Figures 1 and 2 provide a basis for a deeper understanding of worldview. The sensing, thinking, knowing, acting self exists in the milieu of a world more accurately, a universe of matter, energy, information and other sensing, thinking, knowing, acting selves Figure 1.
At the heart of one's knowledge is one's worldview or Weltanschauung. To sense is to see, hear, taste, and feel stimuli from the world and from the self Figure 2.
To act is to orient sensory organs including eyes and ears , to move body parts, to manipulate external objects, and to communicate by speaking, writing, and other actions.
Although we humans are not unique in our ability to sense and to act on our environment, it is in us, so far as we know, that thought as the basis for action is most highly developed. Thought is a process, a sequence of mental states or events, in which sensed stimuli and existing knowledge are transformed to new or modified knowledge, some instances of which are intents that trigger motor control signals that command our muscles to action.
While some actions are merely the result of sensorimotor reflexes, responses to emotions like fear or anger, or automatized patterns developed through habit, we at least like to believe that most of our actions are more reflective, being based on "higher" forms of thought.
For example, there is in most sensory experience an element of perception, in which sensed stimuli are first recognized and interpreted in light of existing knowledge learned patterns before they are committed to action. And to bring thought to bear on some stimuli or knowledge rather than others requires a focusing of attention, an allocation of limited mental resources to some mental activities and away from others.
But it is in our reason -- and specialized forms of reason like problem solving, judging, and deciding -- that we take the most pride. Reasoning is focused, goal-directed thought that starts from perceptions and existing knowledge and works toward new and valued knowledge.
Reasoning therefore begins with knowledge and ends with knowledge, the opinions, beliefs, and certainties that one holds. By inductive reasoning which is idealized in empirical science , one works from perceptions and other particular knowledge to more general knowledge. By deduction exemplified by mathematical logic further generalizations and, more practically, particular knowledge, is produced.
Over a lifetime, reason builds up not only particular opinions and beliefs, but also a body of more and more basic, general, and fundamental knowledge on which the particular beliefs, and the intents for external acts, are based. This core of fundamental knowledge, the worldview, is not only the basis for the deductive reasoning that ultimately leads to action, but also is the foundation for all reasoning, providing the standards of value to establish the cognitive goals towards which reason works and to select the rules by which reason operates.
The large red arrows in Figures 1 and 2 symbolize the absolutely crucial role that the worldview plays in one's behavior. A worldview is the set of beliefs about fundamental aspects of Reality that ground and influence all one's perceiving, thinking, knowing, and doing. One's worldview is also referred to as one's philosophy, philosophy of life, mindset, outlook on life, formula for life, ideology, faith, or even religion.
The elements of one's worldview, the beliefs about certain aspects of Reality, are one's. The following elaboration of these elements and their implications to thought and action is based on Hunter Mead's Types and Problems of Philosophy , which I highly recommend for further study. For each worldview element I pose for you some important questions whose answers constitute your corresponding beliefs.
I suggest a few possible answers you could give to these questions. Then I present some of the implications those beliefs could have to your thought, other beliefs, and action.
But first I must acknowledge some assumptions that underlie or constrain what I say. First, your worldview may not be explicit. In fact few people take the time to thoroughly think out, much less articulate, their worldview; nevertheless your worldview is implicit in and can be at least partially inferred from your behavior.
Second, the elements of your worldview are highly interrelated; it is almost impossible to speak of one element independently of the others. Third, the questions I pose to you are not comprehensive: there are many more, related questions that could be asked. Fourth, the example answers I give to the questions -- that is, worldview beliefs -- are not comprehensive: many other perspectives are possible and you may not find your answers among those that I suggest.
But, I hope, they illustrate the points. Fifth, my assertion that your worldview influences your action is based on the assumption that thought is the basis for action and knowledge is the basis for thought. Of course, as I wrote above, some actions are reflexive or automatic in nature: conscious thought, much less knowledge and, especially, worldview, probably have little direct influence on them. Nevertheless, even highly automatized or impulsive actions often follow patterns of behavior that originated in considered acts.
