The plurality of world-views in existence today seems to lead inevitably to encountering divergent world-views. Life in such a pluralistic society can and does, as we painfully experience all too often, cause unsettledness and conflicts amongst proponents of different world-views with regard to culture, politics, religion, ethics, science, ontology, or personal moral convictions, to name just a few. If we do not want to live next to each other as strangers or enemies, dialogue is required and demanded. A problem and concern of world-view dialogue is the standard or criterion by which such a dialogue is conducted. Thus the question of the rationality of world-views arises in the context of dialogue between divergent world-views: Can a world-view dialogue be rational, that is to say, can world-views be evaluated rationally? If so, how can one evaluate the rationality of a world-view? In response to questions like these, Otto Muck (*1928), an Austrian philosopher and Jesuit, has spent his lifetime working on issues concerning dialogue, world-views and their rationality. His interest is in the philosophical dimension of these issues; indeed he advocates the view that philosophy, especially metaphysics, can help develop a rational order which gives theoretical and practical orientation in human life.
In this paper I will examine in depth Otto Muck's metaphysical concept of Weltanschauung (world-view) arguing that it enables us to evaluate the rationality of world-views with respect to their integrative function. In the course of the paper, I will name four criteria for the rationality of world-views and posit that dialogue is a postulate of rationality. The matter of dialogue is of particular interest since questions concerning the rationality of world-views arise specifically in cases of encounter with other world-views, and with the rise of awareness of clashes of convictions or of poorly integrated experience.Footnote 1 The aim of this paper is to encourage dialogue between world-views. This dialogue, I will argue, can be guided by the question of rationality.
1) What is Weltanschauung?
The term ‘Weltanschauung’ is sometimes associated with ideologies or doctrines. It is used, for instance, to describe Marxism, National Socialism, or Catholicism. What I mean here, by contrast, when speaking of ‘world-views’ is equivalent to how Otto Muck introduces the term ‘Weltanschauung’. ‘Weltanschauung’ (and thus my use of ‘world-view’) denotes a “personal, lived attitude according to which everything we encounter in life is spontaneously understood and evaluated.”Footnote 2 Even though it is hard to find accurate terminology—one could speak of an ‘attitude’ (Einstellung/Haltung) or of ‘life-carrying convictions’ (lebenstragende Überzeugungen) or even of ‘biodoxy’ (Lebensauffassung)—,Footnote 3 I want to stress three important features of Muck's account of Weltanschauung. First, according to Muck a world-view has both theoretical and practical components, namely, understanding and evaluating.Footnote 4 Thus, a world-view includes both thoughts and values.Footnote 5 Second, the term ‘personal’ indicates that what is in question is a particular person's world-view, rather than an abstract public world-view, that is, an ideology or doctrine such as Marxism or Catholicism, although it is possible for a person to adopt at least parts of such an abstract public world-view. Third, the term ‘lived’ indicates that a person actually possesses this world-view. This means that he or she operates on, and is affected by, this particular world-view. In theory, a lived world-view (gelebte Weltanschauung) can be verbalised or expressed; however, making an implicit world-view explicit (formulierte Weltanschauung) can be difficult, for it is not easy accurately to express the operative world-view.Footnote 6 If we take these three features into account, we can say that world-views are a set of personal life-carrying convictions or attitudes on which one's life, in particular one's speaking and acting, is based.Footnote 7
In summary, then, according to Muck, everybody possesses a word-view insofar as he or she speaks and acts. This is due to the definition of ‘word-view’ as the personal life-carrying convictions or set of attitudes on which one's life is based. If one tries to articulate such a world-view, however, for instance in dialogue with another, discontinuity may arise between the lived and the expressed world-view. As I argue in this paper, such problems pertaining to the expression and defence of one's world-view might be tackled by taking metaphysical considerations into account.Footnote 8 In other words, metaphysics, understood as the “critical unfolding of the notion of reality which is operating in the lived world-view”Footnote 9, can help in developing and evaluating a rational world-view.
