western approaches to worldview

8/8/2019 Western Approaches to Worldview

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Western Approaches to Worldview

Materialism

Positivism

Modernism

Post-modernism

Secularism


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Materialism Literally, material means: physical substance,

consisting of matter, or the substance out of which athing is or can be made.

Conceptually; materialism is the theory which says

that: physical matter is the only reality and thateverything, including thought, feeling, mind, and

will, can be explained in terms of matter and

physical phenomena.

It is a system of thought that explains the nature of

the world as entirely dependent on matter, the

fundamental and final reality beyond which nothing

need be sought.


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Cont

Is a theory which says that physical matter is the

only reality and that everything, including thought,feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of

matter and physical phenomena.

So the universe has no purpose or notion of goodand evil, other than the meaning and value that we

give it.

Materialism denies, the role of God in the existence

and the operation of the universe.

It also denies the existence of angles, spirits and

souls.


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Cont This worldview assert the believe that: knowledge

based on something other than observation andreason is invalid.

Thus, it is not necessary to assume that the universe,

its life and humans had a Creator. Their existence can be explained by forces acting on

matter and random chance.

Life involves only physical and chemical processes,

not some vital spirit.


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Analysis

Materialism have a number of problems including:

Materialism means the belief in the subjectiveeternal existence of matter. It is an opposition to

the theory of idealism because idealism rejects

totally any eternal existence of matter. It is a partial explanation of the universe. Because

it confines existence to the materialistic aspects of

life.


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SECULARISM

The term secular is from Latin word saeculum

which conveys dual meaning of time and location.

The time refers to now or present while location

refers to the world and worldly. Saeculum, thus, means this age or the present time

or the contemporary era.

Secularism refers to the condition of the world or the

particular time, period or age.


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Cont According to Harvey Cox, a modern Christian

theologian: Secularism is the liberation of man from religious

and metaphysical tutelage, that is, turning his

attention from the other worlds. He defines secularization as the deliverance of man

away from religious ideas and beliefs,

understandings, forms or systems, and from

metaphysical control over his reason and his

language.


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Cont Characteristics of Secularism

It encompasses the political, social and cultural aspects oflife, but it implies the disappearance of religiousdetermination as the symbols of integration and unity.

It simply ignores God and affirms that man does not need

God. It makes religion as an individual matter, a thing of the

conscience, a matter of private faith which has a little to dowith mans social, economic and political life.

Secularism implies ideas and institutions of purely humanorigin and its teachings are man-made, not derived from thedivine sources.

It is concerned with worldly affairs, not religious andspiritual affairs.


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Cont

Jacob Holyoke, another Christian theologian, outlines threefundamental characteristics ofsecularism as follow:

a. Worldly Orientation: It postulates blessed humanity as the ultimatereality and ultimate aim of human being without reference to religionand concern with life after death.

b. Western Science: It adopts a belief in natural causation andemphasizes upon general ability and applicability of themethodological pattern of human mathematical and analytical abilityfor discovery of the truth. It also emphasizes on reason, observationand experiment to the neglect of revelation.

c. Liberalism: It is a belief, which is founded on humanism, in theintegrity and sacredness of free individual. It emphasizes on thefreedom of the individual to express their faith, thought and ideas. Theultimate claim of liberalism is the religious freedom of man who hasthe choice to reject or accept it.


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Cont

Max Webber, a German sociologist, provides three

essential components of secularization:

1. Disenchantment of Nature

It implies the freeing of nature from its religious overtones.

This involves the expulsion of animistic spirits and gods andsuperstition from the natural world.

It implies separation of God from the nature so that man

will no longer regard nature as a divine entity. Therefore,man can act freely upon natural according to his plans andneeds, thus, creating development and historical change.


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Cont

2. Desacralization of Politics

Desacralizing means giving the secular full autonomywithout reference to any ultimate foundation. This denotes

the abolition of sacral legitimating of political power and

authority, which is a prerequisite of political change, and

also social change and thus, allowing the mergence of

historical process.


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Cont

3. Deconsecration of Values

This implies that all cultural creations and values systemswhich include religion and worldviews having ultimate

significance as transient (brief/temporary). The future is

open to change and man is free to create change and include

himself in the evolutionary process.

Secularization implies a continuing and open-ended process

in which values and worldviews are continually revised

according with evolutionary change in history.

Secularization is like a religion, which projects a closed

worldview and set of values in line with an ultimate

historical purpose. It is infant an ideology.


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Positivism- Literally:

- positive means: displaying certainty, or explicitly expressed.Admitting no doubts.

Conceptually;

- A doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the onlyadmissible basis of human knowledge and precise

thought.

- Or the application of this doctrine in logic, epistemology,and ethics.

- A philosophy asserting the primacy of observation inassessing the truth of statements of fact and holding thatmetaphysical and subjective arguments not based onobservable data are meaningless.


