What Is A Worldview? Origins & Definitions
Excerpted from Anderson, Clark, and Naugle, An
Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2017), 9-13. (To be
released October 12, 2017.)
The English term worldview is derived from the
German Weltanschauung, a compound word (Welt = world + Anschauung
= view or outlook) first used by Immanuel Kant to describe an individual’s
sensory perception of the world. The term spread quickly in German idealist philosophy
“to refer to an intellectual conception of the universe from the perspective of
a human knower.” In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, German
philosophers used Weltanschauung increasingly for the concept of
answering pivotal questions regarding life,
the universe, and everything.
A worldview can be helpfully defined as “the conceptual lens through which
we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it.” There is,
however, a multitude of ways to define and explain worldview.
