7]

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 people, the Iliad for the Ancient Greeks and Hellenized societies, the Silappadhikaram of the Tamil people, the Ramayana and Mahabharata of the Hindus, the Gilgamesh of the Mesopotamian-Sumerian civilization and the people of the Fertile Crescent at large, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian nights) of the Arab world and the Sundiata epic of the Mandé people.

Development

While Apostel and his followers clearly hold that individuals can construct worldviews, other writers regard worldviews as operating at a community level, 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 is an ontology, or a descriptive model of the world. It should comprise these six elements:

  1. An explanation of the world
  2. A futurology, answering the question "Where are we heading?"
  3. Values, answers to ethical questions: "What should we do?"
  4. A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action: "How should we attain our goals?"
  5. An epistemology, or theory of knowledge: "What is true and false?"
  6. An etiology. A constructed world-view should contain an account of its own "building blocks," its origins and construction.

Terror management theory

Worldview, according to terror management theory (TMT), serves as a buffer against death anxiety.[8] It is theorised that living up to the ideals of one's worldview provides a sense of self-esteem which provides a sense of transcending the limits of human life (e.g. literally, as in religious belief in immortality, symbolically, as in art works or children to live on after one's death, or in contributions to one's culture).[8] Evidence in support of terror management theory includes a series of experiments by Jeff Schimel and colleagues in which a group of Canadians found to score highly on a measure of patriotism were asked to read an essay attacking the dominant Canadian worldview.[8]

Using a test of death-thought accessibility (DTA), involving an ambiguous word completion test (e.g. "COFF__" could either be completed as either "COFFEE" or "COFFIN"), participants who had read the essay attacking their worldview were found to have a significantly higher level of DTA than the control group, who read a similar essay attacking Australian cultural values. Mood was also measured following the worldview threat, to test whether the increase in death thoughts following worldview threat were due to other causes, for example, anger at the attack on one's cultural worldview.[8] No significant changes on mood scales were found immediately following the worldview threat.[8]

To test the generalisability of these findings to groups and worldviews other than those of nationalistic Canadians, Schimel et al conducted a similar experiment on a group of religious individuals whose worldview included that of creationism.[8] Participants were asked to read an essay which argued in support of the theory of evolution, following which the same measure of DTA was taken as for the Canadian group.[8] Religious participants with a creationist worldview were found to have a significantly higher level of death-thought accessibility than those of the control group.[8]

Goldenberg et al found that highlighting the similarities between humans and other animals increases death-thought accessibility, as does attention to the physical rather than meaningful qualities of sex.[9]

Impact

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.

Causality

A unidirectional 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 traditions which are 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 a 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 free will 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 an 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 supposedly higher ideal[10] 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.

Religion

Nishida Kitaro wrote extensively on "the Religious Worldview" in exploring the philosophical significance of Eastern religions.[11]

According to Neo-Calvinist David Naugle's World view: 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."[12]

The Christian thinker James W. Sire defines a worldview as "a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in 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 construction of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being." He 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."[13]

The commitment mentioned by James W. Sire can be extended further. The worldview increases the commitment to serve the world. With the change of a person's view towards the world, he/she can be motivated to serve the world. This serving attitude has been illustrated by Tareq M Zayed as the 'Emancipatory Worldview' in his writing "History of emancipatory worldview of Muslim learners".[14]

Philosophy

Main article: Belief system

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[15] and that, even having chosen axioms not everything that was true in a given logical system could be proven.[16] Some philosophers believe the problems extend to "the inconsistencies and failures which plagued the Enlightenment attempt to identify universal moral and rational principles";[17] although Enlightenment principles such as universal suffrage and the universal declaration of human rights are accepted, if not taken for granted, by many.[18]

Philosophers also distinguish the manifest image from the scientific image. These phrases are due to the American 20th century philosopher Wilfrid Sellars. This is one angle on the ancient philosophical distinction between appearance and reality which is particularly pertinent to everyday contemporary living. Indeed, many believe that the scientific image, with its reductionist methodology, will undermine our sense of individual freedom and responsibility. So, many worry that as science advances, particularly cognitive neuroscience, we will be dehumanized. This certainly has powerful Nietzschean undertones. When our immediately given, manifest (aka obvious) self-conception is shaken, what is lost for the individual and society? And does it have to be that way?[19] Some questions well worth working on, then, are those concerning the refinement of the manifest view of such centrally important concepts such as free will,[20] the self and individuality, and the possibility of real or lived meaning.

