Anthropological turn in worldview studies: theoretical and practical aspects

The concept of worldview appears to be quite ambiguous in the modern humanities. On the one hand, it is a very important term that is utilized in various viewpoints, different contexts, and miscellaneous meanings. Philosophers and scholars, such as anthropologists, psychologists and philologists, suggest that there is a spiritual or cognitive basis for each people, person or language, which is expressed in the way they behave, think, or speak. Moreover, in contemporary Russian humanities, scholars may discern different levels or types of worldview, however, we could hardly find two authors writing about worldview and who were in agreement about the types they distinguish or the features the worldview demonstrates. Here, another important aspect of worldview is touched upon, namely, that there is almost nothing precise about the term and its denotation neither in Russian, nor in foreign discourse.

There are several obstacles that exacerbate the worldview analysis. First of all, many scholars define the term in their own, often very intuitive, way. Consequently, an objective demand has developed for a comprehensive and instrumental means as worldview (or Weltanschauung, we consider these two terms to be interchangeable, see [4, p. 4, n. 1]) within the humanities, but it gave birth to another important obstacle -- namely to the incompatibility of the approaches to the very issue of worldview. There are authors who refuse to observe it only in a religious perspective, omitting any mention of scientific or philosophical worldview (see [4, p. 249-250, 345]). This tendency of a spiritual interpretation of worldview could be regarded as objective -- James W. Sire provides an in-depth explanation of it in terms of methodological naturalism and belief in God as an object of humane investigation [5, p. 158-161]. Many of those who state such arguments have already chosen their positions and thus discuss the very topic from this precondition of choice: one should be ready to defend their point of view, and the way they realize the world -- or to share this point with others. Whatever stance one takes, it only expresses their partisanship and calls the independent discussion into question.

Thus, the main problem of worldview studies is what do we analyze? And could we principally achieve any rigid and incontestable object of our investigation? The concept of scientific worldview has become a commonplace idea and it cannot be conceived without obvious controversy. All these doubts convince me that we should change the perspective of our survey and develop the concept of worldview not as “what”, but rather as “how”. This approach seems more fruitful and as a result, it provides the anthropological, not epistemological, perspective. What represents the “how” who were the proponents of this idea, and what benefits does this approach provides us with? These questions will be further discussed in my article.

To develop my argument, I will focus on three main aspects of the issue. Firstly, I will discuss the opportunities to accurately describe and conceive worldview as the subject- matter of philosophy. Interestingly, there have been debates regarding this from the end of 19th century. As philosophers were searching for the possibilities that could be found in philosophy in accordance with scientific certainty, the issue of worldview was also understood as a scientific problem. Secondly, I will say a few words about the historical and contemporary examples of worldview typology. It is well known that Max Scheler and Wilhelm Dilthey created their typologies independently, and while being closely connected with each other in space and time, they still managed to fail in finding common ground concerning this crucial epistemological point in their meditations. Nevertheless, many contemporary scholars do not correlate their research foundations with the ones these men elaborated -- this will be clearly seen from the example of Jerome Ashmore's typology. One can also acknowledge the creation of typologies as a way to legitimize the worldview in the framework of scientific discourse.

However, this path is neither the only one, nor is it profound enough. Nowadays as well as in the 1920s, there were scholars who tried to refute such a strict dichotomy of a “science -- worldview” and introduce a complex perspective on the issue. The arguments of Bernhard Groethuysen, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Bruno Latour, Steve Woolgar can be observed in this respect. The alternative rout they argue for is, to my mind, a turn to the much more prosperous and prolific attitude, to the method of worldview studies -- namely, to the anthropological outlook. In the conclusion, I will summarize my ideas concerning this anthropological turn.

The problem of a rigorous analysis of worldview

At the turn of the 20th century, there appeared a commonly accepted idea that there are two types of philosophy, one of which should be regarded as the earthly wisdom, whereas the other may be scientifically founded. The two main proponents of this view were Alois Riehl and Edmund Husserl -- very different thinkers, who could be named more rivals than companions. Both of them delivered lectures, which became their manifests. Riehl claimed that one should choose either to develop a scientific or non-scientific philosophy, that is to carry the life either through an analysis of human knowledge or a scholarch, who would lead the people and create a non-scientific worldview [6, 169ff.]. As for Husserl, he famously maintained that philosophy should be considered a strict science, and then it should develop its project along with the other sciences using a rigorous and consistent method to become a system of thought [7, p. 86].