Finally, my exposition of worldview is based on my own worldview and the questions that I choose to pose to you, the possible answers that I give as examples, and even the way I present those example answers are colored by my worldview. Your epistemology is what you believe about knowledge and knowing: their nature, basis, and validation. What is knowledge? You may believe that knowledge is simply information. Perhaps you consider it merely a state of the brain, the result of the actions of neural mechanisms.
Or possibly it is something deeper than information or mechanism: the state of a not wholly material mind that exists for the time being on a fleshy substrate and that will persist even after the substrate has long since died and decayed. Maybe you believe that your knowledge is a localized manifestation of the contents of a Cosmic Mind.
What is knowing? You might believe that knowing is a passive response to sensory evidence or an act of trust or commitment in the absence of any external guarantee.
What is the basis for knowledge? You may hold that the only valid basis for knowledge is empirical evidence derived from sensory experience, or that reason is the supreme authority for knowledge. Perhaps you consider authority, in the form of books or people, as the most reliable source of knowledge. Perhaps, to you, intuition -- a direct perception of the world, independent of sense or reason -- provides the best evidence for knowledge see Figure 2 , or maybe revelation -- direct apprehension of truths coming from outside of nature -- is the supreme source of knowledge.
More likely than any of the above opinions, you affirm that no single source of evidence for knowledge is sufficient, but instead you ascribe certain relative weights to authority, empirical evidence, reason, intuition, and revelation.
What is the difference between knowledge and faith? You may see a profound distinction between knowledge and faith, the former being validated certainty, the latter fanciful, ungrounded hope. On the other hand, you may view knowledge as a continuum based on your level of confidence in a proposition, with faith, opinion, and certainty being merely points along that continuum.
Is certainty possible? You may think that it is possible to have complete certainty about some knowledge or that it is presumptuous -- even dangerous -- to claim certainty about anything of consequence. Your epistemology, what you believe about knowledge, affects what you accept as valid evidence and therefore what you are willing to believe about particulars. It affects the relative significance you ascribe to authority, empirical evidence, reason, intuition, and revelation. It affects how certain you can be about any knowledge and therefore what risks you will take in acting on that knowledge.
If knowledge is merely brain state, then true knowledge in the sense of its correspondence to the actual state of the world is suspect. Your beliefs, and therefore your acts, are at the mercy of your neural machinery and are valid and valuable only to the extent that those mechanisms correspond to reality; confidence and certainty must be suspect to you.
At the opposite extreme, if knowledge is an extension of a Cosmic Mind, then you may feel that you can claim access to real truth, perhaps directly through revelation, and that your actions can be grounded in fundamental reality. If you hold reason to be the paramount basis for knowledge, then you must discount any hypothesis that cannot be validated rationally and you cannot use such a hypothesis as a reliable basis for action.
If you believe sensory evidence to be the test of truth, then knowledge must be verified empirically before it can be the grounds for your thoughts or acts. If you rely on intuition or revelation, "lower" forms of evidence are discounted. If you depend on authority to validate knowledge, you will be reticent to believe, think, or act without the blessing of some external source of authority.
If you believe certainty is possible, you can have complete confidence in the validity of thoughts and actions. You will feel justified in taking extreme measures to secure valued ends, even at the risk of being branded a fanatic. On the other hand, if you doubt the possibility of absolute certainty, you are more likely to assume an attitude of intellectual humility and be more prone to conservatism and moderation in your behavior.
What is the ultimate nature of Reality? If you are a philosophical naturalist sometimes called a materialist , you believe that the universe consists solely of matter, energy, and information and that there is nothing outside that material universe. The universe is mechanistic and uncaring and there is no Mind or God or Spirit that created it, guides it, or even considers it. On the other hand, if you are a philosophical idealist, you believe that Reality is ultimately noumenal of the Mind or spiritual in nature.
