The concept of worldview, its structure and functions. Historical types of worldview


Worldview structure

The meaning of a worldview consists of knowledge, rules, attitudes, principles and ideals.
The human mind accepts its place in society, accepts itself and learns to live with external stimuli. A person gets acquainted with the world and navigates it with the help of information and established rules. With principles, she forms her place in society, creates her own values ​​and determines her emotional attitude towards external stimuli. And with established ideals, a person develops, forms his character and moves up the moral and intellectual ladder. Of course, the above does not fully describe the structure of the worldview. Such concepts are more objective (knowledge and information) and subjective (principles and ideals).

Beliefs occupy an important place in the structure of a worldview. They influence the behavior of the individual in society, in the choice of his priorities for self-realization in them

The primacy between the forms of structure can change both in one consciousness and in the mass consciousness.

Validity, value and meaning

The concept of worldview is very ambiguous; its structure includes complex components that manifest themselves individually in each person. In general, its structure represents the interaction of three components, which together create an inner world firmly based on the foundation of reality, value and meaning:

  • Individual picture of the world. These are a person’s stable ideas about the surrounding reality, which are formed on the basis of knowledge and experience of the historical past in connection with the present. A person cannot control the influence of this component, because you cannot choose the era of your birth.
  • Individual assessments. This is a set of views and judgments based on the general value orientation, as well as a person’s life ideals.
  • Personal meanings. This includes a person’s ideas about the meaning of his existence, on the basis of which social attitudes are formed and specific life goals are built.

The worldview of an individual is formed in the process of socialization and the gradual formation of personality on the basis of knowledge and personal life experience.

Describing the concept of seeing the world, its essence and structure, it is important to highlight its intellectual and emotional components:

  • worldview – the intellectual essence of a worldview, which covers stable knowledge in the form of various theories, principles and laws;
  • worldview is the emotional essence of a worldview, consisting of a wide range of emotions, feelings, moods that help to form a holistic, deep understanding of an object or situation.

As a result of the productive interaction of these components, the main components of a worldview are formed: a holistic complex of clear beliefs, actions, and personal behaviors that become the basis for self-expression. Now it is obvious that it is the vision of the world that is the background against which all behavioral reactions and actions of a person appear, against which his spiritual orientation is manifested.

Worldview structure

Description

Any manifestation of a worldview in human understanding has its own specific elements or attributes that create a single organized structure. Worldview ideas also have their own specific sequence of elements that create a single chain of understanding of the world and life. The most significant of these are the elements presented below.

  1. Knowledge. The main and most important element is human knowledge about the world, its features and the types of manifestations of life in it. Knowledge serves as a framework to which other equally important concepts are attached, and also creates a unified and common system for understanding the world. This system is formed during the educational process.
  2. Values. Value guidelines are laid down in a person in the process of his active socialization. First of all, this manifests itself in a positive or negative attitude towards the events occurring around the individual. Most often, value guidelines are similar for broad groups of people and entire societies existing in the same conditions.
  3. Beliefs. Beliefs or principles develop in a person in the course of his life; they can differ significantly from person to person. At the same time, beliefs have a high degree of flexibility and variability, which makes them an unstable structure for determining a worldview. Beliefs can only appear at a certain period of life.
  4. Ideals. Ideals are usually understood as such models of behavior in society that serve as examples to follow and form certain qualities in an individual. Each person can have his own ideals, but at the same time, the ideal can be common to a large group of people, in which case we are talking about the creation of a mass ideology.
  5. Beliefs. Each person has the right to choose and follow his own truth; in this regard, beliefs are included in the group of fundamental elements of worldview theory. Each person has his own things that he sincerely believes in, and there are also events and facts that cause him acute distrust. This creates a general picture of the world.
  6. Feelings. Feelings are closely related to the category of a person’s emotional state and ultimately form the overall picture of the world. Feelings are usually understood as manifestations of one’s own experiences in relation to the outside world that are inherent in each person. All feelings are divided into two large groups of positive and negative manifestations.
  7. Emotions. Emotions, unlike feelings, are hidden and do not reflect the general state of a person. They characterize his internal mood, but they can also be reflected in his external state in the form of feelings or committed actions. The emotional background is very important in the formation of consciousness and thinking.
  8. Living standards. Life norms or principles usually denote those algorithms and patterns of action that help to adequately assess the situation and make a decision in a specific situation. Life norms are laid down in the human consciousness over many years and are the most stable part of the perception of the world.