2) Can a Weltanschauung be Rational?
This brings us to the question of the rationality of world-views. Despite the common use of the term, it is hard to define ‘rationality’ properly. For the present purpose, I will follow Muck, at least as I interpret him, in speaking about the rationality of a world-view in cases where (1) metaphysical (and thus world-view-related) assertions are meaningful and (2) one can evaluate the adequacy of a world-view. These are the two basic presuppositions for the rationality of world-views. To establish the central claim that world-views can be rational, I will evaluate both assumptions in turn. In section three I will focus on the meaningfulness of metaphysical assertions, and in section four, on the criteria for evaluating the adequacy of world-views. Rationality implies a third feature, namely, (3) reasonable argumentation. According to Muck, argumentation is essentially the tracing back of questionable assumptions to assumptions commonly held.Footnote 10 A line of argumentation is reasonable when it is (a) accompanied by openness to considering novel questions, (b) by avoidance of exclusively basing judgements on emotions, and (c) constituted by a habit of giving reasons.Footnote 11 The third assumption about rationality becomes significant in the context of world-view dialogue, which I will treat in section five.
3) The Meaningfulness of Metaphysical Assertions
There has been a lively debate in recent years over whether metaphysical, and in particular religious, beliefs are in any sense rational.Footnote 12 On the one hand, there is the problem of their verification. Logical positivists such as Rudolf Carnap claim that “the meaning of a statement lies in the method of its verification.”Footnote 13 Since metaphysical statements cannot be verified empirically, they are not wrong, sterile or uncertain but simply meaningless; they do not constitute statements.Footnote 14 As Carnap states:
The metaphysician tells us that empirical truth-conditions cannot be specified; if he adds that nevertheless he ‘means’ something, we know that this is merely an allusion to associated images and feelings which, however, do not bestow a meaning on the word.Footnote 15
Metaphysical statements are alleged statements, ‘pseudo-statements’ as Carnap calls them, because they do not have meaning. They assert nothing.Footnote 16 One way of responding to this objection involves arguing that the principle of verification advocated by the logical positivists fails as a criterion of meaningfulness and can only function as a criterion of demarcation between metaphysical and scientific statements.Footnote 17
On the other hand, there is the objection of falsification. Antony Flew stresses in his parable of the invisible gardener that religious assertions are not falsifiable; that is to say, one is in want of a condition that would nullify these statements. Again, such statements assert nothing since they have suffered “death by a thousand qualifications.”Footnote 18 In response, Richard Hare promotes the conception of blik, a pre-rational entity that cannot be rationally evaluated. A blik is not an explanation; it is the presupposition of an explanation. On the basis of bliks, we decide what counts as an explanation. Thus, once again, metaphysical statements are said not to assert anything.Footnote 19 In short, the objection is that metaphysical statements (a) explain and (b) assert nothing, since they are (c) meaningless.
In response to these challenges from logical positivism and its opponents, I wish to argue that we can critically evaluate the adequacy of metaphysical systems and, furthermore, the adequacy of world-views, in ways I will explain shortly. The afore mentioned challenges, as Muck indicates, fall short in an important respect. The objections of verification and falsification correctly point out that there is a difference between scientific and metaphysical or religious statements. Thus, the distinction between science and metaphysics is justified. However, objectors fail to perceive the common function of these disciplines: they both (a) explain something. The explanations only differ in how they perform their explanatory function.Footnote 20 Many hold scientific explanations to be prognostic. Metaphysical explanations, however, are integrative.Footnote 21 We call an explanation integrative “insofar as it performs an interpretative and evaluative coordination of the manifold encounter in its significance for the entirety ([Latin:] integrum) of our life.”Footnote 22 As such, metaphysical statements do (b) assert something, namely a certain synthesis of understanding. And we can name a criterion for (c) the meaning of metaphysical assertions: the fulfilment of its integrative function.Footnote 23
In short, then, metaphysical statements are integrative explanations. As such, they assert a certain synthesis, and we can name as a criterion of meaningfulness the fulfilment of the integrative function of metaphysical statements. Thus, the fact that metaphysical statements may not be directly verifiable or falsifiable (through isolated experience) does not imply that they cannot be rationally evaluated at all (as Hare supposed). In other words, it does not mean that metaphysical convictions are not attuned to experience. On the contrary, since metaphysical convictions are an important part of structuring and responding to our experience they must be sensitive to it.