One should notice that both of them were disappointed with their views and by the end of their lives they spoke about the other, non-scientific area, which philosophical analysis should be focused on. One may find Husserl's arguments in his posthumous The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (it was first delivered as a lecture series in 1936 and twenty years later was published as his philosophical testament), where he conceptualized the idea of Lebenswelt. Riehl bet on the aesthetical, even artistic aspect of philosophy, in his Princeton University lecture The Vocation of Philosophy at the Present Day (1913), twenty years earlier than Husserl.

As the position of Husserl concerning the crisis of modern sciences is widely known and variously debated (see: [8-10]), I would like to pay more attention to Riehl's idea of the decline of scientifically shaped philosophy. In the mentioned speech he states: “Those two long divided and hostile forces, science and philosophy, did not stop at a mere reconciliation, but went on to establish something in the nature of a confederacy. Yet, promising as was the movement thus inaugurated, and short as is the interval that has elapsed since then, the period of Scientific Philosophy seems to many in our day to be already at an end” [11, p. 47]. Truly, by the end of 1910s one might have seen that the positivistic enthusiasm about the gradual progress in human sciences and knowledge could not last forever. There should be a border, beyond which our attempts to describe things through the methods of rigorous analysis fails, and provide us only with pessimistic neglection of all the previous values, including science itself. A very illustrious example of such a sort of pessimism was Nietzsche together with the decadent tradition that he brought to life. Consequently, we may see that there is something more than a mere demand for the knowledge, e.g. the system of values, and it is the task of philosophy to discover it: “As surely as the Spirit is a living unity, there is a harmony to be created between the fundamental tendencies of the spiritual life. It is the vocation of philosophy as a guide to the spirit, to raise the knowledge of values and of the system of values to the clearness of the concept to maintain, at whatever cost of struggle and effort, the harmonious disposition of our life” [11, p. 63]. This idea fruitfully corresponds with the whole thought movement of that time -- according to another Neo-Kantian and Riehl's ex-doctoral student, Heinrich Rickert, “[p]hilosophy as a worldview-theory based on the system of values, in turn, can provide a comprehensive picture of the world in which all contemplative and practical activity takes place” [12].

Nowadays, one may observe a thrilling picture concerning the issue of worldview: many scholars defy it and avoid speaking about it as something contradictory to philosophy and its tasks. To my mind, this tendency was provoked by Martin Heidegger, who (as far as I understand, under the influence of Alois Riehl) was the first to claim that philosophy does not deal with any kind of worldview [13, p. 5 ff.]. Although he was not consistent in his critique of Weltanschauungsphilosophie, many of his followers adopted his skepticism towards worldview as a subject matter of philosophy -- probably, H.-G. Gadamer was among the minority who revisited the topic (see, e. g.: [14]). However, the demands of scientifically based philosophy was relevant at the turn of the century, and one who tried to solve it, speculating little, was the son of a prominent classic scholar Theodor Gomperz, Heinrich Gomperz.

H. Gomperz considered himself to be a follower of Richard Avenarius. The latter thought that philosophy is simply a methodological discipline, a kind of chambermaid, that keeps the parlor of the scientifically achieved data in order. When special disciplines become more detailed and complicated, philosophy should draw back and quietly contemplate the wholeness of the system of science. That is why the Swiss philosopher was anxious about exiling “occasional” domains of philosophy, such as as logic, aesthetics, ethics, etc., because they are not able to utilize our knowledge in comprehension of the universe [15, p. 19]. H. Gomperz formulated his task in another manner: his idea was to bring the diversity of particular philosophical branches under three fundamental divisions: noology (i.e. the doctrine of human mind), ontology (the doctrine of being), and cosmology (the doctrine of the world). In the very § 1 of his magnum opus, Gomperz claimed that “[t]he philosophical discipline that they call nowadays either metaphysics, or epistemology, and also they often divide into metaphysis and epistemology, will be further referred to as the doctrine of worldview (Weltanschauungslehre) or Kosmotheorie” [16, p. 2].

In other words, Gomperz wanted to combine cosmology and epistemology in terms of empiriocriticism. In § 41, he emphasizes that the given threefold division reveals the principle intentions of his project. When one applies ontological concepts, they render a certain way of being, within which any experience is provided. Hence the certain picture of the world appears, and the way it was rendered becomes the subject-matter of ontology, whereas the picture of the world, which is based on experience, is the subject-matter of cosmology. It should also be clear that although Weltanschauungslehre discerns these disciplines within itself, it aims to grasp the whole universe of representations, feelings, and desires, which we have in our experience. Thus, Gomperz is eager to build the united doctrine of human perception, which should be founded on the basis of science, but at the same time be able to comprehend the whole diversity of sense-data. According to § 7, his project carries on the impressive task of the logical analysis of language -- an idea, that became a bondage of courage for the founding-fathers of analytic philosophy (in 1930 Gomperz fled to the USA, after the Nazis came to power, and was widely regarded as an analytic philosopher).

