This continues the series in which I discuss Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella‘s critique of my idea of philosophizing before and after Christ. (See Parts I, II, III, IV.)
In Philosophy after Christ, I wrote:
The relationship of evidence of one thing to another depends on there being minds fitted with reliable cognition that can surmise and test that connection. What must the world include for evidentiary relationships to be possible?
We may not be certain whether A is evidence of B, but that things are in evidentiary relationships to each other is something about which we not only have no doubt but wouldn’t know how to doubt. Is that merely a brute psychological fact without further ground? For doubting expresses intellectual exigency, critical “demandingness,” a healthy fear of being duped; exercising that virtue makes no sense except in a world that is completely intelligible (formally, efficiently, materially, and finally).[1]
And that brings us, as every philosophical question must, to worldview.
For decades I asked, “What is the evidence or argument for this worldview?” (for example, Marxism, Existentialism, or Christianity). It was the wrong question. I had been assuming that “worldview” always means an explicitly held ideology, philosophy, or theology, a system of ideas one is obliged to justify (or counter) with evidence and argument.
One does not, however, argue for one’s worldview, at least not one’s basic worldview. Rather, one’s basic worldview—a network of nonnegotiable beliefs about one’s relationship to others, to the cosmos, and to God—is the foundation upon on which one argues or asks questions. One’s basic worldview is implicated in the effort to argue or justify. It gets expressed in socially and historically conditioned ideologies, philosophies, and theologies. They are many, but the worldview-forming capacity, like the language-forming capacity, is anthropologically one.
One may rationally vindicate one’s theorized worldview by showing its superiority to any other on offer, but the worldview will even supply the criteria of evaluation. As followers of this blog know, I’m developing a manuscript entitled Philosophy after Christ. Today I’m continuing the line of thought sketched in Worldviews, potent and impotent: Noam Chomsky’s “lucky accident.” I want to develop the idea of a pre-theoretical (yet theorizable) worldview which, without conscious effort, forms as we mature from infancy through childhood and adolescence to adulthood. It forms in tandem with our capacity for language (without which the theorization can’t be expressed).
I’ve come to distinguish between the worldview one spontaneously comes to have and any reflection upon it. I’m also aware of the temptation to conflate the two. That is, having reflected upon one’s basic beliefs, one identifies and labels the result of that reflection. Between the two, the human heart’s imperfect love of truth inserts a wedge. The possibility of faithless, rather than faithful, reflection emerges.
In other words, if worldview-reflection occurs, if we attend to our incorrigible beliefs and then say something about these “nonnegotiables,” we introduce the problem of truth, adherence thereto and suppression thereof.
David K. Naugle
Let’s consider the distinction between what I’ve called our “birthright” worldview (see, e.g., this and this) and our attempts to articulate and label it (our “ideologies” or “philosophies”). Our linguistic capability is also our birthright: there’s nothing we need to do attain it.
Those attempts, being partly products of our decisions in response to our social and physical environments, may capture the birthright worldview accurately and flesh it out fruitfully. Or, those attempts may distort it and weaken its logical “pull.” Some writers have helped me think this through this problem. One of them is David K. Naugle, Chair of Dallas Baptist University’s Philosophy Department. He bears no responsibility for my imperfect grasp of his work.
This continues the series in which I discuss Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella‘s critique of my idea of philosophizing before and after Christ. (See Parts I, II, III, IV.)
