Posts Tagged ‘Worldviews’
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World View
Reading Review
Unit: SSK12
Week: 5 (in Week 6)
Date: 09 October 2009Book title: Communication Between Cultures
Chapter title: World View
Author: Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter
Publication Date: 2004Thesis:
Samovar and Porter immediately aim to acknowledge the importance of worldviews and to illustrate how worldviews are fundamental to way we perceive the world; how it is “colored, shaped, arranged according to personal cultural perceptions” (2004, 85).Main points:
1. A definition of worldview
2. The importance of worldviews in shaping our understanding and our perception of the world.
3. A recognition that worldviews are so fundamental to our perception that people cannot see any other way of thinking when they are unaware of the concept of worldview.
4. A series of examples illustrating how understanding the worldview of culture can help to understand the perceptions of the world for that culture why members of that culture think or act the way they do.Review:
There are entire books dedicated to the concept of worldviews. In one chapter, Samovar and Porter are able to give a compact and concise treatise of the importance worldviews have on our perceptions of the world. They use examples of worldviews generally associated to different cultures in order to demonstrate how they affect the way members of that culture think and behave. Their work is easy to read and follow, with ample support from experts in the field of worldviews and sociology.Reference:
Samovar, Larry A., and Richard E. Porter. 2004. World View. In Communication Between Cultures. 5th ed. 85-86. Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. -
Life on the screen
Reading Review
Unit: SSK12
Week: 1-5 (in Week 6)
Date: 08 October 2009Book title: Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
Chapter title: Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet
Author: Sherry Turkle
Publication Date: 1995Thesis:
Turkle details how the computer has changed our understanding of the self and how this understanding has shifted from the modern concept of computational calculation to the postmodern concept of simulation.Main points:
1. The fragmented self illustrated in the MUD (multi-user domains)
2. Lessons learned regarding the fragment self from the great French Postmodernist philosophers.
3. Culture of change embodied in the shift from computational calculation to simulationReview:
I enjoyed the analogy Turkle creates using the multiple windows of a computer to explain the postmodern understanding of self. The postmodern theory of self is that of a fragmented one. The computer, especially for Turkle in the concept of the MUD (multi-user domains) on the internet, embodies the postmodern theory of the fragmented self through its many windows and multiple live and identities one can have in these separate online windows. This book was written in 1995 and so, I did feel that computer and internet related content sounded dated, but nevertheless the concepts Turkle puts forward are still valid.Reference:
Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet. In Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. 9-26. New York: Simon and Schuster. -
Previewing edited books
Learning Skills Exercise
Unit: SSK12
Week: 1 (in Week 6)
Date: 07 October 2009
Exercise: Exercise 16 – Previewing edited booksActivity 1: Previewing the edited book
The title of the edited book:
A spectator’s guide to worldviews: Ten ways of understanding life
The book is clearly about worldviews. The word spectator suggests that it is an overview of ten different worldviews by which we might understand the world and life.
What might those ten worldviews be? And how does seeing world through their respective lenses change our understanding of life?The editor:
Simon Smart
The editor is unknown to me from the front cover. He is not someone I have come across before.
From the about the authors section (Smart 2007, 253) we learn that “Simon Smart taught History and English for ten years before moving to Vancouver for theological study. He is a full-time writer for Anglican Youthworks…”The date:
Published 2007
This is important because it shows how up to date the content should be. It also helps us contextualise its authors to what time and place they are writing from.Table of contents:
There is a table of contents, which indicates a very structured book, clearly laying out the ten themes (or worldviews) that are detailed by the various authors. Unfortunately all of the authors are unknown to me. It appears that all chapters have been compiled and published together.Preface, foreword or introduction:
There is an introduction written by the editor. Smart (2007, 5-17) details what a worldview is; briefly covers how they shape our understanding of life; provides a history of worldviews; and explains why he thinks it is important to think about worldviews, which indicates the purpose of the book. Another important feature of the book which contextualises its content is that it is written for a Christian audience and all its authors are Christian.Section or parts:
There is an introduction to each chapter, while there is no conclusion as such, each chapter is concluded by a small section subtitled “Contact and departure from Christianity”. Each chapter is accompanied by a selection of thought provoking questions.Conclusion:
There is no conclusion in the strictest sense of the word. The book is wrapped by an introducing narrative and a concluding narrative.Index:
There is no index for this book.The readings:
The readings have been put together especially for this publication. They are clearly targeted at a Christian audience. They have been written in a Basic English and an easy to understand style.Activity 2: An interesting reading
Utilitarianism
I chose this reading as my interesting reading because I know very little about it and so it interests me to find out more.
