The dictionary defines Weltanschauung or World-view as - a conception or image of the universe and of humanity’s relation to it. A more rigorous definition of world-view is that it is a philosophical framework for generating various dimensions of human perception and experience like knowledge, politics, economics, religion, culture, science and ethics, in short life as a whole.
So why world-view is important? Well not only it enables us to make sense of our life, it also governs our interactions with other beings. A widely varying and conflicting world-view among different sections of human society will not only cause more friction among different people, it will also hamper the overall progress of the world as a result of it. On the other hand, mutually attuned and progressive world-view will enhance our ability to work together for common goals finally making the world a better place.
World-views come in varying flavors across different individuals. At the two extremes of it are - a narrow world-view, and a comprehensive and profound world-view. A narrow world-view makes us rigid and obstructs progress by making us inflexible and dogmatic, not allowing us ever to question and reason our beliefs and actions. And in extreme cases narrow world-view can lead us to great destruction. Take for example the case of holocaust in Germany during the World War II under the regime of Hitler. Not only the extremely narrow world-view of Hitler lead to his belief of superiority of the Aryan race over other human beings, bred extreme hatred against the Jews, it also engulfed even the common Germans to such a great extent that they executed 6 million (60 lakhs) Jews without questioning even a bit. Even in not so extreme case the narrow world-view blocks the human rationale and insight hindering our development in all the spheres of life.
Most of us common people have a shallow world-view that is useful for us in our daily interactions such as with colleagues in office or with friends in school or while reading newspaper but rarely contributing anything significant to the human society's progress. Such a world-view comes mainly through our personal experiences and by the people around us. Most of us with such a world-view have it embedded in our sub-conscious mind and we take actions based on it but we rarely do any sort of introspection. However, we do get an opportunity for such an introspection at times, in situations which put our inner self to test. One of my favorite such a case is - the Dark Knight Ferry Dilemma. For the benefit of those who have not watched the movie I will briefly describe the scenario here. To safeguard against Joker's threats, civilians are evacuated from the Gotham city. Joker plants bomb on two such ferries with the detonator of one ship on the other, offering people on boats a chance to live if they destroy the other boat. One of ships carried civilians and the other city prisoners and guards. If none of the ship presses the detonator finally Joker would blow off both the ships. What should the people on each ship do? Kill others and save themselves or die waiting? Do civilians have greater right to live than the prisoners? And what if both the ferries had civilians? Whatever answer we come up with, it is the next step which is more important - analyzing the underlying principals that led us to the answer. For example for a person whose world-view is grounded on egoism the self survival would be the right choice, even if it comes at the expense of others. For a person adopting Darwinist or Humanist world-view blowing up the boat with the prisoners or the one with lesser number of people would be a plausible solution because preservation of species is of prime importance in Darwinism and related philosophies. And in cases of world-views emanating from more altruistic philosophies, probably no one would press the button even though that might lead to everyone getting killed eventually but that would avoid leading rest of the life in guilt.
When we begin performing such sort of analysis of our actions or thoughts and then check for their logical consistency, it is then that our world-view becomes more and more comprehensive and profound. The different disciplines of human knowledge has ultimately sprung up and evolved by the contributions of people with a profound world-view throughout the history of human civilization. The question ahead is then how do we work upon our world-view so that it becomes more comprehensive, more profound. A more philosophical but apt approach would be to directly analyze the epistemological and ontological foundations for different world-views. But this approach would suit only philosophical majors, being too much of good thing for commoners. What should then be the approach of a common man or a common woman? The answer lies in the reverse methodology to the above approach. It is my personal experience and conviction that if we discuss and reason different real life experiences in the various fields human understanding and knowledge emanating from the world-views and then objectively analyze their intellectual basis, we would not only bring our world-view in sync with each other resulting in greater co-operation, but it will also help in making our world-view more comprehensive and profound. This essence is rightly captured in the quotation by famous U.S. novelist and poet John Dos Passos - “The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.”
