Aristotle’s School
There are problems of philosophy, which philosophers have perennially asked and attempted to answer. What really exists? What can (and do) I know? What is the nature of the good, the true, and the beautiful?
But there’s also the problem of philosophy, one that philosophy raises implicitly but cannot answer directly. That’s the problem of worldview. Do my answers to those philosophical questions comport or clash with one another? How much about the world must I “take for granted” when I ask my first question? Can I query those takings?
When one is adverting to the problem of “background” worldview one is not trying to solve problems that arise on its terms. And one’s worldview must be able to acknowledge worldview-diversity. But where is one standing when one entertains that problem?
As my interest in the worldview problem has increased, that in philosophical problems has decreased. That’s because philosophical problems now seem to me a function of one’s basic, non-negotiable stance toward the world. When philosophers pay attention to it, they’re not “doing” philosophy. When they don’t, their philosophical work is exposed to worldview-level criticism.
It’s not that philosophical questions are unimportant. The almost fifty years I spent studying them were not wasted time. Philosophical questions are endlessly interesting culturally and historically. But worldview questions have supplanted philosophical ones in my mind, perhaps because my worldview is of paramount importance to me and, going forward, I wish to advert to it explicitly. Worldviews assign various values to cultural and historical importance and hence to philosophy.
Philosophers who profess the same worldview can agree or disagree fruitfully about, for example, the veridicality of sense perception. Those who do not profess the same worldview, but are not conscious of that disparity, may misunderstand both their agreements and disagreements, even if when they use the same natural language correctly. If they are conscious of that disparity, then it is not clear what their apparent agreements or disagreements could mean. “God exists,” affirms the Christian, who thinks the idea of God important. “Yes, God exists!,” answers the Buddhist, who deems it a distraction from the main issue of living.
If philosophical problems are embedded in a worldview, then worldview conflict-adjudication is not a philosophical problem. The attempt to resolve the conflict also operates at the level of worldview. There is no worldview-neutral stance from which to make that attempt.
That one’s philosophical system is one’s final court of appeal for all questions was my assumption. Glancing at my life’s clock and calendar, however, I no longer care to do that. I’ve achieved enough clarity about my position to give myself permission not to.
The implications of the Christian worldview, the one that permeates the pages of the Bible, exhausts my philosophical interests. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is the only worldview that makes possible what philosophers do. (Indeed, what we all do at the inception of our every predication, even our silent ones.)
I further claim (as an implication of my worldview) that everyone, even those who claim to be anti-Christian, operate implicitly in terms of the Christian worldview. It’s the birthright of all those created in the image of God.
I prefer exploring the Christian worldview, as Biblical exegesis reveals it, to burrowing down the tunnel of worldview-justification. For life is short, and justification tends to be a long-winded if not also interminable affair. Still, as my position is in need of clarification, I will try to clarify it in future posts.
The Apostle Paul preaching to the philosophers. Acts 17:16-34