Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. Each of us has an idea of how our world “works”: in each head there is a personal picture of it.
Guided by our principles, beliefs and stereotypes, we decide for ourselves what is possible and what is not, what is good and what is evil, and we determine our place in it. All of the above can be called in one word – worldview.
What is a person's worldview?
Man is a rational being, capable of thinking and predicting the consequences of his actions, and looking for means to realize his goals. All this determines his worldview. Natural instincts, experience, scientific and practical activities form a system of views, assessments and a figurative understanding of the world. The functions of a worldview lie in the organization, meaningfulness and purposefulness of an individual’s activities. That is, worldview is determined by beliefs, life position and moral and ethical values.
View of the world
The concept and types of worldview are a deep philosophical topic. First of all, we need to understand what we are dealing with. In general, worldview is a search for the basis of vital human self-affirmation. The individual realizes reality, his uniqueness, difference and unity with the rest of the world. Worldview, its types and forms - this determines a person’s idea of himself and his environment, it is a set of concepts about his relationship with the world, his place in this world and his purpose. This is not just a set of knowledge, but an integral psychological, spiritual and intellectual education, since a person not only receives knowledge about certain world laws, but also evaluates them and “passes” them through himself. This is a synthesis of a number of intellectual and spiritual formations: knowledge, desires, intuition, faith, values, views, beliefs, principles, ideals, life standards, stereotypes, hopes, motivation, goals and more.
How is a worldview formed?
The overall picture of the world is formed in the process of education, training and socialization in society. In general, the formation of a worldview is a very slow and gradual process and depends on the quality of individual knowledge. Young people with insufficient experience and knowledge have an unstable worldview, which makes them an easy target for various manipulators - politicians, religious representatives, etc. As one grows up, the system of life values strengthens, determining the individual’s behavior and acting as a guide to action.
Existing problems
The main problem of worldview is the contradictions in people's views on existing reality. Each individual sees it through his own lens of perception, which focuses on beliefs and basic life attitudes, confirmed in practice. It's the difference in what people focus on that makes them so different.
For example, those who focus on money accumulate capital, those who focus on their absence create poverty.
The influence of worldview on the level and quality of life of people has been proven experimentally. As soon as a person changes his beliefs and focuses on new attitudes (wealth, health, love, career and much more), the picture of the world begins to gradually change.
It is important to remember that the problem with change is the time lag. If a person has believed for a long time that he cannot become rich, then it will take some time for new views of the worldview to “take root” in the subconscious.
Worldview, its types and forms
There are certain components of worldview:
- Knowledge
. They can be scientific, professional and practical. This is the first element of any worldview. The larger the circle of knowledge, the firmer the life position. - Feelings
. Types of worldview manifest themselves in accordance with a person’s subjective reaction to external stimuli. Depending on the mental state, the reaction can be either positive, associated with joy and pleasure, or negative, associated with sadness, grief, and fear. There is also a moral aspect - this is duty, responsibility. - Values
. The concept of worldview is closely related to values. They can be significant, useful and harmful, but they are perceived through the prism of one’s own goals, interests and needs. - Actions
– positive and negative. This is how a person shows his own views and ideas in practice. - Convictions
are strong, strong-willed. This is a set of personal and social views that are a kind of engine and basis of life. - Character
– will, faith, doubts. Based on the ability for independent and conscious action, self-confidence, trust in others and self-criticism, a worldview is formed and developed.
Philosophical worldview
It is defined as system-theoretical. It differs from the mythological worldview in the high role of reason: if myth uses emotions and feelings as support, then philosophy uses logic and evidence. This type of worldview studies the forces that rule the world. Philosophy and worldview emerged simultaneously in Ancient India, China and Greece. At the same time, a worldview can exist outside of philosophy, but philosophy itself forms a worldview. Philosophical knowledge is elitist and not accessible to everyone. Rarely do pundits get carried away by it.
Religious worldview
It arose from the mythological and is based on belief in supernatural forces. As religious movements developed, many mythological features faded into oblivion, but rigid dogmatism and a system of moral commandments remained. Worldview types that include piety and holiness imply dependence on higher powers. At the heart of this worldview is fear of the unknown. A holistic religious worldview was formed when indisputable systems of dogmas and commandments appeared that determined the sinfulness and holiness of certain thoughts and actions.
