This is the third Chapter from the online book: Living Ethics: The Way of Wholeness. See: 1) How Should We Live? 2) Ethics and Civilization
Donivan Bessinger, MD
We have said above that civilization is contingent on a common awareness of existence and reality. Our idea of a natural ethic requires an awareness of existence of self and “other”, a dialogue between two minds. Such awareness is not possible if the two minds exist in different dimensions or “worlds”. In such a circumstance, the natural ethic could not come into effect until an encounter took place. The natural ethic requires being brought into a shared consciousness, a shared dimension, a shared perception. We recall Heraclitus: The waking (the conscious ones) must have a single cosmos in common.
A shared “world view” is critical to the development of a consensus on a unifying ethical principle. Each of us has some particular view of external reality. That view expresses our perception of the world, and determines our description of it. Yet the German term Weltanshauung, commonly used in philosophical writing, carries an even broader connotation than do the words in English. Our Weltanshauung expresses also our reaction to our world, and our sense of involvement in it. Writing the term as one word emphasizes that broader concept.
Historically of course there have been many worldviews, many different perceptions and interpretations of reality. Many worldviews have been constrictive, and have become fixed at the level of knowledge and description available in some specific historical context. Many of them still exist side by side in modern society, and that accounts in no small measure for our general ethical confusion.
In speaking of a shared worldview, a “single cosmos in common”, we are not asking for a consensus on matters of opinion or full agreement on the interpretation of current knowledge. That is not possible or even desirable. We seek only a shared consciousness, a common perception of reality. We seek a basic system of description, and a shared framework for understanding our individual experiences. Understanding that framework, we remain fully free to develop other levels of description and to experience our own involvement with our world.
Since a “single cosmos” is so important to developing ethics, we will do well to consider the development of a worldview. It is far beyond our present scope to survey the history of philosophy, but perhaps we can at least caricature it by scanning it quickly through a very wide-angle lens. Let us first propose a brief general classification of worldviews, and consider how ideas may be admitted into them.
The earliest type of worldview may be characterized as mythic. The classic myths were not consciously composed, but emerged into consciousness, giving form and voice to the multiplicity of unconscious energies of the human personality. Some myths emerged in oral tradition from countless unnamed ancestors. Some emerged as legend, that is, as meaningful interpretations of distant events. Others recorded the special insights of specific teachers, and became fixed in written tradition.
In this class of mythic worldviews, the gods and goddesses or other forces embody traits common to all of us. They preside over the natural events and energies which we observe in the material world and which resonate in our inner selves. The mythic cannot be dismissed as untrue, for its truth lies in the inner world of the psyche. Nonetheless, the mythic worldview, predicated on inner experience alone, is limited in satisfying the need for description of increasingly complex phenomena in the external material world.
The alchemical worldview is a transitional type, in which one seeks to explain more adequately and to modify the material world. Alchemy is primarily remembered for its effort to produce gold and silver from baser metals, but in the effort to study materials and transform them, it laid the groundwork for the development of modern chemistry.
Less remembered is alchemy’s philosophic aspect. It sought not only aurum vulgi or common gold, but also aurum philosophicum, philosopher’s gold, for the transformation of the human soul. In its elaborately encoded symbolic literature it sought a bridge between the mythic world of the psyche and the empirical external material world. In the transformation of substances, the alchemist symbolically sought spiritual renewal and rebirth. (1)
The third major worldview is the scientific. The scientific worldview seeks to observe the material world and to develop a descriptive framework that will satisfactorily explain a growing number of phenomena. The scientific worldview builds its system on a concept of knowledge which requires rigorous confirmation through statement of hypothesis and repeated experiment. Ideally, it makes careful distinction between knowledge and opinion. (2)
The scientific worldview characteristically seeks to reject data from the psyche because of the difficulty in developing experimental confirmation. It prefers to deal with material objects. Only toward the end of the last century did science begin to develop empirical theories regarding the psyche, primarily with a view to understanding mental illness. It has tended to dismiss the importance of myth and symbol in normal human functioning.