Option 2

Each person has his own picture of the world and this vision is called a worldview. It is formed under the influence of many factors: upbringing, parental example, personal life experience, books, stories, etc. These are moral values, the rules by which we live. Each person has his own worldview and it can change throughout life. What influences these changes? Many Russian writers thought about this.

For example, M. Gorky in his story “Old Woman Izergil” showed his vision of the reasons for changing a person’s worldview using the example of the main character. In her youth, Izergil was a very beautiful girl who delighted and easily fell in love with men of different origins and incomes. She herself was too amorous, so she sincerely believed in the depth of her feelings towards someone. The main character broke more than one heart before her worldview changed. She was too frivolous about her interference in other people's destinies, because she did not think about the consequences. Her selfishness even led to the death of a young Turk, who ran away with his beloved from his home.

Izergil’s views on life changed only after her last love. She was about 40 years old then. She was still beautiful, but the years were already taking their toll. In Poland, she met a handsome and charming nobleman named Arcadek. He sought her for a long time, but when he got what he wanted, he immediately abandoned her. Izergil suffered greatly because of unrequited love, for the first time in her life she visited the place of the men who were in love with her. After all, she was abandoned in the same way as she abandoned her lovers. The main character tried for a long time to achieve reciprocity from Arcadek, but all her attempts remained in vain. Even when she rescued her lover from captivity, she received not gratitude and appreciation, but evil ridicule. Izergil could no longer tolerate such an attitude and moved away from her beloved man.

This event completely changed the worldview of the main character, she realized that her beauty is not eternal and it’s time for her to settle down. At the time of the story, she lived near Akkerman, and her husband died a year ago.

Another example of a person whose worldview has completely changed is one of the main characters in the novel L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" Pierre Bezukhov. At the beginning of the work, he is presented as a kind and naive young man, unfamiliar with the intrigues of secular society. Due to his inexperience, he fell into the network of Helen Kuragina and married her, not realizing that she only needed his wealth. Soon Pierre became aware of his wife’s infidelities and from that moment his spiritual quest began.

So he ended up in the Masonic lodge and even thought that he had found the answers to all his pressing questions, but over time he became disillusioned with their ideas. He managed to find the meaning of life only during the Patriotic War of 1812. After seeing the soldiers following on the battlefield, the protagonist’s worldview completely changed. He saw how they go to death, but do not lose their fortitude. It was at this moment that Pierre realized that happiness lies in life itself, and its meaning lies in satisfying natural needs.

I believe that constant improvement requires not only a person’s physical and intellectual development, but also his mental state. Our worldview depends on ourselves, on how we relate to life. Not only emotional shocks or happy moments can change our worldview, it also changes in accordance with our inner state. When we try to make ourselves better, we change our attitude towards the world around us and the events taking place in it. Our worldview is the result of the work done on ourselves; the more effort we put in, the more perfect it will be.

Trinity in worldview

Misunderstanding of the trinity excludes the possibility of a person looking at himself from the outside.
If someone more understanding tries to convey his point of view to society, then such an attempt is perceived by society and the individual individually as an encroachment on their personal opinion (stereotype). As a result, the imperfect worldview of humanity makes all sorts of mistakes, leading the whole world to a catastrophic state and psychological crisis. Intra-societal and personal problems are being created, which in the near future will lead to the collapse of the entire system, be it family or state. And only we can decide whether an understanding of the trinity is necessary.

Author of the article Elena Zhuk

Specificity of the philosophical development of reality.

Philosophy is a theoretically formulated worldview. It tries to solve basic worldview problems through thinking based on concepts and judgments that are connected with each other according to certain logical laws. A concept is a thought that reflects in a generalized form the objects and phenomena of reality and the connections between them by fixing general and specific features, which are the properties of objects and phenomena and the relationships between them. In philosophy, in contrast to the religious-mythological worldview, abstraction is widely used, i.e. formation of concepts to designate images of reality. Philosophy brought to the fore the intellectual aspects of the worldview, reflecting the growing need in society to understand the world and man from the standpoint of knowledge. Initially it appeared in the historical arena as a search for worldly wisdom. A characteristic feature of the philosophical assimilation of reality is universalism. Philosophy is a form of knowledge of the universal foundations of existence

