ABSTRACT
The body of convictions held by an individual or a group possesses a certain structure. People have used various terms to indicate this structure.
We noticed in Chap. I that James, in “The Sentiment of Rationality,” 1 used the following expressions: a conception of the frame of things (page 3), modes of conceiving the cosmos (page 4). We now add: conception of the universe (page 12), a philosophic conception (page 13), ultimate explanations of the universe (page 15), a philosophy (page 16). In Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World, we find a great variety of expressions already in the first two paragraphs of the preface: view of the world, scheme, cosmologies, effective outlook, intuitions as to the nature of things, ultimate ideas, cosmological scheme. 2 Neither of these authors seems to have taken the trouble to define any of these concepts, each taking it for granted that his meaning was well understood. 3
The German language seems to be privileged in regard to our problem because it possesses a specific term for what we have in mind (the nature and the structure of the body of convictions of a group or an individual), namely, the word Weltanschauung. German dictionaries, however, even philosophical dictionaries, do not suffice for a clear notion of what is involved in this concept. Eisler offers no separate discussion of the term; Felix Fluegel gives s.v. Weltanschauung, contemplation of the world, view of life. Runes, under the same head, world-view perspective of life, conception of things. Baldwin, s.v. “world-view” (suggested rendering of the German term), the general way of regarding the world, more or less philosophically, personal to this or that individual. Webster, s.v. Weltanschauung, a conception of the course of events in, and of the purpose of, the world as a whole, forming a philosophical view or apprehension of the universe: the idea embodied in a cosmology. 4 None of these descriptions escapes the vagueness which we noticed in James and Whitehead. It is, however, possible to distinguish some of the major elements which are vaguely indicated in the definitions of these philosophers and dictionaries as follows:
Totality is suggested by the terms “frame,” “cosmos,” “universe,” “cosmology,” “ultimate,” “world as a whole,” “life.”
The essence of the totality is suggested by “the nature of things.”
Seeing the totality is indicated in the terms “view,” “outlook,” “intuition,” “idea.”
The intellectual aspect of this seeing appears in “explanation,” “conception.”
Other than purely intellectual aspects are shown by “intuition,” “personal,” “purpose,” and perhaps also “contemplation,” “apprehension.”