The essence of utilitarianism is expressed in the idea (Cameron 2007, 86), “I’ll do whatever it takes to make more happiness in the world”.
The utilitarian weighs the consequences of their decisions to determine what is right in that moment. What is right is what will produce happiness for the greatest number of people when all is weighed up.Activity 3: A familiar reading
The Christian worldview
I have selected this as my familiar reading because I am most intimate with this worldview. I was a Christian from the age of 13 years through to 28 years (it’s hard to say when period ended because it was a gradual process of dissolution and deconstruction). For many of my post high school years I have read many books of this type from a Christian perspective. Even one of my favourite philosophers, James Sire, is a Christian.Activity 4: A difficult reading
Feminism
Although I grew up in a family with 5 sisters and raised by my mother, who for most of my life was a single parent, and in a world that had already triumphantly overcome many of the birth pangs of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and although my own worldview is greatly influenced by many elements of the feminist movement. I chose this reading as a difficult reading because despite all that is written above I am not a woman and therefore I feel I am unable to wholly identify.
Feminism had two major waves. The first wave, which is considered a retroactive term, was just prior and leading up to WW1, its central campaign was female suffrage. The second wave came in the 1960’s, also known as the women’s liberation movement, the one I am more familiar with, “placed issues around sex, pregnancy and childbirth as crucial to the welfare of women. These issues were seen as important as the fight for equal rights and opportunities in the workforce” (Fisher and Smart 2007, 154-155).Activity 5: Reflection
I believe previewing books (especially ones required for study) is an extremely beneficial practice. I must admit I haven’t done much of this in the past, mostly I would read the back cover, flick through the pages and maybe reading some of its contents. It is rewarding and insightful to systematically preview the contents of a book. It gives you a far better understanding of the value of the book and it helps you to understand where to look in the book when you need to look something up.Smart, Simon. ed. 2007. A spectator’s guide to worldviews: Ten ways of understanding life. South Sydney: Blue Bottle Books.
Cameron, Andrew. 2007. Whatever it takes: Utilitarianism. In A spectator’s guide to worldviews: Ten ways of understanding life. ed. Simon Smart, 86. South Sydney: Blue Bottle Books.
Fisher, Mary and Michele Smart. 2007. Sleeping with the enemy: Feminism. In A spectator’s guide to worldviews: Ten ways of understanding life. ed. Simon Smart, 154-155. South Sydney: Blue Bottle Books.
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Worldviews II
Reflection
Unit: SSK12
Week: 4
Date: 23 September 2009I wrote the attached file in response to some discussion regarding worldviews, but decided not to post it thinking that it might seem pretentious. Besides it was a bit late to add anything of value to the discussion.
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Worldviews
Reflection (Do not use for the Learning Log)
Unit: SSK12
Week: 2 (in Week 3)
Date: 15 September 2009Like a few here I am lagging a little, I’ve only just listened to the Week2 lecture given by Julia Hobson (2007) in the last two days. During the second part of the lecture Hobson makes a distinction between her understanding of a worldview and what she refers to as personal belief systems. I don’t completely agree with Hobson’s definition of a worldview in this respect. I find this definition limited. I understand that the university lecturer may need to be careful not to stray too far into spirituality so as not to cross from philosophy into religious education, but my belief (as framed by my worldview) is that these two concepts are inseparable. I believe what Hobson defines as personal belief systems are a fundamental and integral part of one’s worldview.