Thus, I can conclude that the problematics of worldview was a certain touchstone for those who were anxious to introduce a project of scientifically based philosophy. After the decline of Hegel's omnipotent and omniscient system of philosophy, a breach appeared in the very foundation of the gigantic building of human knowledge. The comprehensive and all-embracing tool had to be found, and the concept of Weltanschauung suited perfectly. Now let us turn to those who attempted to represent and describe the typology of worldview as an alternative scientific, or strict project.

Typology as an alternative scientific approach to the issue

Now I would like to focus on three examples, or perhaps better to say cases of how scholars tried to remove the obscurities from the topic of worldview. Two of the cases (Dilthey's and Scheler's) are classical, and the new one (Ashmore's) is very typical.

Using the hermeneutical method, Wilhelm Dilthey distinguished three main types in the historical structure of worldview: religious, poetical, and metaphysical. The latter consists of three types as well: naturalism, the idealism of freedom, and objective idealism. Focusing on these three types, one could see that Dilthey understood them quite broadly. Thus, he counts as naturalism the views of Democritus, Hobbes, Holbach, and English empiricists, etc.; to the idealism of freedom he attributed the classical Greek philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as well as Kant's and Henry Bergson's doctrines; finally, he regarded Xenophanes, Parmenides, the stoics, Bruno, Shaftsbury, Schopenhauer, and others very different from other philosophers to be the representatives of objective idealism [17, p. 237-249].

Each of these divisions and types has its own purpose -- to solve the riddle of life, which consists of the aspiration to the higher and realization and acknowledgement of inevitable death. Dilthey says that religion plays an important part in human life as it endows things and people with significance and strengthens the belief that there are supernatural forces in them -- meanwhile poetry (or art in general) has the power to ascend something sensational to the level of ideal and imperishable expression of life. Poetry is capable of revealing the significance of things that happen, and it becomes an important means to express the ideal views of the world through the prism of a certain poet [17, p. 229-231]. However, metaphysics tends to achieve the level of universal knowledge, thus, to comprehend the whole world by the means of rational contemplation. And here we have already seen the possible types, or approaches that the historical systems of thought provide. What is noteworthy is that intuition lies at the core of any worldview type, and any worldview project is a subjective one [17, p. 237]. Dilthey does not want to establish anything as a final variant, on the contrary he emphasizes that Weltanschauung is an open project, and each one may contribute freely.

There should have obviously appeared a doctrine that could unite the common traits of various approaches to the issue of worldview. The very first task here was to maintain the subjective aspect of worldview as a certain personal orientation in the world; second, to combine the scientific regards with it; third, to find it as an active, practical attitude to life. These three factors were perfectly bound in Max Scheler's doctrine of worldview. Gaining fame for the development of philosophical axiology, he basically continued the path paved by H. Rickert. Another step towards Scheler's value and worldview doctrine was Dilthey's historicism.

According to Scheler, there are three types or attitudes to the world that are expressed in three forms of knowledge: scientific, or the one to dominate the nature; educative, or the essential one; metaphysical, or the one to save oneself from perish. Each of these three types are used to render either things, or the human, or the universal [18, p. 5]. Within the framework of his anthropology, the philosophical worldview appears to be a certain act of metaphysics, or the representation of the human being as a personality. As each man is a microtheos, or a co-creator and the reflection of the structure of the whole universe in themselves, there is no preconditional worldview, but it is the method for achieving this worldview that plays a crucial part. Nowadays, we would have scarcely considered this argument as satisfactory, but it should have worked within the practically oriented microcosm of Scheler. To put it in a nutshell, Scheler's idea of die philosophische Weltanschauung was a genuine attempt to combine the achievements of theoretical insights of anthropology and values as well as the practical ones of morality. To behave the way he prescribes, means to become an artist of life, and consequently to overcome the bourgeois attitude to the world. Scheler strived to discover the initial metaphysical layer of reality, the very Schellingian Urwissen [19, p. 8], which should lay the basis for all the independent sciences or research activities. Thus, his typology became an important precedent of how to interpret a person as ens cogitans, since the threefold set of human's cognitive equipment is as diverse as human nature itself.

