Luke's Working Notes

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Worldview Wheel (Wright)

Problem

It is incredibly difficult to comprehensively articulate and evaluate a worldview.

Solution

"Worldviews are the basic stuff of human existence, the lens through which the world is seen, the blueprint for how one should live in it, and above all the sense of identity and place which enables human beings to be what they are." - N.T. Wright

Wright suggests we study worldviews by considering those four features:

  1. Characteristic stories
  1. Foundational beliefs (answers to fundamental questions)
  1. Fundamental symbols, and
  1. Habitual praxis

Put another way, there are four things worldviews do for us:

  1. They provide stories through which we view reality
  1. They answer basic questions of human existence
  1. They come to expression in cultural symbols (artifacts and events)
  1. They entail a "way-of-being-in-the-world"

A couple observations:

First, notice that these worldview features are enacted (3 and 4), not just propositional (1 and 2). Practical not just theoretical.

Second, these features are treated separately here, but in reality, they overlap in many interesting ways. For example, myth combines story and symbol. Ritual combines symbol and praxis. History combines narrative and belief. Habit combines belief and praxis.

Examples

Cross-References

Our Perspective is always bounded by our worldview.

References

The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog - James Sire

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas S. Kuhn

Worldview: The History of a Concept - David K. Naugle

Referenced in

Worldview Wheel (Wright)