Assessment and comparison of different worldviews

One can think of a worldview 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.[21] However their coherence can be explored philosophically and logically.

If two different worldviews have sufficient common beliefs it may be possible to have a constructive dialogue between them.[22]

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.[23][24][25] Additionally, religious believers might not wish to see their beliefs relativized into something that is only "true for them".[26][27] Subjective logic is a belief-reasoning formalism where beliefs explicitly are subjectively held by individuals but where a consensus between different worldviews can be achieved.[28]

A third alternative sees the worldview approach as only a methodological relativism, as 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: Cross-cultural 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."[29]

The comparison of religious, philosophical or scientific worldviews is a delicate endeavor, because such worldviews start from different presuppositions and cognitive values. Clément Vidal[30] has proposed metaphilosophical criteria for the comparison of worldviews, classifying them in three broad categories:

  1. objective: objective consistency, scientificity, scope
  2. subjective: subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality
  3. intersubjective: intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity

Streams in contemporary American thought

According to Michael Lind, "a worldview is a more or less coherent understanding of the nature of reality, which permits its holders to interpret new information in light of their preconceptions. Clashes among worldviews cannot be ended by a simple appeal to facts. Even if rival sides agree on the facts, people may disagree on conclusions because of their different premises." This is why politicians often seem to talk past one another, or ascribe different meanings to the same events. Tribal or national wars are often the result of incompatible worldviews. Lind has organized American political worldviews into five categories:

Lind argues that even though not all people will fit neatly into only one category or the other, their core worldview shape how they frame their arguments.[31]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, Gary B. (1996). Toward A Theory of Cultural Linguistics. University of Texas Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-292-76569-6.
  2. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  3. ↑ Kay, P.; Kempton, W. (1984). "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?". American Anthropologist 86 (1): 65–79. doi:10.1525/aa.1984.86.1.02a00050. JSTOR 679389.
  4. ↑ http://www.mpi.nl/world/ Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
  5. ↑ Hiebert, Paul G. Transforming Worldviews: an anthropological understanding of how people change. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2008
  6. 1 2 Carroll, John B. (ed.) [1956] (1997). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, Mass.: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ISBN 0-262-73006-5.
  7. ↑ Whorf, Benjamin (John Carroll, Editor) (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. MIT Press.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Schimel, J., Hayes, J., Williams, T., & Jahrig, J. (2007). Is Death Really the Worm at the Core? Converging Evidence that Worldview Threat Increases Death-Thought Accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 92, No. 5, pp. 789-803.
  9. ↑ Goldenberg, J. L., Cox, C. R., Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (2002). Understanding human ambivalence about sex: The effects of stripping sex of meaning. Journal of Sex Research, 39, 310–320.
  10. ↑ Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's Notebook, trans. Martin Brady, London: Continuum, 2002
  11. ↑ Indeed Kitaro's final book is Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview
  12. ↑ David K. Naugle Worldview: The History of a Concept ISBN 0-8028-4761-7 page 4
  13. ↑ James W. Sire The Universe Next Door: A Basic World view Catalog p15–16 (text readable at Amazon.com)
  14. ↑ https://www.academia.edu/9631989/History_of_emancipatory_worldview_of_Muslim_learners
  15. ↑ 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.
  16. ↑ see Godel's incompleteness theorem and discussion in e.g. John Lucas's The Freedom of the Will
  17. ↑ 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
  18. ↑ "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
  19. ↑ see Owen Flanagan's 'The Problem of the Soul', 2002
  20. ↑ see especially Daniel Dennett's 'Freedom Evolves', 2003
  21. ↑ see e.g. Daniel Hill and Randal Rauser Christian Philosophy A–Z Edinburgh University Press (2006) ISBN 978-0-7486-2152-1 p200
  22. ↑ 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
  23. ↑ Cognitive Relativism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  24. ↑ 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.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  25. ↑ The Friesian School on Relativism
  26. ↑ Pope Benedict warns against relativism
  27. ↑ Ratzinger, J. Relativism, the Central Problem for Faith Today
  28. ↑ Jøsang, Audun (2001). International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems 9 (3): 279–311. doi:10.1142/S0218488501000831. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  29. ↑ Ninian Smart Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (3rd Edition) ISBN 0-13-020980-5 p14
  30. ↑ Vidal, Clément (2012). "Metaphilosophical Criteria for Worldview Comparison" (PDF). Metaphilosophy 43 (3): 306–347. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9973.2012.01749.x.
  31. ↑ Lind, Michael. 'The five worldviews that define American politics' Salon Magazine, 11 Jan 2011 . Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation

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