Naturalism as Weltanschauung. A Lesson from Jaspers and his Contemporaries

Naturalism as Weltanschauung
A Lesson from Jaspers and his Contemporaries


In recent years naturalism has been often characterized as a Weltanschauung, indeed, as the dominant Weltanschauung of philosophy in our present (see for instance Gillet/Lower 2012, p. 12; Stoljar 2010, p. 2-3; Clark 2016, p. 5). Despite the broad agreement on naturalism being a Weltanschauung, the meaning and the implications of this characterization remain largely unaddressed. What is a Weltanschauung? What does it imply for naturalism to be one? A cherished buzzword in European fin-de-siècle intellectual culture, Weltanschauung or its English equivalent, worldview, became increasingly suspicious terms after the end of the Second World War. Adorno is the first to explicitly denounce Weltanschauung as ideological, relativistic, and possibly associated with the irrationalistic tendencies that preluded the rise of Fascism on the European political scene (see Adorno 1989, p. 118). Before Adorno, Edmund Husserl (see Husserl 1981) and the late Heinrich Rickert (see Rickert 1999b), among many others, vocally opposed the identification of philosophy and worldview, thereby setting up the ideal of a scientific philosophy against the contingent status of historically and psychologically determined Weltanschauungen. One might then very well conclude with Christian Berner that "the notion of Weltanschauung has a bad reputation" and that "it is only used in philosophy as a term of contrast, as that which philosophy is not and ought not to be" (Berner 2006, p. 7).

Considering its checkered recent past, it is surprising that the phrase Weltanschauung has made its way into articles and books of contemporary analytic philosophy as a designator for its mainstream tendency: naturalism. To be sure, contemporary analytic philosophers referring to naturalism as a worldview are not necessarily aware of the technical philosophical meaning that this phrase used to have some hundred years ago. After all, 'worldview' and 'Weltanschauung' also have informal, albeit extremely vague meanings in our ordinary language, where they indicate roughly the way someone thinks about the world. Invoking Weltanschauung to characterize naturalism is thus probably meant to be nothing more than a gesture toward a supposedly understandable term, in order to make readers comfortable enough before redirecting their attention to other, more specific issues. In this paper, I would like to counteract this tendency and take the characterization of naturalism as a Weltanschauung more seriously. Unlike most contemporary philosophers, early twentieth century thinkers such as Karl Jaspers and several of his contemporaries devoted a significant amount of their intellectual energies to clarifying the notion of Weltanschauung. This allowed them to develop sophisticated views about naturalism (which characterized much of their present, too) and to raise important philosophical questions about its legitimacy. For this reason, I propose to evaluate the status of naturalism as a Weltanschauung by reference to Jaspers' thorough analyses in Psychologie der Weltanschauungen as well as by enhancing his position with the work on Weltanschauungen in contemporaneous thinkers such as Dilthey and Rickert. I want to argue that naturalism for Jaspers is not so much a worldview in its own right, but rather a derivative shape of a worldview. I will show that contemporary naturalism, too, displays some of the features that Jaspers attributes to derivative shapes of worldviews. I conclude by arguing with Rickert that a kind of naturalism exclusively oriented toward the natural sciences does not have the resources to articulate a worldview. Only by reactivating a more original sense of nature and our value-laden experience of it can we hope to articulate a kind of naturalism that is rich enough to present itself as a worldview.

On Worldviews and Philosophy

At the turn of the nineteenth century the term 'worldview' was variously associated with philosophy and it was considered critical to define the discipline's status in contrast to the specialized sciences. The specialized sciences deal with parts of the world, and they only engage the human intellect. Philosophy, on the contrary, has to either (1) express, (2) construct or (3) provide an alternative to a worldview, that is, a comprehensive stance about the world as a whole and the meaning of human life in it. These issues are intractable within the theoretical framework of the specialized sciences but they are too important to be simply ignored. There should be a discipline dealing with these issues, and that discipline is, or ought to be, philosophy. Philosophy, to speak with Dilthey, grapples with the Welt- und Lebensrätsel rather than with specialized problems about some segment of the empirical world. This also means that philosophy should not flow from the intellect alone, but rather emanate from the human being as a whole. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agreed with this characterization. A number of philosophers, including the abovementioned Husserl and Rickert, insisted that philosophy ought to be a science, rather that a worldview. By science they meant a thoroughly theoretical enterprise leaving aside intractable metaphysical questions and focusing rather on manageable problems to be progressively handled by a community of researchers.

