Weltanschauung
A World View, also spelt as worldview is a term calqued from German word Weltanschauung ("look onto the world"); the latter one is still in wide use, sometimes in a "translated" form: "world outlook".
The term denotes a comprehensive set of opinions, seen as an organic unity, about the world as the medium and exercise of human existence: politics, economics, religion, culture, science, human values.
World view describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining and applying knowledge.
At all times, religious and political teachings were bases for forming worldviews; in fact, they were often worldviews themselves. For example, christianity, islam, socialism, marxism, scientology may be called worldviews; at least they generate clearly identifiable worldviews.
Historically, world views changed little and slowly, achieving wide (and often unquestioning) support. Postmodernism has encouraged a proliferation of ever-changing Weltanschauungen.
Related notions
paradigm, social reality, perspective, point of view, belief
Related topics
religion, philosophy, metaphysics, ontology.
Referenced By
Confirmation holism | English language/Strange words | Ideology | Linguistic relativity | List of German expressions in English | List of German expressions in common English | List of strange words in the English language | List of unusual English words | Ontological relativity | Perspective | Reality | Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis | SapirWhorfHypothesis | The thought without language | W.V.O. Quine | W.V. Quine | W. V. O. Quine | W. V. Quine | W Quine | Whorfian hypothesis
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