Throughout the history of culture, it has claimed to develop universal knowledge or universal principles of spiritual and moral life. Another important feature of the philosophical way of mastering reality is substantialism. Substance, i.e.

the underlying essence is the ultimate basis that allows us to reduce the sensory diversity of things and the variability of their properties to something permanent, relatively stable and independently existing. Substantialism manifests itself in the desire of philosophers to explain what is happening, the internal structure and development of the world through a single stable principle. One of the characteristic features of philosophical reflection is doubt. Philosophy from the very beginning acts as a criticism of customs, everyday consciousness, traditional values ​​and moral norms. Human institutions that have stood the test of strength are placed on a more solid foundation of knowledge, all others are discarded as outdated. 3. Models of the world in various philosophical directions.

Myth

was not just a story about the world, but a kind of ideal model in which events were interpreted through a system of heroes and characters. Therefore, it was the latter who possessed reality.

First of all, this is the complete identity of nature and man, which makes it possible to connect together things, phenomena and objects that are apparently far removed from each other, parts of the human body, etc. This model is characterized by an understanding of the unity of space-time relations, which act as a special ordering principle of the cosmos.

Space

is understood simultaneously as qualitative and quantitative certainty. Quantitative certainty is described through special numerical characteristics, through a system of sacred numbers, “cosmologizing the most important parts of the universe and the most crucial moments of life and unfavorable numbers, as images of chaos, gracelessness, evil. Qualitative certainty manifests itself in the form of a system of characters in the mythical picture of the world, which are opposed to each other.

This model of the world is based on its own logic - on achieving the goal in a roundabout way, through overcoming some vital opposites, “having respectively positive and negative meaning” (heaven-earth, day-night)

Substance model

presupposes the unity of the world through the assumption that the basis of being is a certain single substance, ideal or material, from which all the diversity of the world is derived.
For Plato, the unity of the world is determined by the demiurge (creator) who created this world; for Hegel, it is determined by the substantiality of the absolute idea, which is expressed in the presence of universal laws of development. In the functional model,
the unity of the world is explained by the presence and functioning of uniform laws. It is assumed that a certain universal connection is realized in the world. In this case, either a certain mental construction or a connection that is actually feasible can act as a universal connection. All of the listed models can be called local, since they mainly capture one aspect of existence, i.e. interpret, coarse it in order to identify the laws of this area. “Psychologically, such an approach can be easily understood, since we usually imagine all unknown and unknown areas in concepts and images of what is already known. This is a known content and extends to all possible scales.”

Types, types, forms, levels of worldview.

Depending on the dominant, types and types of worldviews, as well as forms, can be distinguished. The fact is that worldview is not all views and ideas about the world around us, but only their utmost generalization. This is the core of social and individual consciousness.

Shapes:

  • Myth
  • religion
  • philosophy

The very name of the “form” speaks about their meaning. They give shape and shape the ideological field. The historical component is formed by the primitive, ancient (or ancient), medieval worldview, modern worldview, modern, transitional types of worldview. In its essence, a worldview is a social historical phenomenon that arose with the advent of human society, shaped by the material life of society, social existence.

Levels:

  • everyday (everyday-practical)
  • theoretical.

Everyday - based on common sense, diverse human experience, has a specific consistency and validity. The everyday level is often compared with the mythological worldview. This comparison is fair in terms of the specificity of the systems of these worldviews and their validity, but they cannot be reduced to each other. The theoretical is formed purposefully, is distinguished by scientific validity and consistency, and is based on the results of scientific knowledge and the arguments of reason.

By type, worldviews are distinguished between individual and group, scientistic and antiscientistic, etc. There are other classifications in science. All of them are essentially related to the epistemological position of the authors. That is, with what they chose for their research as the dominant component and subject of their worldview.

Mythological worldview

Mythological consciousness is the spiritual basis of primitive culture.

