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What’s in a worldview? | Todd Weir | TEDxUniversityofGroningen

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It is often said that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it. As a historian, I am a bit more humble. I think the task of history is to illuminate key aspects of the present day from a new angle and in this way give us new approaches to old problems. In this TED talk I will challenge you to rethink your assumptions about one of the key concepts in today’s thinking about politics and religion: worldview. If you turn on the news, you may hear pundits ask “what is Trump’s worldview?” or speak of a “clash of worldviews” behind Brexit. Yet, this word, which seems so suited to our present day, has made a long journey. Where did the term worldview originate? How did it come to represent both religion and secular philosophies, politics as well as culture? What is “Christian
worldview”? Why did Hitler embrace this term for his movement, while after the war American liberals rejected it? By delving into the history of Germany, the Netherlands and the United States to answer these questions, we will arrive back at the present moment and see the clash of worldviews in a new light. Todd Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Modern Culture at the University of Groningen. His research revolves around the relationship between religion and secularism. In 2014 he published a study on Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession with Cambridge University Press. Todd is now researching the transnational history of the term worldview/Weltanschauung from 1790 to the present. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

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25 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 33

@bahnsenite 5 лет назад

Thanks, Todd, for the talk. You argued that, "The idea of worldview was invented in the 19th century," and that it was born out of (1) a revolution of naturalism, and (2) an attempt to provide an alternative to Christian supernaturalism. I'm curious why you omitted any reference to Kant. It was Kant, not von Humboldt, who coined the term Weltanschauung some 50 years earlier in his Critique of Judgment (1790). Moreover, Kant was critiquing, not promoting, naturalism. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Kant's influence on 19th and early 20th century thought, especially on worldview analysis, and especially on Christian thinkers like Kuyper (not Cowper as pronounced in the talk). The omission seems glaring . . . If you understood Kant's philosophical endeavor, and the use of transcendental reasoning by Christian philosophers, I think you would reconsider your claim below that, "Talk of worldview is itself a strategy for those who would cut themselves off from a debate in the public sphere."

@THWeir 5 лет назад

You may be right that there is more going on in Christian philosophy with the term worldview than I understand at this point in my research. Thank you for the tip. My focus is on the use of worldview in apologetics, and there I see worldview being used to defend a secularist or Christian claim to absolute difference of two epistemological systems. As to Kant, of course I acknowledge his formative role in coming up with the term. However, there are treatments of worldview in the philosophy of history (Naugle, etc.). What I'm trying to do is to examine worldview within a broader framework and I thus downplay philosophy.

@THWeir 5 лет назад

p.s. As far as I know (as an American living in the Netherlands), the Dutch do pronounce Kuyper as Cowper. Any Dutch speakers care to weigh in?

@bahnsenite 5 лет назад

@@THWeir Thanks. I spent several years with a Dutch congregation in Grand Rapids and knew many Kuypers. All of them (including a great grand son of Abraham Kuyper) pronounced it Kuyper. Kuyper college in Grand Rapids is also pronounces it Kuyper. Not sure about the Netherlands. But for a US audience, I think more people will recognize Kuyper.

@staticnetwork 6 месяцев назад

At the end of the day the current use of the term boils down to this Worldview = Presuppositions.

@Gisbertus_Voetius 4 года назад

Pragmatism stands on its own worldview, namely metaphysical relativism. It erects an ontology where everything must have meaning. Therefore the metaphysical relativist cannot say that something is meaningless, because that would imply impossibility, an apriori statement the very thing that is denied from the beginning. Moreover, it seems contradictory to claim, like the pragmatist does, that only the actual is meaningful while holding at the same time that nothing is meaningless. This position colapses into a mere voluntarism.

@malebitsatimbuktu3352 5 лет назад

I like this guy

@richardpalazzo6790 5 лет назад

Todd, I am curious regarding your feelings about the video. Do you feel that it has generated more conversation? What have you been doing since August 2017?

@THWeir 5 лет назад

There have been some positive responses from academics. I'm not sure about the general public response. The difficulty of the topic is getting people to understand the importance of differentiating between the idea of worldview and the history of the term and its evolution as a term of public and theological debate. If you look at the responses below, the viewers often seem to think that I deny the possibility of worldview. This is not my point at all.

@mjohnson8157 Месяц назад

Under the current president? Which president? This is prerecorded!

@toddweir7897 6 лет назад

SunPro incorrectly claims that I see myself as existing outside of ideology. All knowledge is created from an interested position. However, I think it goes too far to say that one’s worldview determines one’s truths. What I am arguing for in this TEDx Talk is that we resist this conclusion. Talk of worldview is itself a strategy for those who would cut themselves off from a debate in the public sphere. It is worth remembering what Sidney Hook noted in the 1940s: when the Soviets argued that the working class had a different reality and hence that there was “partisan truth”, this was really a way of protecting Soviet intellectual production from attack. Similarly, Christian presuppositionalism was developed to defend Christianity from attack, by claiming that faith provides Christians with different truths.