Before we turn to the integrative function of world-views and the criteria of rationality, let me briefly clarify the relation between world-views and metaphysical assertions or convictions. Word-views contain and rely on metaphysical convictions. They are an important part of a world-view because of their integrative function. A world-view consists of many different kinds of convictions: scientific, moral, ontological, religious, and so forth. If a world-view is coherent, these different kinds of convictions will be related to each other. That is the function of metaphysical convictions. Metaphysical convictions thus play a key role in every world-view, especially in the (rational) core of a world-view which “determines the highest level of sentences that have the force of a universal integration of different fields.”Footnote 24
To conclude, world-views consist in and rely on metaphysical convictions. Even though they are not directly verifiable or falsifiable, metaphysical statements are not as such irrational or pre-rational. Instead metaphysical statements are meaningful assertions and integrative explanations. As such, they can be rational. The task of the next section is to show how the rationality of metaphysical assumptions and consequently world-views can be evaluated according to the fulfilment of their integrative function.
4) The Criteria of Rationality: Evaluating the Rationality of a Weltanschauung
In this and the next section I will defend the claim that, as Muck suggests, Frederick Ferré’s criteria for the rationality of metaphysical systems can be applied to Muck's concept of Weltanschauung. My aim is to show firstly that world-views can be more or less adequate to explaining reality as we know it and secondly, that the rationality of a world-view can be judged according to its adequacy.
In his book ‘Language, Logic and God’Footnote 25 Frederick Ferré states that theological speech necessarily includes beliefs. Religious statements intend to refer to reality. The ‘facts’, as Ferré calls them, to which religious statements refer, differ from the facts to which the empirical sciences refer.Footnote 26 Consequently, Ferré deals with the same problem we encountered above, that “[n]o straightforward experimental method for verifying or falsifying sentences claiming to state these ‘facts’ seems to be available”Footnote 27. Ferré presents a solution to this problem. He introduces ‘metaphysical facts’ into his ontology as the facts to which theological speech primarily refers. Those facts play a key role in the general function of metaphysics, namely, conceptual synthesis. As such, metaphysical facts have to be considered relative to the specific metaphysical system in which they operate.Footnote 28 “A metaphysical system is a construct of concepts designed to provide coherence for all ‘the facts’ on the basis of a theoretical model drawn from among ‘the facts’.”Footnote 29 Hence, the confirmation of metaphysical facts depends upon the adequacy of the metaphysical system.Footnote 30
The crucial question, then, is: “Can metaphysical systems be judged rationally as to adequacy or inadequacy?”Footnote 31 The answer Ferré gives is this: “In so far as metaphysical systems have a definite function, they can be judged according to their success in fulfilling this function.”Footnote 32 Ferré names four criteria for evaluating whether the metaphysical function of conceptual synthesis has been fulfilled in any instance. There are two internal criteria, to wit, (1) consistency and (2) coherency, which demand, as a negative criterion, the absence of logical contradictions and, as a positive criterion, a connection between the relevant principles. Moreover, there are two external criteria, (3) applicability to experience and (4) adequacy to all possible experience, which entail relevance to experience in the sense that the metaphysical system illuminates all possible experiences of a kind naturally and without distortion.Footnote 33
As a next step, I argue that these criteria, as Otto Muck suggests, can be applied to world-views.Footnote 34 To this end, I seek to show that world-views have approximately the same function as metaphysical systems. In this connection, recall that Ferré’s criteria evaluate the fulfilment of the function of metaphysical systems. I claim that the function of world-views is sufficiently similar to the function of metaphysical systems in order to apply Ferré’s criteria for the rationality of metaphysical systems to world-views. That is to say, remaining differences are not relevant in relation to its functionality. I will call the function that is common to metaphysical systems and world-views an integrative function.