There is a supernatural Something outside and above nature that created it, and perhaps even now has a part in guiding it. There is a moral order to the universe: good is not only desirable but possible, achievable, perhaps even inevitable.
What is Truth? There are three major theories with respect to truth. If you subscribe to the correspondance theory of truth, you believe that truth corresponds to what really is, that there is a direct relationship between true knowledge in your mind or brain and what actually exists outside yourself. If you believe that such a strict definition of truth is unrealistic, you may believe that truth is merely that knowledge which is internally consistent.
That is the consistency theory of truth, whose archetype is mathematical logic, where consistency is a necessary condition for any proposition to be considered valid. If you are a pragmatist, you hold to the pragmatic theory of truth: truth is what works. Whether or not knowledge corresponds to external reality and whether or not it is consistent with other knowledge is immaterial.
What counts is that what you believe to be true leads to valued ends. If it works for you, it is true for you, though it might not be true for someone else. What is the ultimate test for truth? This question and its possible answers parallel the epistemological question concerning valid bases for knowledge. As an empiricist, you may hold that truth is discovered only by empirical inquiry. If you are a rationalist you would say that truth is found through valid inductive and deductive reasoning.
On the other hand, you may believe that you know the truth directly through intuition or even revelation. If you are a philosophical naturalist equivalently, a materialist and believe that nothing exists outside of the physical universe, then you can believe in no spiritual realm, no God.
There can be no absolute, externally valid standards of value and morality; any standards are simply collective choices or norms, simple artifacts of human biology, human inventions with no broader significance. In the end, the individual person is free to choose his or her morality and act as he or she sees fit, without fear of violating any absolute, objective, universal rules.
Life itself being material, there is no afterlife and no reward or punishment for "good" or "bad" behavior. There are no absolute personal responsibilities, no obligations, and since there is no One or Thing to reward or punish "good" or "bad" behavior, in the end there are no significant consequences of it.
On the other hand, if you believe that Reality is ultimately spiritual in nature, there is room for a God or gods and just possibly an absolute and eternal moral order to which you may be responsible.
You may have an accountability for your acts that goes beyond just yourself, your family, your friends, your community, or your government. You may have a moral obligation to believe, think, and act in conformance with that supernatural reality and you will probably try to do so, at least part of the time.
With regard to truth, if you subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth, then you are more likely to seek truth, by thought and act, outside yourself. If you hold to the consistency theory of truth you may be content to rely on reason as a primary means for discovering truth.
If you are a pure pragmatist, you will discount the notion of absolute truth as irrelevant and will search for truth only as far as is needed to realize practical ends, whatever you determine them to be. Your cosmology consists of your beliefs about the origin of the universe, of life, and particularly, of Man. What is the origin of the universe? One possible answer to this question is chance : the universe as it exists now is simply the mechanical response of matter and energy to random events and the laws of physics over a very long time.
Standing in direct opposition to this is the notion that the universe is the result of the acts of a supernatural Creator that formed the universe ex nihilo out of nothing. What is the origin of life? What is the origin of Man? Here again, you may believe that life, and even the human race, is the result of chance, random events, and natural selection.
At the opposite end of the cosmological spectrum is the belief that Something outside of nature instantaneously created life pretty much as we see it today.
Some hold an intermediate position, that of a gradual rise of plant, animal, and even human life from non-living matter, not by mere chance and natural selection, but through guidance by a divine shepherd or helmsman, towards a desired end, according to a plan or purpose. If you believe that things came to be primarily by chance, then the universe, the laws of physics, life in general, and even human life have no universal significance. This in turn implies that human thought and action themselves have limited significance: in the Big Picture, one thought or act is equivalent to any other.
On the other hand, if the universe was created by a Designer, presumably that Designer had a plan or purpose and what you are or do can, and perhaps therefore should, be consistent with that plan.