This type of worldview is characterized by:

  • primitive society
  • anthropomorphism (spiritualization of nature)
  • formation and consolidation of value systems
  • oral transmission of accumulated knowledge
  • determining the form of behavior of the individual and the entire society
  • belief in the supernatural

Myths covered all forms of human life. They are the main “texts” of culture. The establishment of a unity of views of all members of the tribal community on the world around them was facilitated by their oral transmission. Belief in “one’s own” myths united the community, consolidated its members and at the same time made it possible to distinguish its members from “outsiders” who believed in other myths. In myths, practical information, economic and cultural skills were developed, preserved and cultivated. In the process of transferring this knowledge from generation to generation, which was accumulated over many centuries, a common tribal experience was formed. It was fixed in social memory and generated into the initial level of knowledge and ways of thinking. This was the beginning of the path to the development of philosophy and science. In mythological stories about deities present in the world, a religious worldview was born.

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Worldview in psychology

The formation of a person’s views is mainly influenced by various factors: family, children. kindergarten, school, media, books, films, etc. In educational institutions for teenagers and young men, the worldview is built in a more dialectical-materialistic way. The essence of this submission is four rules:

- the world is material;

- everything that exists around us regardless of our consciousness;

— everything in the world is interconnected and develops according to specific laws;

- a person can and must obtain reliable knowledge about the universe.

At different ages, people perceive the world and information about it differently, therefore, in educational institutions, a worldview is formed at certain stages.

Preschool age marks the beginning of the formation of a worldview. The child learns to exist in the world. Initially, the baby sees the world holistically, then begins to identify the basics and distinguish between them. Communication with parents and peers develops a connection with the environment. In kindergartens they teach how to establish cause-and-effect relationships (why you need to dress warmly in winter) and find solutions to problems (how to find Cinderella using a lost shoe). Fiction plays the main role in creating a worldview at this stage of growth. In communicating with people, the child learns to form relationships and build behavior in order to comply with general rules.

At primary school age, children build a worldview both in and outside of class. Schoolchildren are active and independently obtain information from books, magazines and the Internet. With the help of an adult, the child can digest the information received and form an attitude towards it. In the primary grades, children are introduced to natural phenomena and the concept of social life at the level of ideas. This method lays the main foundation in personal opinion.

Adolescence is the time of developing one’s own worldview. A teenager builds contact with the world based on his own experiences and situations he has experienced. In secondary schools they begin to ask the question “What do you want to become?” The student more consciously seeks his place in society. Popular ways to develop a worldview are to perform laboratory work, conduct conversations, discussions, lectures, and various excursions. As soon as a teenager begins to distinguish between good and bad with internal emotions, he begins to grow up.

At the adolescent stage of an individual’s age-related changes, the ways of developing a worldview remain almost the same as in adolescence: school lessons, lectures, communication in social groups, etc. But they are also supplemented by classes in sports clubs, lectures of a more narrow profile, reading books, watching films, pre-conscription training and service in the armed forces. The highlight of adolescent development is that girls and boys try to accept their lives as an integral, logical chain that makes sense. But the complexity of adolescence is reflected in the desire of young people to benefit society and satisfy their own aspirations. Subsequently, the difficulty of choosing between reality and needs can lead to psychological problems.

An adult’s worldview develops during work, self-education, self-education and life circumstances.

In the end, I would like to say that a person’s worldview is an entire universe. Thanks to different principles, ideals and subjective values, people discover something new in each other every day. The transformation of his mind and spirit transforms the personality into an individual.

Option 1

Worldview is a system of views on life, on which a person’s behavior and his entire future fate depend. It is the worldview that creates a certain vision of the world, according to which the future is built and the past is analyzed. It begins to form in early childhood, when parents introduce the child to this world, and throughout life it inevitably changes. So what can change a person's worldview? Many writers have tried to answer these questions. For example, F.M. Dostoevsky in his novel Crime and Punishment.

Throughout the entire work, Rodion Raskolnikov was in search of the true path and meaning of life. The essence of his worldview was that there are “trembling creatures” and “those who have the right.” In his opinion, people were divided into two types: some had rights and privileges, while others were born to obey them. According to this theory, “those with the right” could go over their heads to change the world for the better. He considered himself precisely one of these people, and in order to test the correctness of his views, he decided to kill the old money-lender. The main character did not consider this murder a crime, he thought that in this way he would benefit society by ridding it of evil.