In order to fulfil the operative definition of the term ‘world-view’, world-views on this understanding must serve to interpret and evaluate what we experience. This, however, requires an integrative function, such that data “get clarified in their meaning and applicability as well as their limitations by means of relating them to an all-embracing whole.”Footnote 35 World-views can only properly fulfil their operative definition as being the set of “personal, lived attitude[s] according to which everything we encounter in life is spontaneously understood and evaluated”Footnote 36 when they perform an integrative function. This integrative function, however, is fulfilled by metaphysical systems as part of a world-view. To put it the other way round, whatever fulfils the function of integrating everything we experience is by definition part of the world-view.Footnote 37 As we have seen, world-views contain and rely on metaphysical convictions. Thus we can say that the function of metaphysical systems and world-views is sufficiently similar to apply the same criteria to them, insofar as a world-view is operating on metaphysical convictions which perform an essential part of the operative definition of ‘world-view’. If my supposition is correct, then world-views as well as metaphysical systems have an integrative function and can both therefore be rationally evaluated according to their function. This means that we can apply Ferré’s criteria for metaphysical systems to Muck's concept of world-views.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that these criteria represent the minimum requirement for a rational world-view, that is, with regard to world-views as metaphysical systems.Footnote 38 This means that they are necessary conditions of a rational world-view but are not sufficient to validate a particular world-viewFootnote 39 “as definite and compelling for everyone.”Footnote 40 This is due to the fact that, firstly, a world-view is rational relative to one's experience, or according to external criteria, and secondly it is very hard to see how the four criteria can be completely fulfilled. I therefore suggest we distinguish between a rational world-view and the rational acceptance of a world-view. While in the first case the world-view can be an implicit one, the world-view must be explicitly formulated in the second case. Only in the second case does the question of rationality arise. Thus, in everyday life, the question that surfaces first and foremost is not primarily whether one's world-view is rational, but whether one is rational in holding one's world-view. One holds a world-view rationally when, in discovering a deficiency, one modifies one's world-view in accordance with the four criteria of rationality.Footnote 41 Hence, in keeping with the latter distinction, these criteria should be regarded as guidelines for improving one's world-view in a rational way.Footnote 42 In short, a more rational world-view is one which is held in greater conformity with the criteria. Muck concedes:
Admittedly, these are criteria which should be regarded more as minimal requirements for the rational tenability of such a [world-]view. They are not of the kind that one gets to a conclusive result that is generally accepted.Footnote 43
Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that metaphysical systems, as well as world-views, have an ontological bearing.Footnote 44 Ultimately, therefore, the question of the rationality, and not just the rational holding, of a world-view is likewise important. For we commonly think that rational world-views say something about reality. As Ferré puts it: “[I]f some models are capable of providing a greater coherence and adequacy than others, we may begin to suspect that this tells us something not only about the models but also about what reality is like.”Footnote 45 So we are convinced that some metaphysical systems and world-views are more capable of interpreting reality than others, namely those who fit the four criteria more closely.Footnote 46
In what follows I will address two possible objections to this conclusion and then present two postulates of rationality. So far, we have seen that the claim of rationality demands that the integrative function of one's world-view is fulfilled in a consistent and holistic way. That, however, is the case if and only if the four criteria are met. Whoever has inconsistent or incoherent convictions, whoever makes no all-inclusive reference to experience—that is, not to exclude any field of experience a priori—has a deficiency in his or her integrative capacity. Therefore, his or her world-view is less adequate and viable. For these reasons, both claims seem to be established prima facie, namely, that world-views performing an integrative function can be more or less adequate and that the adequacy of a world-view can be measured and determined.