And that is the purpose of this blog. To share, discuss and reason various areas of human knowledge and experience so that we all get benefited by it. All comments and discussions are welcome. Freedom of speech and expression is appreciated very much, unless it is gets abusive, because it is against my world-view ;)
So why world-view is important? Well not only it enables us to make sense of our life, it also governs our interactions with other beings. A widely varying and conflicting world-view among different sections of human society will not only cause more friction among different people, it will also hamper the overall progress of the world as a result of it. On the other hand, mutually attuned and progressive world-view will enhance our ability to work together for common goals finally making the world a better place.
World-views come in varying flavors across different individuals. At the two extremes of it are - a narrow world-view, and a comprehensive and profound world-view. A narrow world-view makes us rigid and obstructs progress by making us inflexible and dogmatic, not allowing us ever to question and reason our beliefs and actions. And in extreme cases narrow world-view can lead us to great destruction. Take for example the case of holocaust in Germany during the World War II under the regime of Hitler. Not only the extremely narrow world-view of Hitler lead to his belief of superiority of the Aryan race over other human beings, bred extreme hatred against the Jews, it also engulfed even the common Germans to such a great extent that they executed 6 million (60 lakhs) Jews without questioning even a bit. Even in not so extreme case the narrow world-view blocks the human rationale and insight hindering our development in all the spheres of life.
Most of us common people have a shallow world-view that is useful for us in our daily interactions such as with colleagues in office or with friends in school or while reading newspaper but rarely contributing anything significant to the human society's progress. Such a world-view comes mainly through our personal experiences and by the people around us. Most of us with such a world-view have it embedded in our sub-conscious mind and we take actions based on it but we rarely do any sort of introspection. However, we do get an opportunity for such an introspection at times, in situations which put our inner self to test. One of my favorite such a case is - the Dark Knight Ferry Dilemma. For the benefit of those who have not watched the movie I will briefly describe the scenario here. To safeguard against Joker's threats, civilians are evacuated from the Gotham city. Joker plants bomb on two such ferries with the detonator of one ship on the other, offering people on boats a chance to live if they destroy the other boat. One of ships carried civilians and the other city prisoners and guards. If none of the ship presses the detonator finally Joker would blow off both the ships. What should the people on each ship do? Kill others and save themselves or die waiting? Do civilians have greater right to live than the prisoners? And what if both the ferries had civilians? Whatever answer we come up with, it is the next step which is more important - analyzing the underlying principals that led us to the answer. For example for a person whose world-view is grounded on egoism the self survival would be the right choice, even if it comes at the expense of others. For a person adopting Darwinist or Humanist world-view blowing up the boat with the prisoners or the one with lesser number of people would be a plausible solution because preservation of species is of prime importance in Darwinism and related philosophies. And in cases of world-views emanating from more altruistic philosophies, probably no one would press the button even though that might lead to everyone getting killed eventually but that would avoid leading rest of the life in guilt.
When we begin performing such sort of analysis of our actions or thoughts and then check for their logical consistency, it is then that our world-view becomes more and more comprehensive and profound. The different disciplines of human knowledge has ultimately sprung up and evolved by the contributions of people with a profound world-view throughout the history of human civilization. The question ahead is then how do we work upon our world-view so that it becomes more comprehensive, more profound. A more philosophical but apt approach would be to directly analyze the epistemological and ontological foundations for different world-views. But this approach would suit only philosophical majors, being too much of good thing for commoners. What should then be the approach of a common man or a common woman? The answer lies in the reverse methodology to the above approach. It is my personal experience and conviction that if we discuss and reason different real life experiences in the various fields human understanding and knowledge emanating from the world-views and then objectively analyze their intellectual basis, we would not only bring our world-view in sync with each other resulting in greater co-operation, but it will also help in making our world-view more comprehensive and profound. This essence is rightly captured in the quotation by famous U.S. novelist and poet John Dos Passos - “The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.”
And that is the purpose of this blog. To share, discuss and reason various areas of human knowledge and experience so that we all get benefited by it. All comments and discussions are welcome. Freedom of speech and expression is appreciated very much, unless it is gets abusive, because it is against my world-view ;)