However, his theory did not stand the test; the mental anguish that Raskolnikov experienced after he took the lives of Alena Ivanovna and her innocent sister refuted it. Rodion was lucky that there was a person nearby who helped him find his path in life. This savior was Sonya Marmeladova, who sacrificed herself for the good of others. Gradually, thanks to Sonya’s efforts, the protagonist’s pride and rebellion gave way to repentance and humility. Because of the shocks he experienced, he was able to learn the truth and see a true picture of the world.

Another example of a person whose worldview has changed dramatically is the main character of the novel I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". Evgeny Bazarov was an avid nihilist. He rejected all traditions and generally accepted norms. Love for him was just physical attraction, and everything else, in his opinion, was invented by stupid romantics. These beliefs were shaken after a meeting with Anna Sergeevna Odintsova. From a brave and decisive man, Bazarov turned into a modest and quiet young man. For a long time he could not admit his feelings not only to Odintsova, but also to himself. After all, accepting love for a woman meant the collapse of the entire nihilistic theory. He was scared to realize that his beliefs were wrong. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that you were wrong, and even more so with your similarity with those you ridicule.

However, the love that settled in Bazarov’s heart turned out to be too strong. She began to change the protagonist’s worldview against his will, and in the end he nevertheless confessed his feelings to Anna Sergeevna. Having received a refusal, he could not come to terms with the new vision of life and closed himself off. The only possible way out of this situation was death, although not by choice.

Based on all of the above, we can come to the conclusion that the worldview can change under the influence of strong feelings or shocks. Love, of course, changes a person; he begins to look at things differently and perform actions that are unusual for himself. Mental experiences also affect us, changing our attitude towards the world and our entire future life in general. But I believe that these changes do not come from the outside, they simply reveal those qualities that were hidden deep inside.

The path to the human worldview through historical facts

The average worldview of most people, regardless of religious or ideological systems, scientific or everyday knowledge, is based on an ancient system of concepts.
Teacher V.I. Vodovozov, at the end of the 19th century, wrote about the worldview of the ancient Egyptians, where he clearly explained the connection of four systems: substance (matter), the force acting on it (spirit or force fields), the space allocated for it and constantly changing in time. This suggests that generalizing concepts have not been changed since the time of the ancient Egyptians.

Einstein's theory also confirms the fact of interconnection, but of three concepts, excluding spirit. There is no such concept as spirit in science; these are subtle matters that are perceived by the senses. Now they are called physical fields. But the aspect of meaning and ideas, or information in other words, has been lost by science.

We strive for a mosaic type of worldview, but we arrive at abstract spirituality, forgetting about the ultimate generalization of the images that reflect the world. Without measure and matter, space and time cannot exist, and vice versa.

As a result, we can come to an understanding of the existence of three general concepts:

  • matter in all existing states (from liquid to vacuum);
  • information that represents an image of a material phenomenon that constitutes a worldview;
  • measure as the ordering of matters and images in numerical equivalent in the consciousness of the individual.

This begs the question: “So why have people still not come to an understanding of a generalized worldview system? Why do most people perceive stereotypes that have been laid down since ancient times? Judging by many facts, this worldview is deliberately maintained in society.

Historical perspective

To come to an understanding of the worldview of modern man, one should analyze the main historical forms of worldview, which, at the same time, are stages of its development in different periods of the life of society in the course of history, and in a certain form are preserved in our time.

  • Mythological. It originated in primitive society and became widespread in antiquity. At that time, myth was a full-fledged part of human consciousness, serving as a tool that could clearly explain those phenomena that people could not yet understand due to a lack of accurate scientific knowledge. In this worldview, man and nature act as a single integral organism, the parts of which are equal. There were also no boundaries between fiction and reality, where the concept of the supernatural always found its justification. In the modern world, this worldview exists in separate aspects. For example, when computers and various technical devices endow the qualities of living beings.
  • Religious. It develops in the Middle Ages, when the relationship between man and nature became more alienated, and ideas about an ideal being came to the fore, in comparison with which man was a being of a lower level of development. Man bows before God, holy objects and things. The world becomes double: sinful earthly and ideal heavenly. A person sees the world more narrowly, builds his own framework in the form of a division into good and evil, which are in eternal unity. Nowadays, this type of worldview does not lose its popularity in certain circles of people.
  • Scientific. The rapid development of science has had a strong influence on the concept of human worldview, making it more realistic, factual and reasoned. Here the main role is played by the objective reality of the surrounding world and relationships. Specific rational facts, devoid of subjective coloring, deserve attention. This type of worldview leads in the modern world, leaving myths and religion far behind in the historical past.
  • Philosophical. This type of worldview includes individual elements of the mythological, religious, and scientific worldview. With its roots in myths and religion, it uses theoretical scientific data. The main point that distinguishes this form of worldview from religion and myths is its freedom from illusions, fantasies, idealization, suggesting complete “submission” to logic and objective reality. At the same time, philosophy expands the boundaries of science, trying to give a deeper and more multidimensional concept to “dry” scientific facts, which are often unable to form a holistic picture of the world.

