Editing Worldview (section)

=={{lang|de|italic=unset|Weltanschauung}} and cognitive philosophy==

Within [[Philosophy of mind|cognitive philosophy]] and the [[cognitive sciences]] is the German concept of ''Weltanschauung''. This expression is used to refer to the "wide worldview" or "wide world perception" of a people, family, or person. The {{lang|de|italic=unset|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 {{lang|de|italic=unset|Weltanschauung}} of that people in the form of its [[Syntax|syntactic structures]] and untranslatable [[connotation]]s and its [[denotation]]s.<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Weltanschauung|title=Weltanschauung – Definition of Weltanschauung by Merriam-Webster|dictionary=Merriam-Webster|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia.com">{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy/philosophy-terms-and-concepts/worldview-philosophy|title=Worldview (philosophy) – Encyclopedia.com|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia.com|date=2019-12-14|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>

The term ''{{lang|de|Weltanschauung}}'' is often wrongly attributed to [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]], the founder of German [[ethnolinguistics]]. However, Humboldt's key concept was ''Weltansicht''.<ref name="Underhill_2009" /> ''Weltansicht'' was used by Humboldt to refer to the overarching conceptual and sensorial apprehension of reality shared by a linguistic community (Nation). On the other hand, {{lang|de|Weltanschauung}}, first used by [[Immanuel Kant]] and later popularized by Hegel, was always used in German and later in English to refer more to philosophies, [[ideology|ideologies]] and cultural or religious perspectives, than to linguistic communities and their mode of apprehending reality.

In 1911, the German philosopher [[Wilhelm Dilthey]] published an essay entitled "The Types of {{lang|de|italic=unset|Weltanschauung}} and their Development in Metaphysics" that became quite influential. Dilthey characterized worldviews as providing a perspective on life that encompasses the cognitive, evaluative, and volitional aspects of human experience. Although worldviews have always been expressed in literature and religion, philosophers have attempted to give them conceptual definition in their metaphysical systems. On that basis, Dilthey found it possible to distinguish three general recurring types of worldview. The first of these he called naturalism because it gives priority to the perceptual and experimental determination of what is and allows contingency to influence how we evaluate and respond to reality. Naturalism can be found in Democritus, Hobbes, Hume and many other modern philosophers. The second type of worldview is called the idealism of freedom and is represented by Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Bergson among others. It is dualistic and gives primacy to the freedom of the will. The organizational order of our world is structured by our mind and the will to know. The third type is called objective idealism and Dilthey sees it in Heraclitus, Parmenides, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hegel. In objective idealism the ideal does not hover above what is actual but inheres in it. This third type of worldview is ultimately monistic and seeks to discern the inner coherence and harmony among all things. Dilthey thought it impossible to come up with a universally valid metaphysical or systematic formulation of any of these worldviews, but regarded them as useful schema for his own more reflective kind of life philosophy. See [[Makkreel]] and Rodi, Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Works, volume 6, 2019.

Anthropologically, worldviews 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."<ref>{{cite book|last=Hiebert|first=Paul G.|title=Transforming Worldviews: an anthropological understanding of how people change|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan|publisher=Baker Academic|year=2008|page=15|isbn=978-0-8010-2705-5}}</ref>

If it were possible to draw a [[map]] of the [[world]] on the basis of {{lang|de|italic=unset|Weltanschauung}},<ref name="Whorf">{{cite book|author-last=Whorf|author-first=Benjamin Lee|author-link=Benjamin Lee Whorf|editor-last=Carroll|editor-first=John Bissell|editor-link=John Bissell Carroll|orig-year=1st pub. 1956 |year=1964|title=Language, Thought, and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC|location=Cambridge, Mass.|publisher=Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology<!--|ISBN=0-26273006-5 -->|isbn=978-0-262-73006-8}} Pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC&pg=PA25 25], [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC&pg=PA36 36], [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC&q=%22environmental+conditions%22 29-30], [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC&pg=PA242 242], [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2d1Q4el00QC&pg=PA248 248].</ref> it would probably be seen to cross political borders—{{lang|de|italic=unset|Weltanschauung}} is the product of [[political]] borders and common experiences of a people from a [[geographical]] region,<ref name="Whorf" /> [[natural environment|environmental]]-[[climatic]] conditions, the economic resources available, socio-cultural [[system]]s, and the [[Language families and languages|language family]].<ref name="Whorf" /> (The work of the [[Population genetics|population geneticist]] [[Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza]] aims to show the gene-[[historical linguistics|linguistic]] co-[[evolution]] of people).

According to James W. Underhill, worldview can periodically be used very differently by certain [[linguistics|linguists]] and [[sociology|sociologists]]. It is for this reason that Underhill, and those who influenced him, attempted to wed metaphor in, for example, the [[sociology of religion]], with [[discourse analysis]]. Underhill also proposed five subcategories for the study of worldview: world-perceiving, world-conceiving, cultural mindset, personal world, and perspective.<ref name="Underhill_2009">{{cite book|title=Humboldt, Worldview and Language|last1=Underhill|first1=James W.|date=2009|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0748638420|edition=Transferred to digital print.|location=Edinburgh, Scotland}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Creating worldviews : metaphor, ideology and language|last1=Underhill|first1=James W.|date=2011|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0748679096|location=Edinburgh, Scotland}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: truth, love, hate & war|last1=Underhill|first1=James W.|date=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1107532847|location=Cambridge}}</ref>