A worldview is a complex type of consciousness, which by its nature is an integrated entity and is present both at the level of individual consciousness and mass consciousness. This is manifested in the fact that the concept of worldview, historical types of worldview include the most diverse elements - information, value systems, knowledge, stereotypes and patterns of thinking and behavior, attitudes and beliefs, and much more. That is why a whole series of scientific disciplines is engaged in the study of worldview: the epistemological essence is considered by philosophy, historical types of worldview are studied in the subject area of history and cultural studies, local manifestations of the worldview are the subject of study of psychology, sociology, political science and a number of other sciences.
In its most general form, all historical types of worldview have approximately the same structural composition, in which the following components are distinguished:
- cognitive, which is based on generalizations of life experience, professional knowledge, skills, scientific information. As a result, each person forms in his mind a certain picture of the world, in which those or other characteristics that determine the properties of this picture (religious, scientific, ufological, etc.) can prevail.
- normative and value elements consist of ideals and norms, beliefs and beliefs that are developed by a person in the process of socialization and which are accepted by him as a result of education. They serve as criteria for thinking and behavior of a person, the basis of his socio-cultural identification.
- emotional-volitional complex is realized, as a rule, through behavioral manifestations. It is here that values, beliefs, attitudes are realized in concrete actions and their attendant, corresponding emotional-sensual colors.
- historical types of worldview contain a practical component that expresses the desire and readiness of the individual to act in this situation in this way, and not in any other way. This is manifested primarily through personal attitudes, but the initial motive is the worldview of a person. The practical implementation of attitudes and beliefs, in the end, is that “signal” to society about the nature and properties of each person’s worldview, without which it would simply turn into an abstraction.
Given that the worldview, as a system reflecting the individual’s attitude to the universe, also reflects his behavior, it should be recognized that it is not a dogma, but is a substance also mediated from the outside - by space and time. This fact allows us to identify the main historical types of worldview and formulate a chronology of their formation.
Historically, the first type of worldview was a religious-mythological worldview, a characteristic feature of which was that people tried to give answers to their questions in the form of mythological traditions and religious dogmas. Dogma and myth were the initial knowledge of man and revealed to him a picture of the world, within which he then built his life and formed his own ideas and attitudes to behavior. This form of worldview is fully consistent with the level of development of civilization and the degree of human development of nature.
The next historical form of worldview was philosophy. She absorbed from mythology and religion not only the worldview spirit and the amount of information and knowledge, but also all those questions that a person tried to get an answer to. This form is characterized by a significant rationalization of the worldview, its rapprochement with scientific thinking, and therefore more systematic.
After the philosophical assimilation of the world has become insufficient due to the accumulation by mankind of a huge amount of knowledge and information, philosophy ceases to be the only worldview form, historical types of worldview are supplemented by purely scientific forms of understanding reality. The scientific form of the worldview has spread due to the rapid development of scientific knowledge.
Today, it is widely believed that each individual is a carrier of several forms at once. Or that a person’s worldview is a synthesized formation in which in an individual proportion there are elements of all historical types of worldview.