Historical types of worldview, their characteristics.

Traditionally, there are five main forms of worldview that have more or less distinct specifics: mythological, religious, artistic, scientific or naturalistic, and philosophical. They can be combined in a variety of ways in the mind of a particular person.

Historically, the first form of worldview is mythology. The concept itself has two meanings: the first is a set of legends about gods, heroes, ancestors, the origin and emergence of the Gods and the Earth, about the natural and social world of people; second - mythology is the study of myths, the theory of myth

Myth - (from the Greek mythos - legend) is a legend about an essential event in people's lives. There is no myth about the small and insignificant, the unimportant in people’s lives.

Religious worldview. There is still an opinion, especially widespread in the 30-50s of the twentieth century, that faith (religion) is the opposite of knowledge. However, this is a misconception. Religion is a type of knowledge.

The word religion translated from Latin (religare) means connection, connection.

The peculiarity of the language of the sacred scriptures is that the truth is communicated to people not in its pure form, but symbolically. This makes it possible for everyone to understand the truth hidden by the symbol in accordance with the development of their consciousness. The need for symbolic language follows from the fact that religious teaching is given not for one generation, not for one century, but for dozens, during which at any given moment there are people of different mental and moral development. Symbolic language allows the vitality and unfading freshness of the scriptures to be preserved throughout the centuries, but it is also partly the reason for the perversion and false understanding of the teaching.

The Orthodox religious worldview is characterized by the following features:

1) faith; 2) belief in the possibility of supernatural, non-causal and inexplicable phenomena - that which goes beyond the scope of natural laws and the possibilities of human knowledge; 3) the presence of strictly established rites, rituals and cults; 4) the presence of subsequent theological dogmas, which are perceived as Divine Revelation.

We understand art in the broadest sense as a way of artistic exploration of existence. He has a lot in common with philosophy. Since antiquity, philosophy has carried within itself the artistic heritage of myth and ancient literature. Fundamental philosophical ideas are often subsequently expressed in artistic and symbolic form (visual, verbal and even musical). Many great figures of literature and art are at the same time no less great philosophers and thinkers.

Philosophy occupies a kind of intermediate position between other theoretical sciences and art. She inherits traits from both sides. Philosophy is imbued with the investigative spirit of scientific quests, strives to understand the final causes of phenomena, to reflect them in theoretical concepts and categories. But at the same time, like art, it is not directly focused on changing things, on remaking nature, but turns to the person himself, transforms his thinking, helps him realize his place in nature and society and through this influence reality in a revolutionary way. Like art, philosophy gravitates towards a holistic perception of the world, in the center of which stands man.

Science is a sphere of human activity, the purpose of which is to study objects and phenomena of nature, society and thinking, their properties, relationships and patterns of development. Science is one of the forms of social consciousness.

Literally, the word science means knowledge. However, science is not just a body of knowledge, but knowledge brought into a system in which the natural connection and interdependence of certain facts and laws is revealed. Science moves from the simple collection of facts through their study and the discovery of individual patterns to a coherent, logically harmonious scientific theory; it explains old, already known facts and predicts new ones. Moreover, knowledge becomes a scientific theory as a result of testing the reliability of this knowledge in practice.

Question 3

Introduction

The purpose of this work is to give an idea of ​​the worldview as a whole, its structure, historical types, aspects and forms, as well as the philosophical worldview as a special form of worldview.

Philosophy itself constitutes the theoretical basis of a worldview, around which a cloud of generalized views of worldly wisdom has formed, which constitutes a vital level of worldview.

In my essay I want to talk about what a worldview is in general, as well as its structure and main types.

The purpose of my essay is to reveal the very concept of worldview, its structure and general meaning.

