Worldview studies

Abstract

I argue that philosophers of religion should not merely focus on religions but should pay much more attention to the secular outlooks on life emerging in contemporary society. To compare these outlooks, I suggest that we use the notion of worldview, and contrast religious worldviews with secular worldviews − rather than contrasting religions with nonreligions, which scholars of religion have recently tended to do. Accordingly, religious people should be contrasted with secular people and not with religious ‘nones’. I also explore the specific contribution of philosophy of religion to worldviews studies, and discuss why such a contribution is considered controversial within religious studies circles. I contend that it should instead be a legitimate and essential part of the academic study of worldviews.

A shelter from the abyss: exploring Cicely Saunders’ vision of hospice care through the concept of worldview

“…A worldview is life orienting: it expresses a particular way of living in the world’ (p. 2). 26 In The Sacred Canopy , Berger 27 introduces the Greek concept of ‘nomos’ to describe this life-orienting function of worldviews, which enables individuals to integrate their experiences and feelings into structures of thought and meaning maintained by societies and its members. According to Berger, the nomos shelters humans from the chaos of the universe and is also of particular relevance to deal with liminal situations: Seen in the perspective of society, every nomos is an area of meaning carved out of a vast mass of meaninglessness, a small clearing of lucidity in a formless, dark, always ominous jungle.…”

Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account

“…To say that religious identity is or is composed of a worldview tracks a few existing ideas in the literature. For instance, Kidd notes that a religious worldview is a “conception of reality” (Kidd 2017, 392); Alvin Plantinga defines a religious worldview as “a sort of total way of looking at ourselves and our world” (Plantinga 2011, ix; Stenmark 2022), and John Cottingham likewise describes philosophy of religion as a “comprehensive ‘synoptic’ vision of things—one that endeavours to discern how (or how far) the different areas of our human understanding fit together” (Cottingham 2005, 2; Stenmark 2022). These descriptions capture the rough idea that though religion is a social identity for many people, it is also constituted by a lens-like quality through which one sees the world, and one's place in it, in part to arrive at satisfactory answers to deep and difficult questions about the nature of reality.…”

“…13For an argument for why we should call religions themselves “worldviews,” and differentiate them from secular worldviews, see Stenmark 2022.…”

Psychiatry and Religion: A Stance

“…And that takes place within a religious or spiritual tradition, on the edge of it or (far) beyond it. It is not unusual to describe "worldview" in this or similar way as a more comprehensive term (Stenmark, 2022). A term such as "lived religion" has also come into circulation in recent years and is about this inclusiveness (Verhagen, 2022).…”