Jerome Ashmore introduces the idea to discern the three aspects of worldview: the relative one; the categorical one; and the phenomenological one. His idea is that worldview cannot be described in precise terms, it is “highly elastic” and “[a] Weltanschauung is something like an involuntary precipitate that has crystallized in the mind of an individual or in the collective outlook of some group, as in the case of Hellenic Greece or medieval Europe” [20, p. 215].

The first aspect embraces all the features that are common for the everyday worldview, or the Weltanschauung as they refer to it in sociological and cultural discourse. J. Ashmore distinguishes two principle influential groups on the subjects of worldview of this type: they are the fixed externally (namely, the race, place, climate, and natural resources), and the variable internal (mentality and language). The first group can also be titled as physical, and the second -- as psychical [20, p. 216-218]. The other two aspects of worldview result from from the answer to the issue of the human attitude to the world: “In one, Weltanschauung is considered as an integration of the inner state of man and something from the outer state of the universe with their effective relation being reciprocal and with neither having priority as a force in determining the result. In the other, Weltanschauung is considered as something subordinate to a structure subsisting independently of the self. These two approaches lead to the remaining two aspects of Weltanschauung -- the catego- rial and the phenomenological -- which, because of space limitations, will be examined in only a summary fashion” [20, p. 223]. The example of the first approach are the doctrines of categories by Aristotle or Kant, meanwhile, Hegel's phenomenology is an example of the other.

Although I am hesitant to scrutinize Ashmore's arguments, it is clear that his typology is rough and random. I object the same way as Kant did to Aristotle's categories: the given aspects are not apodeictical, and, thus, incomplete. Indeed, the worldview escapes the bounds of the precise definition as well as the criteria of the typology. Eventually, it turns out to be simply a natural attitude either for successful human life in a certain society, or a tool to express our cognitive demands by means of language or consciousness, or a comprehensive view of the way the world works. However, here we encounter principle methodological questions. Can one bind such epistemological diversity by these essentialist tricks? Is worldview something dynamic rather than static? This is the key aspect of worldview analysis, and there is an author who studied this precise point in his works. His name is Bernhard Groethuysen; a follower of W. Dilthey and G. Simmel, he developed a curiously prolific and influential idea of philosophical anthropology as both historiography and ontology of the human. His approach is pivotal for my research method as a model of historical-philosophical representation of philosophical anthropology.

As historiography, philosophical anthropology, deals with the way the worldviews appear, its subject matter for Groethuysen is the analysis of diversity and continuity of the elementary experiences and understandings that take place in miscellaneous life-forms. From his perspective, what people appear to be depends essentially on the way they approve of their identity within the culture via historically contextualized reflectivity [21, p. 224]. As a certain ontology of the human, philosophical anthropology distinguishes the attitudes of the “I” and the usage of language (the “I-Thou” level) by each and every person, thus it plays the part of a second rank reflection towards this original manifestation of oneself in a dialogue. Groethuysen himself interpreted his idea as a traditional motif in the course of the history of Western philosophy: “Groethuysen argued in his own Philosophische Anthropologie (1931) that this urgent and exciting new domain was simply the most recent version of a very ancient tendency of thought, the inner dialectic in the self between “I live” (vivo) and “I think” (cogito), now broadened and transformed into an open dialogue with other persons, epochs, and cultures” [22, p. 687-688].

Groethuysen is famous for his study of bourgeois worldview, being a noteworthy person in a brilliant line of bourgeois-scholars [23]. Avoiding the contents of his research, I would focus on its conceptual structure. As he adheres to the method of understanding (Verstдndnis), proposed by Dilthey, he speaks about the certain explication and formulation of the bourgeois experience of life, noting the way they use language (in ditties, sermons, apothems, etc.) The bourgeois produce a new historical world within which they become active speakers, or Cartesian subjects, thus the simple mentality of the individuals transforms into an ideology, a form that appears as an answer to the criticism of a mentality's supporters. Further development finishes on the level of worldview, which embraces the whole spectrum of verbal and non-verbal everyday practices and, consequently, the very idea of worldview typology, tacitly inherited from the Dilthean discourse, turns into a demonstration of the worldview as a certain type of historical formation of personal and social being [21, p. 231].

Groethuysen's idea demonstrates an important shift in the perspective on how one has frequently comprehended the worldview. He was, most likely, the first who tried to establish the worldview as a certain discourse, which intercrossed domains with a strictly scientific one. This concerns not only the way people form their attitude to the world, but the way they operate the order of nature as well as the order of words. Thus, I find it possible to speak about the anthropological perspective in the research of worldview-science interaction as modi vivendi et operandi, that is a complex attitude to the world perspective closely connected with the nature of the observer himself.

Science vs worldview: A controversy?