The scientific worldview is predicated on a theory of predictability, or linearity. Graphing the results in a y value as the value of x changes, will result in a predictable and reproducible curve. In classic science, causes have effects, and the results are reproducible when the conditions of the experiment remain the same. Various investigators must be able to agree on reality, with respect to the conditions of the experiment. Data which are not reproducible are not admissible in the formulation of theory. An idea or hypothesis which can be found to be untrue by experiment may not be admitted into the body of knowledge.
But what of operations too complex or too abstract to confirm by direct physical experiment? For example, operations in mathematics with numbers too large to count, or negative numbers. How does one count negative objects? There, one submits the ideas to reason, or to various types of equations, checking for internal consistency. Such operations are, in effect, thought experiments. If an idea always checks out and cannot be proved inconsistent, or wrong, it may be considered true.
Thus science, which means knowledge, may include in the body of knowledge judgments that are subject to testing and can not be found to be untrue. It is necessary to keep in mind the clear distinction between knowledge and opinion. One can know only that which is true. One may know that something is demonstrably untrue, but one may not speak of “false knowledge.” All knowledge is consistent. There is only one body of truth.
However, if a judgment can be refuted by either experiment (experience) or reason, it must be considered untrue. If a judgment cannot be submitted to definitive experience or reason, it must be considered unprovable. It must be considered a mere opinion. Equally reasonable people might well have contrary opinions.
The scientific method has been applied in many fields of endeavor. Medicine, sociology, economics, and psychology are examples of disciplines which, though not “basic sciences”, seek to apply the scientific method in shaping their respective worlds, and in human problem-solving. The scientific worldview has become the dominant thought pattern in the world’s academic community, and is thus a strong influence in public affairs generally.
One of the foremost scientist-philosophers who symbolizes the scientific worldview is Rene Descartes (1596-1650). The book which sets forth his principal contribution has a particularly long title: Discourse on the Method of Guiding the Reason in the Search for Truth in the Sciences; Also the Dioptric, the Meteors and the Geometry, which are Essays in this Method.
His major student interest was mathematics, especially geometry, but he made a major contribution in applying geometric principles to algebra. He is still encountered in the Cartesian coordinates, or axes on which curves or graphs are plotted today. He worked in physics, optics and astronomy (confirming Copernicus), in physiology, and in philosophy.
Yet even Descartes’ work is not entirely the product of reason. His major mathematical insight came in a dream in which he saw physics and other sciences linked to mathematics “as if by a chain”.(3) Even in science insights arise from the psyche before reason takes over. A similar famous example is the first solution of the molecular arrangement of benzene, the parent compound of a major class of chemicals. In 1865, F. A. Kekule proposed the circular chain-like arrangement of the six carbon atoms after dreaming of the ancient ring-like symbol, common in alchemy, of a snake biting its tail.(4)
In Descartes’ day, science was encompassed by the term natural philosophy. The Discourse on Method was as important to philosophy as to science in its demonstration that doubt was the basis for inquiry and for establishing knowledge. His “first principle” was that, though he could begin by doubting everything, he could not doubt his own existence, for “I think, therefore I am.” Encounter with existence, with what we may call one’s selfness, or consciousness, was the fundamental tenet for his method of reason.
It is important to understand that each of the above types of worldview is really a very loose category. Each category is comprised of many different, competing worldviews, and in modern life we encounter many blends of views. Each of us looks at the world through a lens ground by family experience, by economic situation, by religious heritage, by general education, by professional or vocational training and practice, and by many other influences. As we shall discuss later, not least is our natural personality type.
Each of us has in our personal worldview many axes of vision. Though we focus through our basic lens, we use a different colored filter as we look along each axis. For example, some situations call for looking at the world in terms of economic theory. Along that axis, the “color spectrum” is the capitalism-communism scale. We choose our filter according to our views about investing for the production and distribution of goods and services. Our choice of filter is also influenced by our views about the distribution of wealth in society.
