Customer Reviews

Worldview: The History of a Concept

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought the book several months back, started the first few chapters, and moved on to more pressing material. I finished the book as part of my expanded reading for an adult education class at our church on the topic of Christian worldviews. We know from the introduction that the book began as his PhD dissertation, i would suspect that this is the contents of chapters 1-8, which are just a little dry, factual presentation dominated by philosophers and their writings. Probably the best available introduction to the concepts revolving around 'world and life view', certainly well done and informative.

But it is chapters 9 and 10 that really interest me. 9 is "Theological Reflections of 'Worldview' " and 10 is "Philosophical Reflections on 'Worldview'". These two chapters are worth the time to read the whole book and well worth an occasional reread in the future to keep the ideas fresh, warm and on the top of my thinking. So if you have just a few minutes to analyze if you want to buy and read this book; start with chapter 9, especially for a Christian, or chapter 10, for the more secular, and see if the book is of interest to you. If you are interested in how he presents ideas i would turn to pg 46, a section entitled "Sacramental Worldview" which is a section on the Eastern Orthodoxy worldview, especially from the pen of Alexander Schmemann, and is probably the best 9 pages in the first 8 chapters, i ordered his book immediately on reading this part.

The book is not an easy read, a certain tolerance for names and intellectual history is needed, perhaps not a common quality in today's reading public. But there is nothing that a motivated person with access to the net for more background information can't cure in a few clicks and some supplementary reading. But i am afraid most people would follow a similar trajectory as i did, a few chapters then a slow creep to the bottom of the to-be-read pile, and this is unfortunate, if it happens to you, skip to 9 and 10 and read them, then get back to the harder, less uplifting work of the details rather than the big picture. The author would be well advised to release these 2 chapters onto the (wild)net, for they are standalone, and worthy of greater broadcast then they will get following his dissertation(as packaged in the book), for they would be of great value in discussions like my class at church.

Having read this book for Dr. Naugle's Philosophy class, I got this book first hand. It was one of our textbooks for his class, and it was a hard read. It was his dissertation, and the language in it can tend to be obscure. He sets out to analyze various worldviews from various perspectives. Being distinctly Christian, Dr. Naugle has three chapters on various Christian worldviews (Chapters 1,2,9). But, his philosophical insights into it at just short of amazing. This is a tremendous book from a tremendous man (And when you get through with it you will definitely know what 'Weltanschauung' means!)

This book is the author's exploration of the history and meaning of the term or concept of "worldview." Naugle surveys the history of the word and its use under various meanings, as defined or used in Philosophy, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Theology and Political Theory.

Story-Form Knowledge
Naugle points out the meaning of story forms in oral cultures, and indicates that the error of modern rationalist theories of knowledge is that they ignored the concept of narrative as the primary way all human societies talk about the wholeness of life and the unseen realities.

Concepts of rationality are also investigated. He determines that the concept of worldview is an epistemological question, and finds the Enlightenment linear, objective concept of knowledge as external is based on a mistaken notion that human reason can somehow get outside itself and stand outside its own worldview assumptions.

I found many of the formulations and concepts and conclusions of the author were statements of concepts I had been propounding in my last thirty years of training people in cross-cultural communication. The concept of worldview and the uniqueness of worldview from culture/society to culture/society have been the standard reference points. Christian mission has been approaching peoples of the world this way for some decades, learning the cultural worldview and formulating communication in those forms unique to that culture.

Foundational
I agree with Dr. Naugle that the concept of worldview is foundational to understanding both the similarities and the differences between human cultures. Dynamic, symbolic (semiotic) forms of reference to the broader reality of our human existence are presented in the "mythological," story-symbol forms of human cultures and worldviews. The modern period assumed it had no myths, but in doing so promulgated and ignored its own presuppositions and myths.

Naugle sheds light on the aspects of cognitive culture we refer to by the term "worldview." The current body of knowledge of Anthropology and Sociology has clearly established the view that all people have myths, figures and supra-historical concepts that give their daily lives meaning. "Worldview" is the term we use for that.

This "worldview" is the hidden mental organizing principle or set of principles by which society is organized, decisions are made, values are developed and defended or changed and by which new ideas and technologies are evaluated.

Orality
In recent decades a whole discipline has developed investigating the concept of oral communication in not only traditional cultures in our world today, but the classical cultures. The concept of how people thought at different periods in history is given more weight in evaluating other cultures old and new. Oral cultures, even when literate think and operate differently than our modern rationalistic literate cultures.

For the past 6 months, I have been catching up on reading about worldviews. (Shows you far behind the times I am). I have read all the major worldview books by Christian writers. They all provide their interpretation of what constitutes the Christian worldview perspective. Naugle does that but puts his book into a broader historical and philosophical context. He also acknowledges all the current Christian books on worldviews except Pearcey's "Total Truth" which was published after this book.

There is one area that all the Christian writers ignore or give scant attention in writing about worldviews. This is the economic and business organizational arena. These Christian writers discuss education, science and the political worldview and their impact on society. Some business writers have stated the business community determines the value structure of society more than the churches, political, scientific and educational communities. The scandals in government and economic can be viewed as worldview issues. I recognize that most business executives would probably not realize how important it is to articulate their worldview. IT is probably the single foundational issue that helps the give the business a sense of value, vision and mission.

Overall David Naugle's is very readable and worth the effort.

Got this as a bible study recommendation. Oh my word- I had no clue what the book or premise was. I even bought a used one hoping to catch the previously highlighted notes...

David K. Naugle handels in his book Worldviews plainly worldviews. He has selected all range of philosopher to represent all the different angles of this still quite difficult concept. There are Wittgenstein, Derrida, Dilthey, Hegel, and so on. There also are different themes: from religion to sociology, from postmodernism to natural scienences.

All together, Naugle has selected brilliant theme for this book. I used the book in making an essay, so I haven't red it through from the beginning at the end. But still in making my essay, I discovered quite lot of so little, but so meaningful term as worldview is.

Only minus thing for me was that Naugle's line to argument is quite religious. In preface he reveals to the reader that he believes in God, and in my opinion that comes "through" in his writing, especially in his concluding remarks. But of course, it's up to how one reacts such an argumentation and how this religiousness effects into interpretation.

-Petri GranlundWorldview: The History of a Concept

I find some of Naugle's uses of "worldview" are questionable, to say the least. Philosophers explain that because a culture has a certain WORD - like "worldview" - it does not follow that it has the corresponding CONCEPT. Intellectual history is good but one must use caution when doing these types of philological (and don't be fooled - this is more philology than philosophy), studies.

Also, on an apologetic note - Calvinistic fideism is the rule in this book and it finally collapses into subjectivism (he tries to avoid it in a footnote in chapter one, unsuccessfully). If you have any evidentialist tendendcies, you won't find anything here. When all is said and done all he can say (and does say) is that theists and, say, 'non-theists,' just have different beliefes (shrug shoulders and walk away scratching head); that is what it amounts to.

Two stars because it is interesting in some ways, just take with a large degree of healthy skepticism if you are an objectivist.