We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Buddha
We all have worldviews, but what exactly are they? Are we aware of our own beliefs? What are the "components" of worldviews? How can we "reconstruct" our worldviews on a more solid, coherent basis?
My objective here is to discuss ideas that can have an impact on your way of thinking. That is, ideas that can change your worldview. But what exactly is a worldview? The term derives from the German weltanschauung which means “a view of the world,” including how an individual knows, thinks, feels, and acts in the world. It has traditionally been used mainly in disciplines such as philosophy, theology, anthropology, political science, and education. One’s worldview is also referred to as one’s philosophy, mindset, outlook on life, ideology, or even religion.
One useful metaphor is to compare our worldview to a pair of glasses through which we see the world. “Without these glasses, the world would appear as an unfocused, meaningless blob of people, places, and ideas. Our worldview puts the world in focus and shapes how we make sense out of what we see; and, like glasses, it will either help us or prevent us from seeing the world as it really is … If such glasses have ‘Christian’ lenses, then everything we observe will be ‘tinted’ Christian. We will explain the universe and life’s events from a Christian perspective. We will not understand why others do not see the world as we do – it is so obvious to us.”[1]
We can think of worldviews as unique arrangements of meaning each one of us builds and lives through. They continuously determine how each one of us feels, thinks, and act. Consider events such as the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, the global pandemic, and destructive tornados. All these events elicit a response or opinion regarding not only what happened, but why it happened and what it means for our society. For example, some people may think that the attack on the Capitol was justified because of election fraud, while others may argue (rightly), that no evidence for fraud exists. The religious may believe that the pandemic and the tornados are God’s way of punishing human wickedness. Still others may believe they are the product of natural forces that may be explained through science.
It is only in the last few decades that researchers identified worldviews as psychological constructs – or mental models – that have a profound influence on human behavior. Some psychologists consider the mind and its worldview (rather than solely the brain) as the fundamental source of our deepest self or identity. A worldview encompasses mental models, but also beliefs about a wide variety of topics, which can be organized into five “meaning” systems:[2]
1. Ontological: perceptions about nature, reality, the universe, the divine, God
2. Epistemological: perceptions about what we know and how we know it; how can we gain or build knowledge; what is valid knowledge
3. Axiological: perceptions about value, ethics, and morals; what is good and what is bad; what is life all about
4. Anthropological: perceptions about who the human being is; what is our role and position in the universe; what is the purpose of human existence
5. Sociological: perceptions about how society should be organized and how societal problems and issues should be addressed
Each one of us has beliefs and attitudes related to these five meaning systems and may feel strong emotional attachment to some of them, although not always consciously. For example, we may think that science is not the only, or even the best, way to acquire knowledge, but not be fully aware of it until someone challenges this belief.
The five meaning systems are not independent from each other, rather, they are connected in a hierarchical way. Particularly, beliefs regarding the origin of the universe and of life, including humans, are, so to speak, at the center of the “spiderweb of beliefs” and are entangled with other beliefs. For example, in the Judeo-Christian account of creation, humans were created by God out of love: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). A belief in the Biblical narrative of creation has implications for other beliefs such as life’s purpose, human nature, morality, and relationships with others. These will be quite different from the beliefs of people who are not religious.
Figure 1. A Hierarchic (Concentric) View of Worldviews
A hierarchical view of the world
Where do we get our worldviews from? We all develop our worldviews based on early interactions and experiences with family, peers, and the surrounding culture. For most people this is mainly an unconscious process; so much so that if the average person were asked to describe their worldview, their response would be a blank stare. Most of us have a “hodge-podge” of beliefs put together from religion, science, and popular culture, without coherency or consistency. Nonetheless, they still serve to give direction and meaning to our lives. The way we answer “higher order” questions, such as who created the universe and life, has, or should have, a direct influence on how we answer “lower order” questions. However, in practice this is not always the case.