Does the universe have a purpose? Obviously, one possible answer is No. You may believe that the universe has no goal or desired end other than what its inhabitants choose to establish and pursue. The alternative is to believe that there is some purpose: some purposive Agent has either created the universe according to a plan or has "adopted" the universe, but in either case wishes for it some process or end state.
If the universe has a purpose, whose purpose is it? If you believe that the universe has no purpose, then of course this question is meaningless.
On the contrary, given a purpose, there must be a purposive Agent. You probably believe that this is God or a god or gods, but perhaps you consider its personification only anthropomorphism, that Agent transcending personhood.
What is the purpose of the universe? Here there are many possible answers, the simplest one being that this purpose is unknown, even unknowable. Perhaps you believe that the purpose of the universe is an ever-increasing complexity and interdependence of its elements. Maybe it is a growing consciousness of its inhabitants and ultimately a self-consciousness on the part of the universe itself.
You may believe that there is no more purpose to the universe than simply the happiness of its conscious occupants. If you believe in God see below , knowledge of or communion with God by its conscious inhabitants may be the Grand Purpose. If the universe has no purpose, then we have no obligation to fulfill other than what we, perhaps collectively, choose.
There is no accountability to Something higher than ourselves and no meaning to life other than what we choose. In the end, our acts cannot be judged according to a universal purpose, so there is no real fear of "missing the mark. There can be no direct link between is and ought ; in fact, ought may be a meaningless term. But if there is a Plan or Purpose to the universe we may have an obligation to think and act consistently with it, and therefore life may have meaning in its context.
There can be a link between is and ought and this may or at least should make us try to act as in certain ways. Of course, obligation may not be the right term to use in regard to this Purpose: if free will is an illusion, we may have no choice but to behave in a manner consistently with the Purpose, being mere automata whose actions were pre-programmed before time.
Is there a God? If you are a theist you say yes , if an atheist no , and if an agnostic you say maybe. Theists differ as to the number of gods: traditional western belief that is, post-classical is monotheistic, but many people believe in multiple gods. What is God's nature? For the sake of simplicity, I will give monotheistic, masculine examples, but they can be generalized. Most likely you believe that God exists outside of and above nature.
You may believe that He is a localized Person or that God transcends personhood. He may be benevolent or tyrannical, loving or indifferent, omnipotent or limited in power, omniscient or only partly knowledgeable of what is going on in the universe.
What is the relationship of God to the material universe? He may be the creator or just a chance companion to it. If He is the Creator, he may have made it and left, being now sort of an absentee landlord the position of deism , or He may still be interested in and intimately involved in perhaps all of its doings. If you are a pantheist, you probably hold that God and the universe are One. What is the relationship of God to Man?
God may be a loving parent or a childish tyrant. He may be lawgiver, policeman, judge, and executioner or a caring but just disciplinarian. You may believe that God is indifferent to the activities of us humans or that He desires an intimate relationship with each individual person.
Perhaps God speaks to us or perhaps he has left us to work things out on our own. When you make decisions about using time — it's the stuff life is made of — what are your values and priorities?
Some worldview questions are about God: Can we know whether God exists? Does God exist? If yes, what characteristics does God have, and what relationship with the universe? Have miracles occurred in the past, as claimed in the Bible, and do they occur now? Are natural events produced and guided by God?
Was the universe self-creating, or did God create it? Was it totally self-assembling by natural process, or did God sometimes create in miraculous-appearing ways?
Does God communicate with us mentally and spiritually in everyday life, and through written revelation, as in the Bible? What is God's role in history? Is there a purpose and meaning in history, for each of us individually and for all of us together, or is life just a long string of things happening? What happens after death? We'll look at these questions and others, plus practical applications: how do worldviews affect decisions and actions in everyday life, for individuals and societies?
A person's worldview is affected by many factors — by their inherited characteristics, background experiences and life situations, the values, attitudes, and habits they have developed, and more — and these vary from one person to another.
Therefore, even though some parts of a worldview are shared by many people in a community, other parts differ for individuals, so worldviews of different people are shared yet unique.
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