Worldview

A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung 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).

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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.

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. 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".

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." 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.

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

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. 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. 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. . Additionally, religious believers might not wish to see their beliefs relativized into something that is only "true for them".

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"

Principal Worldviews in the Anglosphere
In the Anglosphere it could be claimed that the two principal families of worldviews in terms of numbers of adherents are :
 * The Monotheistic family of worldviews which hold that the Universe is created by God.
 * The Materialist/Naturalistic family of worldviews which hold that nothing exists beyond physical matter and energy.

However, it could also be claimed that the division between liberal and conservative attitudes (whether in a religious context or not) runs deep as well. Other common families of worldviews are New Age, Vedic and Postmodernist.

Disagreements between Worldviews
Disagreements between people holding different worldviews about the validity of particular propositions or indeed whole worldviews do occur. If someone holding Worldview A wishes to persuade someone whose Worldview is B of the truth of a propositon P there are four types of logical argument that may be used:
 * 1) Arguing that some of the basic beliefs of B are false or implausible on the basis of A
 * 2) Arguing that P in fact follows from the basic beliefs of B
 * 3) Arguing that the basic beliefs of B are contradictory (and therefore not a reliable guide to truth)
 * 4) Arguing that some facts which are agreed to be true or probable on both A and B are better accounted for by A than B