As a side note, this is an important illustration of the necessity to contextualise the context or read/listen worldviewishly, for as Sire (2004, 121) says, “the very concept of a worldview is itself worldview dependent.” Each proponent of a given worldview will have their own understanding of what a worldview is. Clearly mine is different to Hobson’s.
James Sire is one of my favourite authors, author of such books as The Universe Next Door and Naming the Elephant. His definition of a worldview is my favourite, it is concise yet comprehensive, and I doubt I could define it any better. Sire (2004, 122) writes:
“A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.”
For me the key to unlocking the concept of worldviews is the word presupposition. The foundation of any worldview is its presuppositions. So believing in a God, believing in many gods or not believing in god at all is fundamental to one’s worldview and by extension, one’s understanding of the self.
When Nietzsche (1882, 125) writes, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” This is a massive shift from previously held notions. Even those of a modern thinker such as John Locke who believed in “our ‘Inalienable Rights’, which are ordained by God.” (Osborne, 2007, 89) This is further demonstrated in that the Kamikaze pilot’s sense of self is very different to that of the Secular humanist’s, or that of a Jain, who values all life.
I think we can say with some confidence that today’s Christian worldview is a modern one, as I’m sure the Western Sunni Muslim worldview or the Reformed Jewish one is. I would go as far to say that many Christians worldwide manifest a syncretism between Christianity and postmodernism. My point is that there is a Modern Christian worldview, as much as there was a Mediæval Christian worldview, which are both distinct from secular modernism and each one will see the world and the concept of self differently through different lenses of understanding.
In my case, I am not a Christian, but I cannot deny the influence of Christianity on the Western worldview and mine in particular.
In conclusion, it is my belief that peoples’ belief systems have played a major role in philosophy throughout history, Christianity in particular plays a significant role in the evolution of western philosophy. I know Hobson doesn’t limit the definition of worldviews to Greek, Mediæval, Modern or mechanistic and Postmodern, but I think it is important to point out that there are many worldviews, held by many people and they are multifaceted. I hope I have satisfactorily argued a case for the inseparability of personal belief systems (as defined by Hobson) and one’s worldview.
References
Hobson, J. 2007. Lecture: Concepts of the Self. Audio Recording. Murdoch: Murdoch University. 06 August 2007.Sire, James W. 2004. Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept. Downers Grove, U.S.A.: InterVarsity Press.
Nietzsche, F. 1882. “The Madman”, The Gay Science 125, in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann, 1954. New York: Viking. Reprinted in The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. 4th ed. p. 211. Downers Grove, U.S.A.: InterVarsity Press.
Osborne, R. 2007. Philosophy: For Beginners. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
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Modernity
Glossary (Do not use for learning log)
Unit: SSK12
Week: 2
Date: 13 September 2009Word: modernity n.
Context: Modernity appears in different parts of the unit reader both as a period of societal development and as a framework of understanding the world that surrounds us (i.e. a worldview).
Definition: Modernity in the context of philosophy is broadly considered to date back to the Enlightenment of 17th and 18th century Europe, and is typically understood to have begun with Descartes (of “I think therefore I am” fame). The main feature of modernity is its emphasis on rationality and as the excerpt from the Conceptual Dictionary in the Unit Reader says, the “privileging of science over traditional thought and action”. (Conceptual Dictionary, 1994) The modernist believes that through the supremacy afforded to rationality and science over traditional thought it is possible to improve upon and progress human society. There is some disagreement as to whether the period of modernity has ended or not, and whether we are still in it, particularly from proponents of postmodernism.
Word in Use: The objectives and hopes of modernity as purported by the philosophers of the Enlightenment was the continued improvement and ultimate perfection of human society.Bullock, A. and S. Trombley. eds. 2000. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. 3rd ed. London: Harper Collins.
Bunnin, N., and J. Yu. eds. 2009. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Craig, A.P. et al. 1994. Conceptual Dictionary. Kenwyn, South Africa: Juta, University of Natal.
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