Anthropological turn in worldview studies: Theoretical and practical aspects

Abstract

The concept of worldview is quite ambiguous in modern humanities. Philosophers and scholars insist that there is such a spiritual or cognitive basis of each people, person or language, which finds its expression in the way they behave, think, or speak. Current Russian-speaking colleagues hold that there are different levels or types of worldview (such as mythological, religious, and scientific). All this testifies that the term of worldview lacks preciseness either in Russian and in foreign discourse. The main task of the article is to justify the possibility of a different approach to the study of worldview as a special phenomenon. The question can be raised of what exactly we analyze when dealing with worldview. The author is convinced that it would be better to work with the concept of worldview not as “what”, but rather as “how”. In developing his argument, the author focuses on three main aspects of the issue: (1) the accuracy in describing and conceiving worldview as the issue of philosophy; (2) the historical and contemporary examples of the worldview typology; (3) the refutation of such a dichotomy of “science — worldview” and the proposal of an integrated approach to the issue. The alternative way advocated by modern and classical authors is to turn to a more theoretically fruitful method of studying worldviews, that is, to the anthropological perspective.