Meaning of Worldview

What is Worldview:

The word cosmovision means vision of the world, that is, the perspective, concept or mental representation that a certain culture or person forms of reality. Therefore, a worldview offers a framework for interpreting reality, which contains beliefs, perspectives, notions, images and concepts.

It has its origin in the literal translation of the German word Weltanschauungformed in turn from the word Weltwhich means ‘world’, and anschauen, which means ‘look’ or ‘observe’. In his translation, he takes the word from Greek cosmos which means ‘world’ or ‘universe’, and from Latin the word visio.

The term Weltanschauung either worldview It was first coined by William von Humboldt, although most sources indicate that it was Wilhelm Dilthey, because he used the term systematically.

As expected, such a representation of the world responds to the particular context in which people are inserted. Thus, a certain worldview responds to a specific time-space.

With this concept, Dilthey introduces the idea that the subject’s life experience is formed, precisely, from the values ​​and representations of the society in which he or she moves.

Religions, arts and literature, political and economic ideologies, philosophy or scientific discourse are, in themselves, worldviews, that is, representations that explain how the world works and determine the way to relate to it. The notion of worldview is, therefore, close to the notion of myth.

See also Myth.

Types of worldview

There are as many worldviews as there are ideologies in the world. However, all of them respond to large basic types, depending on the approach or perspective.

According to Wilhelm Dilthey, there are three major types of worldview from which all others are generated. Namely:

1) naturalismaccording to which the human being is determined by nature.

2) The idealism of freedomin which it is believed that the individual has become aware of his separation from nature through the exercise of freedom of choice.

3) objective idealismaccording to which the human being is conceived in harmony with nature.

It is important to clarify that these types of worldview are not pure, which means that they simply make up a dominant vision but not exclusive of other thought models.

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