@bahnsenite 5 лет назад

Thanks, Todd, for the talk. You argued that, "The idea of worldview was invented in the 19th century," and that it was born out of (1) a revolution of naturalism, and (2) an attempt to provide an alternative to Christian supernaturalism. I'm curious why you omitted any reference to Kant. It was Kant, not von Humboldt, who coined the term Weltanschauung some 50 years earlier in his Critique of Judgment (1790). Moreover, Kant was critiquing, not promoting, naturalism. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Kant's influence on 19th and early 20th century thought, especially on worldview analysis, and especially on Christian thinkers like Kuyper (not Cowper as pronounced in the talk). The omission seems glaring . . . If you understood Kant's philosophical endeavor, and the use of transcendental reasoning by Christian philosophers, I think you would reconsider the claim that "Talk of worldview is itself a strategy for those who would cut themselves off from a debate in the public sphere."

@phannybrce 3 года назад

I think your work is fantastic! However, I disagree that evangelicals in the US who acknowledge worldview are unwilling to converse with those outside their worldview. I actually think the construct of worldview helps to engage in dialogue. What many evangelical Christians would say is they are not willing to compromise on their presuppositions (basis for that worldview) but compromise is very different than engaging in dialogue across worldviews. I think it becomes tricky when (as you mentioned) secular liberal epistemology doesn't acknowledge their own presuppositions as presuppositions (but some variant word for the idea of truth such as "reason," "science," or "common sense.") I would be curious on your thoughts.

@THWeir 3 года назад

Dear Phanny, thanks for the thoughts. I'm glad you liked the Ted Talk. You bring up a good point. Worldview thinking can provide a more sophisticated model for dealing with intellectual and religious differences than is given by the difference of secular/religious, where the secular is seen to be neutral and the religious as some how biased. In that sense, acknowledging presuppositions and worldviews can provide a fairer footing for discussions across the secular-religious divide and lead to communication and peacebuilding. On the other hand, worldview is often used to harden divisions, because it represents a kind of circling of the wagons in a philosophical sense. It is used to argue that this camp has these presuppositions which makes its reality essentially different from that camp. This type of worldview thinking can heighten culture wars, such as was the case in Weimar Germany, which was often described at the time as a "Kampf der Weltanschauungen" -- struggle of worldviews.

@paragonrealtyteam4914 6 лет назад

Can someone help me find that painting of Robert Bloom....

@portarican82 3 года назад

I believe the biggest problem with worldview is not in the desire for unity but in the manner in which they desire said consensus. I believe that in Politics, those that believe themselves to be in the majority position will only desire consensus for as long as they can maintain the majority position. Without a mutual desire to start from a neutral position we will never truly achieve a unifying worldview in America.

@Armando51roosters 2 года назад

Opposing worldviews can't do dialogue... Until now.

@garmd4953 4 года назад

Worldviews can engage in dialogue. But Todd's issue is probably his age; being like all post modern he might prefer not to confront realities in dialogue because creates intellectual conflict and tension , which itself feels to be an offensive thing to a postmodern;; a defect of this generation. But "truth " be told, everyone has a worldview, even the atheist-naturalist. For all worldviews begin by defining the ultimate ontology of reality.

@matthewfanning4878 3 года назад

Yep. My thoughts exactly. If you espouse multiple realities then you’re not interested in discovering truth, you’re only interested in having your own views.

@avertingapathy3052 Год назад

@@matthewfanning4878 So essentially he is another lib trying to create the idea that his ontology is base reality by denying worldviews as even useful, a kind of gaslight. His point about factually correct and explanatory power is valid.

@LangkeeLongkee 2 года назад

oop I have a philosophy assignment so I need help lol

@elwing07 3 года назад

It is very difficult to follow the concept here because of his use of "hot-topic" examples.

@silencedogood7470 4 года назад

This is the most being thing I have ever seen

@docemeveritatum8550 5 лет назад

The popularity of worldview does, indeed, offer an easy out from meaningful conversation. There could have just as easily been a speaker on the subject that showed the use of worldview by Obama. For heaven's sake, avoidance of Truth is a lib thing. Goes right back to ACORN. I would suggest be more balanced in examples. Trump was a response to Obama's worldview which was immovable, shoving his philosophy down the throats of the American people. Unilateral decisions all day.

@lightofjoyministries9429 5 лет назад

You seem to be a humanist and a post modernist. worldview existed since thinking (of humans) existed. Can we say gravity didn't exist until Newton invented it?? Truth does not change because other our wrong assumptions of it or our opinion can not influence the existing truth. Truth by definition is a reality seen or unseen.

@THWeir 5 лет назад

The point that I am trying to make is that if we trace the history of this concept, we find that its journey tells story that is not the same as "everyone has a worldview". The term was invented in 1790 and only becomes popular in the 1840s among secularists because they could use it against Christians. Some Christians later embraced the term because it helped them fight secularism. So my argument is that worldviews are products of historical forces and not a neutral vessel that names what each person has (a point of view). In this sense, you might say that it is post-modern

@tonyforeman9502 4 года назад

What nonsense.

@cynthiamcgowan4902 2 года назад

Wish I could have given your comment 5 thumbs up. What nonsense indeed...

@sunpro9146 7 лет назад

Todd seems to be in the delusion that he is free from an ideology that shapes the way he looks at things. Claiming to be nothing but pragmatic and unifying - he groups those who oppose his idea as ignoring truth and creating their own facts.The argument need to be about uniting people in Truth.