Mythological worldview
This type was formed in the conditions of primitive society, when it was based on a figurative perception of the world. Mythology is closely connected with paganism and acts as a set of myths, spiritualizing material objects and phenomena. This human worldview is mixed with the sacred and the profane, but at its core is faith. According to tradition, a follower of such a worldview is able to rise to the level of god, and all the existing myths were useful from a practical point of view and were a guide to action.
Scientific worldview
This worldview arose as the opposite of the mythological and religious. The scientific picture of the world is based on the concepts of law and regularity. The main types of worldview - mythological and religious - are based on fictitious, arbitrary and supernatural reasons, and science develops in the course of complicating work and solving practical problems. Such a progressive worldview provides an opportunity to draw new knowledge from previously acquired knowledge. Rationality, transferred to religion and mythology, gave impetus to the development of philosophy.
Everyday worldview
This attitude is formed by itself in each person and is the core of common sense. The peculiarities of the worldview lie in the fact that its development partly depends on genetic inheritance. In the course of upbringing by parents, communication with friends and loved ones, and contact with the environment, values, priorities and life attitudes are formed, which by puberty acquire the features of a very specific worldview. The characteristics of the native language and the degree of its assimilation, as well as labor and tool activity, are of utmost importance in this process.
Historical worldview
In history, the types of worldview remain the same - mythological, religious and philosophical. For those who are interested in what kind of worldview there is, it is worth saying that the first was a myth - a fictitious plot, a figment of the people's imagination. Religion is closely related to mythology: both of them presuppose the presence of a mythological system and provide for the basis of myths on faith. Philosophy acts as a special way of cognition, because what a worldview is is a theory or science that studies the fundamental principles of being and knowledge.
conclusions
The entire history of mankind has been accompanied by two groups of knowledge. Some knowledge was available to everyone, while others were available to a narrow management circle. In order to retain managerial powers, this circle purposefully maintained illiteracy and the inadequacy of society’s worldview. Thus, society was dependent on a group of people.
Plutarch also described the indignation of Alexander the Great regarding the publication by Aristotle, his teacher, of certain philosophical teachings. Alexander, in a letter to Aristotle, pointed out the mistake of promulgating teachings that were intended for selected people.
Aristotle responded with a reassuring letter. He published only part of the teachings, which, without additional explanations, cannot be fully perceived by the people. There are so many texts that are impossible for ordinary people to understand without explanatory keys to them.
Francis Bacon observed nineteen centuries later that knowledge is power. This suggests that there has always been a group of people who had a more perfect worldview.
How to change your worldview?
Worldview can undergo changes as a person grows up and acquires new knowledge. It often happens that after some event people completely change their lives and their views on it. Inveterate atheists become churchgoers, and experienced businessmen drop everything and retire to some quiet place. A person’s worldview can be improved, striving for moral ideals, learning new things, communicating with different people, and traveling. You need to read a lot - psychological, philosophical literature.
Metaphor
To make things a little easier to understand, I would like to draw an analogy with vision glasses.
- Most people buy glasses made to order, and despite the variety of models, some of which are unique, there is still something in common between them that allows us to understand what kind of item is in front of us. How to celebrate a completely unique design idea.
- One brand's products will have at least one similar feature by which it can be easily identified.
- To become the owner of glasses, you need to take into account a number of factors: financial situation, preferred clothing style, social environment in which a person is located, fashion trends of the season, preferences, etc.
Worldview of modern man
During the collapse of the USSR, an ideological crisis arose, which was a consequence of the collapse of ideals and new ones that did not have time to form. In the era of consumption, characteristic of the present time, such moral guidelines as duty, honor, responsibility have lost their meaning. “You deserve it,” everyone hears from the TV screens and strives to live up to it. The modern worldview in the era of globalization is to reduce the importance of national culture and alienate its values.
People began to see the meaning of life in receiving pleasure. The connection with the native land and ancestors is lost; relationships in marriage and the principles of raising children have become different. At the same time, an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the need for change. The worldview in psychology has become more humanistic. A person wants to be in harmony with himself, nature and other people. The number of churches, charities and environmental organizations is growing.