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Positivism- Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that

metaphysical questions are unanswerable and that the only

knowledge is scientific knowledge.

- Though many other philosophers contributed to the development ofthis philosophy, however many aspects of this philosophy is attributedto Auguste Comte (d.1857).

- According to positivism, society undergoes three different phases in itsquest for the truth. These three phases are the theological, themetaphysical and the positive phases.

A. Theological Stage:

1. Fetishism2. Polytheism.

3. Monotheism

B. Philosophical/abstract thinking (early and mediaval ages)

C. Positive Stage: (the age of science, our age).


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Modernism

1. The word modern is derived from Latin modo in the

sense just now. The word literally means: recent,contemporary, being at this time and existing now.

2. Conceptually; it is the tendency of understanding life

based on modern thought, character, or practice, and

sympathy with or conformity to modern ideas, orstandards.

3. Modernity and its pioneers claimed that this world is

run by natural laws, which are in every existence rather

than Divine Power.

4. Modernists explain themselves as a deliberate departure from

tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that

distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20th

century.


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Cont

1.The progress of science and the expansion of knowledge

had enabled man to observe, that which was beyond hisobservation in the past.

b. Modernity claimed that, physics, psychology and history

proved conclusively that all those events which man

explained in terms of the existence of a God or Gods,

or some abstract Power had entirely different causes,

but that man, steeped in ignorance, continued to speak

of them in terms of religious mystery.

c. Modernity calls for rationalization, secularization,

individualism, subjectivism (in values), linear

progression, objectivism (in learning nature), rational

universalism and industrial society.


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Cont Concentrations ofModernism:

God is nothing more than a projection of man on acosmic screen.

The concept of another world was nothing but: a

beautiful idealization of human wishes.

Divine inspiration and revelation were merely an

extraordinary expression of the childhood repressions.

Human rationality and scientific factual experience

should replace religious interpretations of the universe. Knowledge that is factual is connected with experience

and observation (human mind).


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Postmodernism

The term postmodernity is used in a number of

ways, however, its basic assumption is a failure ofmodernity, and a new evolving status.

Postmodern means: postmodern thought relating to

art, architecture, or literature that reacts againstearlier modernist principles.

Postmodernist movement rejected modernism as a

failure of evolution of man. Most generally,postmodernity is the state or condition of being

postmodern particularly in reference in literature

and culture.


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Cont

Postmodernity is concerned with changes to institutions and

conditions, whereas postmodernism is an artistic, literary,political or social philosophy.

It restructures our lifestyle, culture, custom and civilization.

In other words, postmodernism is the cultural and

intellectual phenomenon, especially since the 1920s new

movements in the arts, while postmodernity focuses onsocial and political outworkings in society, especially since

the 1960s new movements in societies, taking place around

the world.


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Principles of Postmodernism1. No Truth

Postmodernism rejects all forms of truth claims as such that allnotions of Truth, Reason, Morality, God, Tradition and History aremeaningless and rejected.

Postmodernism rejects all worldviews may it be science, religion andMarxism, as it claims these as artificial constructions that are totally

totalitarian by their very nature?

An American guru of postmodernism, Richard Rorty says, nothinghas an intrinsic nature which may be expressed or represented andeverything is a product of time and change.

Postmodernism accepts nothing as absolute and it rejoices in totalrelativism.

Postmodernism considers all types, as well as all sources, ofknowledge with equal skepticism. There is hardly any difference

between science and magic. Knowledge is acquired not throughinquiry but by imagination


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Cont2. No Reality

Postmodernism is a denial of reality, all types ofreality.

Postmodernism suggests that there is no ultimateRealty behind things; we see largely what we want

to see, what our cultural and historic perceptions

focus on.

Postmodernism also suggests that the distinction

between image and materiality has been lost.


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Cont3. Imagination and Speculation

Reality has been drowning into the ocean of images.

There is no possibility of meaning as there is

difficulty in establishing the imaginative andspeculative with the actual material.

It is like a video game being seduced by the allure of

spectacle. We have all become characters in theglobal game, zapping our way from here to there,fighting wars in cyberspace, making love todigitized bits of information.


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Cont4. Meaningless and valueless

The world is without truth and reason.

There is no knowledge about existence as there is nopossibility of knowing its meanings.

Everything has to be deconstructed. But oncedeconstruction has reached its natural conclusion,

we are left with a grand void: there is nothing thatcan remotely provide us with meaning, with sense ofdirection, with a scale to distinguish between goodand evil.


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Cont

5. Total Doubt

Postmodernism generates doubt about everything.

Doubt is the perpetual and perennial condition of

postmodernism.

It is best described by the motto of the culttelevision series The X-files: Trust no One.

In postmodern theory, this extended to include no

theory, no absolute, no experience, that is, doubteverything.

western approaches to worldview

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