2. The concept of worldview

Worldview is a necessary component of human consciousness and cognition. This is not just one of its elements among many others, but their complex interaction. Heterogeneous “blocks” of knowledge, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, moods, aspirations, hopes, united in a worldview, appear as a more or less holistic understanding of the world and themselves by people.

The life of people in society is historical in nature. Now slowly, now quickly, intensively, all the components of the socio-historical process change over time: technical means and the nature of labor, relationships between people and the people themselves, their thoughts, feelings, interests. The worldview of human communities, social groups, and individuals is also subject to historical changes. It actively captures and refracts large and small, obvious and hidden processes of social change. Speaking about a worldview on a large socio-historical scale, we mean the extremely general beliefs, principles of knowledge, ideals and norms of life that prevail at a particular stage of history, that is, they highlight the common features of the intellectual, emotional, spiritual essence of a particular era. But in reality, a worldview is formed in the minds of specific people and is used by individuals and social groups as views that determine life. This means that, in addition to typical, summary features, the worldview of each era lives and operates in many group and individual variants.

Strictly speaking, each person or social group, identified according to one or another characteristic (for example, class affiliation, social status, level of education, profession, etc.), has its own, not entirely identical with others, and sometimes very different from They contain the most general ideas about the world and life programs.

In general, worldview could be defined as follows: this is a generalized system of views of a person (and society) on the world as a whole, on his own place in it, a person’s understanding and assessment of the meaning of his life and activities, the destinies of humanity; a set of generalized scientific, philosophical, socio-political, legal, moral, religious, aesthetic value orientations, beliefs, convictions and ideals of people.

3. Types of worldviews

In the variety of options for historically changing worldviews, a number of enlarged gradations and types can be distinguished.

Worldview – integral education. In it, the connection of its components, their “fusion” is fundamentally important. And just as in an alloy, different combinations of elements and their proportions give different results, so something similar happens with the worldview.

Types of worldview:

1) A practical or everyday worldview (“philosophy of life”) is built on the basis of “common sense” or everyday experience. This type develops spontaneously and expresses the mentality of the broad masses, that is, it is a form of mass consciousness. Everyday worldview is not negative, but only reflects the mood in society, which is important for studying and understanding society. It captures the intellectual, cultural, material, national, professional, differences of people, so it is not homogeneous. Its disadvantage is the critically uninformed mixture of both scientific data and prejudices and myths. The disadvantages of the everyday worldview include the fact that it is often unable to explain an action, guided solely by emotions, and is also powerless in solving problems that require theoretical understanding.

2) Theoretical worldview. Built on strict logical argumentation of knowledge, principles, ideals, goals and means of human activity. The key role here is played by philosophy, which is the theoretical and methodological core of this type of worldview. Philosophy in this case, how complexly it synthesizes and refracts in itself, according to the subject of its research, data about the world, creates and analyzes ideological positions.

The worldview includes and plays an important role in generalized knowledge - everyday, or life-practical, professional, scientific. The more solid the stock of knowledge in a particular era, among a particular people or individual, the more serious support the corresponding worldview can receive. A naive, unenlightened creature does not have sufficient means for a clear, consistent, rational substantiation of its views, often resorting to fantastic fictions, beliefs, and customs.

The degree of cognitive richness, validity, thoughtfulness, and internal consistency of a particular worldview varies. But knowledge never fills the entire field of a worldview. In addition to knowledge about the world (including the human world), the worldview also comprehends the entire way of human life, expresses certain value systems (ideas about good and evil, and others), builds “images” of the past and “projects” of the future, and receives approval (condemnation) of those or other ways of life, behavior.

Life programs, actions, and the direction of actions have two “supports”: knowledge and values. They are in many ways “polar”, opposite in essence. Cognition is driven by the desire for truth - objective comprehension of the real world. Valuable consciousness is different: it embodies a special attitude of people to everything that happens in accordance with their goals, needs, interests, one or another understanding of the meaning of life. Moral, aesthetic (and generally ideological) ideals are formed in the value consciousness. The most important concepts with which the creation of value has long been associated are the concepts of good and evil, beauty and ugliness. Through correlation with norms and ideals, evaluation is carried out - determining the value of what is happening. The system of value orientations plays a very important role in the individual, group, and social worldview. With all their heterogeneity, the cognitive and value ways of mastering the world in human consciousness, life, and action must be somehow balanced and brought into agreement. The intense unity of other “polar” components, aspects, levels of worldview must also be achieved: feelings and reason, understanding and action, faith and doubt, theoretical and practical experience of people, comprehension of the past and vision of the future. Their correlation, combination, synthesis is a complex and painful spiritual and practical work designed to ensure the coherence and integrity of human experience, the entire system of orientations.