Types of classifications
First of all, there is a classification by structure. The types of worldviews in this typology are as follows: fragmentary, contradictory, holistic, internally consistent and inconsistent. There is also a division according to the degree of adequacy of the interpretation of reality: realistic, fantastic, distorted and adequate to reality. There is an interesting classification in relation to higher entities (their denial or recognition) - skeptical, agnostic, atheistic, religious (theistic). Types of worldview are also classified according to social characteristics, cultural and historical regions, and so on. In fact, any person who is interested in philosophical issues can make his own individual adjustments to the classifications and even derive new types.
Scientific
Such types of worldviews as scientific and atheistic were developed back in the nineteenth century by Engels. He predicted that in the near future, breathtaking advances in knowledge of the laws of nature will allow the scientific view to do without natural philosophy, develop its own picture of the world, and then supplement and clarify it. This is exactly how it all happened: revolutions in chemistry, biology, physics, the emergence of “smart technology” - cybernetics, space exploration, the ideas of Einstein, Tsiolkovsky, Sakharov, Vavilov, Vernadsky, Feynman and others significantly increased the potential of science in the worldview context. Now there is a purely scientific picture of the world - how it arose, how it developed, how it is structured at different levels (mega, micro and macro), what are the basic laws of its being and existence. Naturally, there are still many questions, and theories are often multivariate and hypothetical, but a large number of objective patterns already exist. The main value of the scientific worldview is the laws of nature, society, physics, and chemistry. Such a person strives to understand everything and bring it to a logical basis - both his own view and other types of worldview. A table with mathematical data, a formula, a graph - all this is a kind of sacred symbol for this kind of people.
Ordinary
This type of worldview is a reflection of the circumstances of everyday life, awareness of the own characteristics of the existence of each individual individually and the uniqueness of people in general. These are lessons about society and life itself, which is why they are so compelling and clear. Other types of human worldview are not so based on everyday experience. The social nature of the individual is expressed here most clearly, and carries within itself the experience of generations and the traditions of the people. It is at this level that traditional medicine, rituals and customs, and folklore exist, which speaks of many values expressed and enshrined in the national characteristics of a particular ethnic group. The concept and types of worldview are largely based on the peculiarity of the everyday subtype - common sense. It is this that is reflected and generalized in folk sayings and proverbs, but one must distinguish between prejudices and wisdom.
Varieties
Worldview is a universal human phenomenon, since it is characteristic of every person in a normal state. Roughly speaking, it may be absent in mentally ill people, people with serious mental illnesses, and newborns. It is the character common to all people that predetermines the enormous variety of different views, since individuals see themselves and the world as a whole differently. A type of worldview is a certain category that combines a set of similar parameters and features. It also has a historical character and takes on sociocultural forms. The main types of worldviews: mythological, everyday, scientific, philosophical, artistic and religious. They are arranged in this order not because there are some bad and good, higher or lower. The order was chosen completely randomly. As you can see, there are different types of worldviews, a table with brief characteristics of which is presented below.
Functions
Worldview, its types and forms play a very important role in the life of any person. Functionally, this is a form of spiritual knowledge that integrates a person into this world and gives life guidelines. Often, a worldview is formed spontaneously: a person is born, acquires certain ideas and beliefs through his parents, environment, social connections, etc. It is the development of one’s vision that allows a person to become himself, to know his “I” - this is the main function.
Mythological
The types of worldviews of people affect not only the social aspect of life, but also the individual and spiritual one. The word "myth" is of Greek origin and means "tradition". The mythological worldview is one of the earliest forms of world description, which developed from tribal primitive society. All civilizations had their own mythology - the Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, Slavs, Germans, Celts, Hindus and so on. All main types of worldview, speaking in general terms, “grew” from these religious and mystical ideas of our ancestors. All mythologies can be characterized by common features:
- they reflect the dependence of people's lives and their activities on the forces of nature and sacred objects;
- people personified natural phenomena, that is, they endowed them with the properties of the human psyche (the ability to be upset and rejoice, sympathize and be angry, help, harm, forgive and take revenge), thus mastering these forces, understanding them better;
- the personification of the forces of nature and phenomena culminated in polytheism (polytheism) - all mythologies included pagan beliefs as an important component.
What is reflected in this type of worldview? Mythology is a source of information about ancient peoples; it contains important scientific problems. It is she who is the source and arsenal of rich means for creativity. This is the richest and most powerful layer of universal human culture.