5) Two Objections
Two potential objections have been mounted against this account.Footnote 47 A first objection concerns the above mentioned reference to reality. The reality objection goes like this. The adequacy of a world-view does not rely on the fulfilment of the criteria but on the correspondence of the world-view with reality. A reply must emphasise the fact that these criteria are meta-criteria; they are criteria on the level of reflection. Hence, the crucial question is how to evaluate the correspondence with reality.Footnote 48 The criteria of rationality evaluate the integrative function of world-views. World-views which are more capable of interpreting the world (as we perceive it) in a consistent, coherent and all-embracing manner are, so the reply to the objection, more likely to depict reality (as it is).
A second objection might be to accuse this concept of circularity. Metaphysics and world-views have an integral concern. From its integrative function we derive criteria of rationality. We consider as rational what fulfils the integrative function. Only world-views which meet the criteria that evaluate the fulfilment of the integrative function are considered as rational. This view, according to the objection, presupposes a holistic function of guidance, namely the integrative function of world-views, and introduces the notion of rationality as the fulfilment of this integrative function.Footnote 49 In reply, we have to consider in more detail the operative introduction of the notion of world-views. The introduction of a notion is operative if we develop that notion on the basis of our everyday operations—that is, asking, asserting, deciding, acting, and so on.Footnote 50 The previously presented concept of world-views as well as the criteria of rationality rest upon an operative introduction. According to our definition, world-view is a “personal, lived attitude according to which everything we encounter in life is spontaneously understood and evaluated.”Footnote 51 Everyone, insofar as he or she speaks and acts, has to have such a world-view. The question, then, is not whether but which such defined world-view one has. This gives us the opportunity to reply in manner of a retorsion. The operative introduction of the notion of world-view shows that having a world-view is necessary. Even a denial of what I called before the holistic function of guidance fulfils the operative definition of a world-view.Footnote 52
Let me briefly recapitulate. A world-view is a set of personal life-carrying convictions. As such, every world-view has a certain function, namely an integrative one. The metaphysical assumptions which are part of our world-view integrate all personal experiences. This integrative function, and thus the world-view, can be evaluated. The four criteria of rationality evaluate this function. Thus, as a minimum requirement for rationality, one can demand the fulfilment of these criteria, without stating that these criteria have to lead to a certain, definite and conclusive world-view that is validated by everyone. In order to argue for the rationality of a world-view one has to make it explicit. Making an implicit world-view explicit can reveal inconsistencies in the world-view itself. This is where world-view dialogue comes into play as a privileged method, and even practical necessity, of ascertaining the rationality of world-views.