Some situations call for looking at the world politically. In the political spectrum, our choices fall somewhere on a broad scale between anarchy and totalitarianism. Fortunately, most of us cluster our differences along a much narrower scale somewhere toward the balanced center.
In looking at the world politically, we also see it in terms of social organization. Whether we are conservative or liberal depends on which axis we are considering. For example, one may have quite different views with respect to public policy about personal liberty and public policy on economic matters. In making or proposing law, our axes of view may be colored “legalistic” (i.e. highly regulatory) or laissez-faire.
We also look at the world through a religious filter. At first thought, one might consider this axis a spectrum of choices between certain denominations, sects, or even major world religions. In its principal sense, however, religion is the enterprise by which one expresses the fundamental relationship between one’s inner self and the outer world. Whether recognized or not, the inner self is always operative in human life, and we will develop that fundamental point in more detail in later chapters. The spectrum of our religious axis is the scale which expresses the extent to which we are conscious of and react to that inner self.
For example, the vision of a religious mystic will have a coloration representing deep awareness of the inner self. Such mystic understanding has been found in all major religions and is a principle characteristic of most primal religion. In terms of any sort of systematic theology, such a person might be positioned anywhere on the polytheism-monotheism-atheism scale.
The other end of the mystic scale is defined by the person who is completely unaware of the role of the inner self in conscious life. Such a person might be an atheist or agnostic, or might be a fervent fundamentalist of one of the major theistic religions. The fundamentalist finds religious expression and salvation through a rigid system of consciously held beliefs. That person may have little or no sense of the mystic aspect of religion.
In all social interactions, it is necessary to consider the independent functions of all these axes. We have considered worldview in some detail, not to belabor the obvious, but to show the distinctions which are necessary in understanding the worldview of others, and in finding a “cosmos in common.” Our goal continues to be the building of a common means of description and perception on which we may base a natural ethic.
That brings us to the naming of a fourth type of worldview. Our “cosmos in common” must be an understanding of the universe as we find it. The universal worldview is also a scientific worldview in that it values reason, observation (experimentation) and sets rigorous standards of knowledge. However, the universal worldview also reaches across the alchemical bridge to bring into consciousness a modern understanding of the reality of the mythic. It must consider the important function of the unconscious, the human psyche, in the development of human aspirations and in the ordering of human life.
The universal worldview goes further. It goes beyond the mere acknowledgement of the reality of the inner and the outer world. It sees the universe as truly a universe: as a unity, as a wholeness. Though the universe operates as a system of many levels, all levels are interrelated and in some measure interactive. Thus, the universal worldview is the systems view.
Because there are many levels of the universe as system, our apprehension and description of it are not developed entirely through linear logic. Thus, this presentation necessarily must skip around among various levels; that explains the frequent cross references or links to other subjects in the book.
In developing a systems worldview, we synthesize data, in part intuitively, from many levels. We look next at the importance of the natural personality type in the formulation of worldview.
Copyright 2000 by Donivan Bessinger. All rights reserved.
Next Chapter: Self View and Ethics
More by Donivan Bessinger, MD
References:
(1) ALCHEMIST SYMBOLICALLY SOUGHT SPIRITUAL RENEWAL—Jung. MDR, p 201. Also: Joseph Campbell. The Mythic Image. Princeton University Press, 1974. p 254 ff.
(2) KNOWLEDGE—Books by Mortimer Adler (New York: Macmillan) have been especially helpful in developing the section on knowledge. See Six Great Ideas (1981) and Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985).
(3) “AS IF BY A CHAIN”—Stanley V. Keeling. “Descartes, ReneÇ”. Encyclopedia Britannica 1965, 7: 281.
(4) SNAKE BITING ITS TAIL—C.G. Jung. MHS p 38.