Worldview Development

If there is no agreement on how a truth is measured and added to one’s worldview then there cannot be much progress in talking about particulars of truth. While it is very true that establishment of the existence of God logically precedes the details about who that God may or may not be, I think we need to delve further back to epistemological principals before traversing through the potential truths.

If some commonality is not found at that level then it is like trying to play chess with the game rules for checkers.

In developing a worldview we must remember that it will always be developing, adapting, and evolving to encompass more and more truth as we learn it. There has to be room for revision and removal of inaccurate perspectives as we grow in truth and knowledge. I propose that one needs to measure all things that make up ones worldview by three tests of truth.

First does the thing line up philosophically as true? This is the ethereal, but important level of examining a worldview. Is it logical? Is it true? Is it right? Is it consistent with other known truths? Or are their logical inconsistencies? Are there fundamental philosophical problems with the hypothesis?

Secondly can it be communicated rationally or is it too ethereal and abstract to even be able to express? If the former move on to the third test, if the later there needs to be some work done in the level of the first test. Or possibly if it is reexamined at the first level and found sound, then it may need some work at the second level. If it cannot be illustrated by story or picture or dialog it needs further work to find out why and to determine where the problem lies. Maybe it needs revision, maybe it needs to be abandoned, or maybe you will learn a way to express the thing.

Thirdly, is it practicable? Does it work in the real world? Can it be pulled out of the ethereal, communicated, and implemented as truth? If not then go back to test one, because most likely there is a problem there.

I often hear people think only in the third level even when it violates the first. For example, someone may argue that they have need of food therefore they have a right to the food others have to fulfill their hunger. This way of thinking quickly leads to either stealing or communism as it violates the first level and only reasons in the third level.

One would need to think in level one about whether it is right for one person to take from another person what does not belong to them or if someone has a right to what they did not work to earn. Because if stealing is wrong in the first level it is still wrong in the practical level and the need does not overcome the morality problem. But when we only think according to the third level we give no thought to ethics or truth, but to personal need and survival irrespective of truth and righteousness.

However to respond to a person’s practical need by philosophizing in the first level without a solution in the third can be just as wrong. Often people take a philosophical position and leave the person in need at the mercy of their philosophy with no practical help for them. Something only being pertinent in the first level, but having no value in the third is just as errant as something thought out only in the third with disregard to the first and second level of development.

I started this essay delineating the philosophical need for a worldview and philosophically proposed how one can test a thing before adding or retaining it in their worldview. Next, I illustrated the point with an example using the second level of the test.

Now for the practical it has to work beyond my theorizing and illustrating and can only be tested by practical use of the method for any who agree in the first and second level of thought to take it to the level of practical trial.