Ideally, we should start by pondering the “higher-order” questions and having the answers inform other “lower-order” questions and beliefs. This is shown in Figure 1. The questions at the top-level aim to capture our beliefs regarding origins: How were the universe and life created? How we answer these questions sets the stage for our perceptions about nature and reality, about the divine, and about the origins of human life, including the purpose of human existence and our role and position in the universe. These beliefs should provide the basic scaffolding on top of which we build other worldview beliefs, such as those regarding human nature (second level): Who the human being is? What is the basic moral orientation or tendency of humans? How malleable or changeable is human nature?
Our worldview beliefs are not just limited to the descriptive (“what the world is”), but also include the axiological and normative (“what the world ought to be.”) This is reflected in the third level regarding our beliefs about values, ethics and morality: What is good and what is bad? Who or what is moral authority? What should guide our moral decisions? What is life all about? These are probably the beliefs for which we have the strongest emotional attachment. As such, they determine to a great extent our attitudes and behavior toward others.
The next order in the hierarchy comprises questions about thought and mind: What we know and how we know it? How can we gain knowledge? These beliefs shape people’s attitude regarding what are valid sources of knowledge, and who represents the authority for those sources. Currently there is widespread disinformation in our society, and general distrust regarding science and scientists as the traditional keepers of knowledge.
In the next level are questions regarding what drives our behavior and how much control we have over it. Our views on values and morality should provide a benchmark against which we determine “good” and “bad” actions. However, knowing what is good does not necessarily mean that we will do the right thing. In fact, our life goals may contradict our stated beliefs regarding values and ethics. Our behavior is also influenced by our beliefs regarding how much control we have over our own actions. If we have a deterministic mindset, for example, we may believe that we do not have free will and thus everything that we do has been predetermined. In this case we may be less willing to act against our instincts and appetites.
The final level intends to capture beliefs about how we should relate to other people and to nature. This includes beliefs about people who are different from us in some important way (e.g., hold a different worldview or values, pursue a lifestyle, or believe things that are in some important way different from the norm in our culture). The relation to nature dimension reflects our beliefs about the human species relative to nature and to other species. Certainly, our beliefs regarding the proper way to interact with others and with nature are largely influenced by culture. Therefore, it is important to understand how our minds are influenced by our own culture. An important belief related to this level is how society should be organized (e.g., democracy, autocracy).
A roadmap for thought
These six hierarchical levels -- Origins, Human Nature, Morality, Cognition, Behavior and Relations -- provide a roadmap that will guide the discussion of the ideas in the blog. Each week I will discuss three ideas for each one of these levels (18 in total). I have selected the ideas with the aim of “deconstructing” people’s worldviews. By the same token, the same ideas can be used to “reconstruct” your worldview, hopefully on a more solid foundation.
In selecting the ideas, I tried to follow the advice of the anthropologist Pascal Boyer, who said that for a concept to hold our attention with enough force that we remember it and transmit it to others it should be “minimally counterintuitive”, which means that it violates one or perhaps as many as two of our deeply ingrained expectations. It should also be sufficiently novel to offer surprise but not so outrageous that we immediately deem it ridiculous.[3]
Even if you have a carefully constructed worldview, it would be useful to “compare and test” your beliefs against the ideas presented here. We should all remain humble, curious, and open to the possibility that we may be wrong – life is complex and full of unexpected turns. As the philosopher Edmund Husserl urged aspiring philosophers, we should all, once in our life, attempt to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to now, we have been accepting. We should also heed the advice of the philosopher Karl Jaspers: Let us seek out that which contradicts us.
[1]Phillips W., Brown W. & Stonestreet J. (2008). Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview. Sheffield Publishing Co. pp. 4 & 16. [2]Hedlund-de Witt, A., et al. (2014), ‘Exploring inner and outer worlds: A quantitative study of worldviews, environmental attitudes, and sustainable lifestyles’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 37, no. 2014, pp. 40-54. [3]Boyer, P. (2000). Functional origins of religious concepts: Ontological and strategic selection in evolved minds. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6, no.2: 195-214
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