6) Dialogue as a Postulate of Rationality: The Role of Dialogue between World-Views
We now turn to the two postulates of rationality. These postulates do not (theoretically) have the status of criteria of rationality but (practically) lead to an improvement of the rationality of world-views. The postulates include (1) a readiness to engage in dialogue and (2) a readiness to revise one's world-view.Footnote 53 In the following I confine myself to the postulate of the readiness to engage in dialogue to illuminate the important role world-view dialogue plays as a corrective. Muck states:
Because the mentioned criteria lead to a correspondence with reality and truth, the process of dialogue […] can be understood as a mutual effort to gain greater accuracy regarding reality and to approximate the truth.Footnote 54
By ‘dialogue’ Muck means a discursive dialogue. In a discursive dialogue, the dialogue partners argue (without any violence) for their respective contrasting world-view components and seek better to understand each other. One gives reasons for his or her convictions. The goal of such a dialogue is a better mutual understanding and a convergence of conviction, even though differences might persist.Footnote 55 In a discursive dialogue, we argue by way of reasoning. This means that we try to trace back statements to mutually accepted statements.Footnote 56 In this regard, we have to distinguish between personal and interpersonal reasoning. Interpersonal reasons are based on mutually accepted premises. Personal reasons are based on premises only one partner accepts.Footnote 57 In a world-view dialogue, giving personal reasons is legitimate. Personal reasons help us to understand the premises of the reasoning of our dialogue partner. Furthermore, stating personal reasons might lead to considering experience which was not yet taken into account by the other dialogue partner.Footnote 58 Another important feature of dialogue concerns the way it manifests the range of applicability of so-called limited interpretations.Footnote 59 By the term ‘interpretation’ Muck means the translation of an expression into another language or, more importantly, the comprehension of a linguistic term.Footnote 60 An interpretation is limited if the interpretation has essentially but not exactly the same meaning as the term it translates, or as the comprehension of the dialogue partner would suggest. The remaining differences, however, are not relevant with regard to the particular subject.Footnote 61 World-view dialogue can prevent the dialogue partner from uncritically absolutising limited interpretations of statements which do not respect the methodologically legitimate range of their applicability.Footnote 62 In short, the overall goal of a world-view dialogue is the extension of the common, mutually accepted basis of reasoning and understanding.Footnote 63
If and insofar as the main function of a dialogue between world-views is the extension of the common, mutually accepted basis for reasoning and understanding, participating in reasoning for one's convictions and trying to understand the dialogue partner as well as oneself often leads to an awareness of deficiencies in one's world-view and hence provides an opportunity to modify it. In this sense world-view dialogue is a corrective to one's world-view and enhances its adequacy and rationality. The readiness to engage in world-view dialogue and to revise one's world-view are postulates of rationality because they are, although not theoretical criteria for the rationality of world views, practically necessary means of attaining and holding a world-view rationally.
I wish to bring my exposition of dialogue as a postulate of rationality to a close on a practical note. In order not to fuel unreasonable expectations, Muck cautions us to keep in mind the specific characteristics of word-views in a world-view dialogue. For one, the application of the criteria does not easily lead to a rational world-view, especially not to one that is acceptable to all people. World-view convictions furthermore require something akin to personal compliance. The classical notion for this is ‘certitudo libera’. Only if one accepts such fundamental assertions as his or her own convictions does reasoning on this ground become convincing. Reasons without conviction do not lead to agreement.Footnote 64 As Muck puts it:
Due to its performative nature, i.e. the fact that a world-view exercises its interpretative and evaluative force only as a personally accepted one, the [certitudo libera] and hence the unenforceability of world-view opinions are explicable.Footnote 65
For this reason a world-view fulfils its function only as a personally accepted and lived one.Footnote 66
7) Conclusion
The experience of living in a world where a plurality of divergent world-views exists can be challenging. This is especially true if and because we are confronted with different word-views on a nearly daily basis. In response to this challenge, I have explored Otto Muck's metaphysical concept of Weltanschauung in this paper, which takes into account the philosophical dimension of world-views. Based on this concept, I argued that seeing world-view dialogue as a postulate of rationality can help in gradually coming to understand different world-views, as well as one's own. Contrary to claims that we cannot rationally speak of and evaluate world-views, I have argued that world-views have an integrative function and can be evaluated according to their capacity to fulfil this very function. I defended the view that the rationality of world-views depends on an orientation out of integration. I named four criteria which evaluate the integrative function as minimum criteria for the rationality of world-views: (1) consistency, (2) coherency, (3) applicability to experience and (4) adequacy to all possible experience. These criteria assess how well a world-view provides orientation through a consistent, coherent and all-embracing view of the world. If we take these considerations seriously, we see how metaphysics can help firstly to understand what a world-view is, and how it operates, and secondly to guide one in improving one's world-view rationally and engaging in a world-view dialogue that seeks a better understanding of ourselves and the world. This, I suggest, is a solid ground on which dialogue between different world-views can and should be built.