Worldview is a complex form of consciousness that embraces a variety of “layers” of human experience and is capable of expanding the narrow boundaries of everyday life, a specific place and time, and relating a given person to other people, including those who lived before and will live later. In the worldview, experience is accumulating in understanding the semantic basis of human life, all new generations of people are turning to the spiritual world of their great-grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers, contemporaries, carefully preserving something, resolutely abandoning something.

The integrity of human spirituality finds its completion in the worldview. Philosophy as a whole worldview is the work not only of every thinking person, but also of all humanity, which, as an individual person, has never lived and cannot live by purely logical judgments, but realizes its spiritual life in all its colorful fullness and integrity diverse moments. A worldview exists in the form of a system of value orientations, ideals, beliefs and convictions, as well as the way of life of a person and society (as a form of realization of the spiritual essence of a worldview). And all this is in organic unity - after all, we judge a person’s worldview by his deeds.

4. Levels of worldview

1. Everyday - practical (formed spontaneously, influenced by religious and national factors)

2. theoretical worldview (everything is based on evidence, philosophy and science are at this level) In the history of mankind, three main forms of worldview are distinguished:

1. Mythology;

2. Religion;

3. Philosophy.

• Mythology is the earliest form of social consciousness, the worldview of ancient society, which combines both fantastic and realistic perception of the surrounding reality. As a rule, myths try to answer the following basic questions: - the origin of the Universe, Earth and man; — explanation of natural phenomena; - life, fate, death of a person; human activity and achievements; - issues of honor, duty, ethics and morality. The features of the myth are: - humanization of nature; - the presence of fantastic gods, their communication, interaction with humans; - the absence of abstract thoughts (reflections); - the practical focus of the myth on solving specific life problems (economy, protection from the elements, etc.); - monotony and superficiality of mythological plots.

• Religion is a form of worldview based on the belief in the presence of fantastic, supernatural forces that influence human life and the world around us. With a religious worldview, a person is characterized by a sensual, figurative-emotional (rather than rational) form of perception of the surrounding reality. In addition to worldviews, religion has a number of other functions: - unifying (consolidates society around ideas or for the sake of ideas); - cultural (promotes the spread of a certain culture, influences culture); - moral and educational (cultivates in society the ideals of love for one's neighbor, compassion, honesty, tolerance, decency, duty).

• Philosophy is a special, scientific-theoretical type of worldview. The term was first used by Pythagoras

The philosophical worldview differs from the religious and mythological in that it: - is based on knowledge (and not on faith or fiction); - reflexively (thought is directed towards itself); - logical (has internal unity and system); - relies on clear concepts and categories. Philosophy includes the doctrine of the general principles of existence of the worldview (ontology, or metaphysics), the essence and development of human society (social philosophy and philosophy of history), the doctrine of man and his existence in the world (philosophical anthropology), the theory of knowledge (epistemology), problems of creativity, ethics, aesthetics, cultural theory and, finally, one’s own history, i.e. history of philosophy. Philosophy provides a system of knowledge about the world as a whole. Thus, philosophy represents the highest level and type of worldview, characterized by rationality, systematicity, logic and theoretical design.

Systematic worldview

From this definition the following aspects can be distinguished: systematic and procedural worldview. In order to figuratively imagine systematicity in some process, it can be compared to a photograph that captures only a moment. But by looking at the photo we can judge the phenomenon as a whole. Considering the worldview as a system, in statics, we will use the concept of worldview field. It is multicomponent; in addition to those listed in the definition, many others can be named. The components themselves, in turn, are complex multi-component systems. Components can be considered myth, religious views, professional, social and other group components. Also, a separate component of the worldview field can be considered what is essentially procedural - historical, national (ethnic, etc.). Like any system, the components in the ideological field are connected by system-forming, dominant components. The dominance of one or another component depends on the point of consideration (epistemological aspect), firstly, and on the subject, secondly.

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