week 2 ungs

• Worldviews can breakdown into?

  • Philosophical
  • Religious
  • Scientific
• Philosophical worldview

  • It derives from philosophy to deal with fundamental questions of life here and hereafter
  • It uses logical reasoning, deduction, induction, mathematics and speculation
  • It is more wider in its scope than the scientific worldview
  • It deals with issues of philosophical and metaphysical world
  • It attempts to give a meaning to creation and life
  • It does not have the exactness of sciences but it instills in ourselves a sense and meaning
  • Its results and findings are not precise and measurable like scientific worldview's but they open new ways for human beings to think beyond their physical world
  • It is more comprehensive than the scientific worldview, because it deals with physical and metaphysical realities
  • If scientific worldview deals only with certain part of the universe, the Philosophical worldview deals with the entire existence and the universe
• Religious worldview


  • There is a universal spirit, god, deity or divine entity
  • This divinity has established an eternal moral order that, in part at least, can be known to human beings
  • People have the duty to follow eternal moral dictates
  • This human conduct has long-term (beyond individual death) significance
  • Its basis is on the scripture or 'sacred', revealed or non-revealed text
  • It is more stable than the scientific and philosophical worldview, in terms of having certain and unchangeable principles of belief system and ethical system
  • The Religious worldview in general imparts to our life the sense of responsibility, meaning, and purpose
  • This means that life and the existence has a meaning and a purpose
  • Therefore, it makes our life as a responsibility towards God, and towards other people
• Scientific worldview


  • It is based on the premises and findings of science
  • Science is the source of all explanations pertaining to the issues of creation, life, men, and other issues
  • Based on 4 important foundations: Materialism, logical positivism, empiricism, skepticism
  • The only sources of knowledge are reason, experiment, nature, senses, and human experience. It does not consider revealed knowledge as a source of knowledge that can provide guidance to people and answer their questions
  • Its findings are more exact and authentic because it is based on experiment and empirical research. (Only the physical world)
  • Cannot give us exact and authentic knowledge or interpretation of the metaphysical world
  • Not capable of providing comprehensive and consistent explanation of the entire world
  • Allows human reason to exercise its ability and to produce knowledge in many fields
  • It passes its limitation when it gives human senses and reason a role beyond their capacities
  • Enabled the human mind to produce industries, sciences and technologies
  • It failed to protect man and nature from destruction because it undermines the moral, ethical, and religious factors
  • It was unable to discover the sense and role of morality in human life
• Modernity as Paradigm Shift From Religious Worldview to Secular Worldviews
• Mythology


  A body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity
• Age of Reason (17th century)


  • Philosophers injected into the thought patterns of humanity the idea that human beings were rational and lived in a rational world which had been created by a rational God
  • Because God, creation and people were rational, humans could figure things out - answers would come from scientific inquiry and research
• Age of Enlightenment (18th century)


  • Locke, Berkeley, Voltaire, Hume and others proposed ideas which led people to believe that the rational universe could be understood without reference to a supernatural God
  • Soon, the authority of the Bible, especially its supernatural parts, was under attack as theologians sought to "demythologize" scripture
• Age of Ideology (19th century)


  • Kant, John Stewart Mill, Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel and Kierkegaard ushered in the so-called "Age of Ideology", also called "existentialism"
  • Frederick Nietzsche cynically remarked that the only reason the poor and disenfranchised want justice is so that they seize political power, and the only reason the powerful teach toleration and benevolence is to keep the disenfranchised under their control
  • Sigmund Freud taught that religion was merely the unconscious projection of a humanity trying to rid itself of guilt-induced neurosis
  • Karl Marx believed that religion was a tool used by the powerful to bludgeon the proletariat into continued submission
• Age of Analysis (20th century)


  • The belief that life is absurd and cannot be understood was gradually replaced by the desire to analyze, delve into the mystery which is man and develop individualistic philosophies which are relative to each person, rather than universally applicable
• Materialism


  • A theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all beings and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter
  • It excludes the existence of entities that are radically different from or superior to the matter of our ordinary experience
  • In its worldview, only matter matters
  • Everything that is not physical and material is not accepted
  • It rejects, therefore, the existence of God or gods on whom the universe would depend for its existence or mode of operation
  • It denies the existence of angels or spirit; it questions the notion of a soul, if taken to be immaterial entity separable, in principle, from the human body
  • Its two main targets are therefore theism and dualistic views of human nature
  • It negates the existence of all that doesn't fall within the framework of change and transformation and is not perceivable by sense organs
  • All knowledge of the world and of society must be based on sense experience and ultimately on science
  • Like positivism, materialism lays stress on science as the only legitimate source of knowledge about the causalities of the world
• Naturalism


  • Naturalism bears on many areas of philosophy, e.g. metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind, etc.
  • The nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental prop
• Development of Naturalism


  1. Greek thinkers and philosophers i.e. sophists who are paid intellectuals in Ancient Greece and Roman Empire specialized in using empirical method or tools of philosophy to develop 'naturalism' or 'religion of nature'

  2. First advocated explicitly by Emile Zola (1840-1902) in his essay entitled "Naturalism on the Stage" (1880) in Europe

  3. Other early naturalists: Henrick Ibsen (1828-1906), Maxim Gorky' (1868-1936), Anton Chekhov (1860- 1904), Nikolai Gogol (1808-1852)

  4. Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, theorized that only the fiest of any natural species would survive to pass on its genetic material

  5. Naturalism movement in Europe
• Naturalism


  A philosophical movement that emerged between the 18th and 19th centuries, emphasizing the use of empirical methods and rejecting the supernatural
• Greek thinkers and philosophers, including the sophists, developed early forms of naturalism


  5th/6th centuries B.C.
• The naturalism movement gained prominence in Europe

  19th - 20th century
• Emile Zola first explicitly advocated naturalism in his essay "Naturalism on the Stage" (1880)


  Early 19th century
• Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, theorizing that only the fittest of any natural species would survive to pass on its genetic material
• Naturalism


  • It bears on many areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind
  • Two basic dimensions to naturalists, It holds that there is only the natural order, i.e. nature, and that knowledge is accessible through observation and the methods of the empirical sciences
  • It denies the existence of a creator or truly supernatural realities
• Secular


  Of or relating to worldly things as distinguished from things relating to church and religion; not sacred or religious; temporal; worldly
• Secular Humanism


  A modern, nontheistic, rationalist movement that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism
• Humanism born at the University of Chicago


  1896
• The Union of Ethical Societies was founded by Stanton Coit


  1920
• The British Ethical Societies took up the name the Humanist Association


  1930
• The International Humanist and Ethical Union was founded, when a gathering of world Humanists met under the leadership of Sir Julian Huxley


  1943
• The American Humanist Association was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit organization


  1952
• Humanism made public with the publication of the first Humanist Manifesto


  1967
• Characteristics of Secular Humanism


  • Rejects revealed religions and beliefs in God, prophecy, creed and rituals
  • Opposes religious authority and political ideologies that curb free thinking
  • Advocates for a world community with a common system of law organized by a trans-national federal government
  • Believes the universe is self-existing, not created, and that humankind is part of nature and emerged from natural evolutionary forces
  • Holds open views on sexual expressions and recognizes the right to birth control, abortion, and divorce
  • Believes values are rooted in human experiences and culture, with no absolute system of ethics or morals
  • Encourages moral awareness, the capacity for free choice, and an understanding of the consequences of choices through education
  • Frees nature from religious overtones and sees it as not a divine entity
  • Sees the disappearance of securely grounded values and the de-sacralization of politics