All the notions introduced in this brief characterization (science, worldview, intellect alone versus the whole human being, metaphysical questions, etc.) are admittedly rather slippery. Therefore it is imperative to start with a tentative definition, before looking at some fundamental alternatives and then turning to consider Jaspers' approach. Let us define a worldview minimally as an immaterial cultural product that aim to provide orientation about the world as a whole and human life in it by way of answering fundamental and perennial questions of meaning. Such questions are not merely intellectual. There is a sense of urgency to them that engages the human being as a whole, including his or her volitional and emotional sides.

Given this definition of a worldview, we can identify three models about the relationship between philosophy and worldview, in keeping with the three numbered options in the first paragraph of this section, to which various early twentieth century thinkers variously subscribed.

(1) The EXPRESSION-MODEL. On this model, a worldview is the pre-theoretical, and mostly unconscious ground of philosophy. The task of philosophy is thus to bring to conceptual expression a worldview which intrinsically precedes it. As Karl Mannheim notices in a seminal essay on these matters, this way of construing worldview is characteristic of what he calls the anti-rationalist movement: "It needed the anti-rationalist movement within the cultural studies themselves, a movement which Dilthey first made a force in Germany, to make people realize that theoretical philosophy is neither the creator, nor the principal vehicle of the Weltanschauung of an epoch; in reality, it is only one of the channels through which a global factor […] manifests itself " (Mannheim 1952, p. 38). As Mannheim suggests, Dilthey does indeed construe worldviews primarily in historical terms. For him worldviews originate ultimately in the zeitgeist of a historical epoch. Other anti-rationalists, such as Georg Simmel, construe worldviews primarily in psychological terms. Simmel writes that the "native soil of philosophy" is "the stratum of typical personality within us" (Simmel 1996, p. 28), that is, philosophical theories flow from the kind of person we are, to echo a famous Fichtean adage. Of course, the kind of person we are can be classified according to general types, such that philosophical theories do have a supra-individual validity in that they bring to expression fundamental human types. In Simmel's construal, for example, Kant's philosophy is the most pure and complete expression of intellectualism. It expresses a certain kind of human personality in which the intellectual side holds sway.

(2) The CONSTRUCTION model. On this model, worldviews are not the terminus a quo but rather they ought to be the terminus ad quem of philosophic thinking. Philosophy should strive to construct a worldview. The 'building blocks' for this construction should be either the results of the empirical sciences, or the results of distinctive philosophical inquiries. This model is common to both positivistic thinkers, who tend to prioritize the sciences, and a number of Neo-Kantians, such as the early Rickert, who believe that philosophy has an autonomous domain of inquiry. In the programmatic essay Vom Begriff der Philosophie published in 1910, for instance, Rickert writes that philosophy "[…] must produce a Weltanschauung to shed light on our position in the world as a whole" (Rickert 1999a, p. 4). Note that for Rickert philosophy must produce and not merely express a worldview.

(3) The SEPARATION model. On this model, philosophy is a science, albeit not a specialized science, therefore it should distance itself from worldviews. While worldviews are historical and contingent, science is an infinite task. While worldviews aim primarily at edification, philosophy is a purely theoretical enterprise. In other words, according to the separation model, philosophy (as a science) and worldviews simply are two distinct cultural products that answer to two completely different sets of values and demands. The most famous defendant of the separation model is arguably Edmund Husserl in his 1911 manifesto Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. Husserl states that "Weltanschauung philosophy and scientific philosophy are sharply distinguished as two ideas, related in a certain manner to each other but not to be confused" (Husserl 1981, p. 191). Later in the essay he even strengthens this claim, stating that scientific philosophy "must oppose itself to the practical aspiration toward Weltanschauung and quite consciously separate itself from this aspiration. For here all attempts at reconciliation must likewise be rejected" (Husserl 1981, p. 194). For Husserl, there is a cultural space for Weltanschauung, however, if and only if it "in all honesty relinquish[es] the claim to be a science, and thereby at the same time cease[s] confusing minds and impeding the progress of scientific philosophy" (Husserl 1981, p. 194). As mentioned above, the late Rickert (1999b) also came to embrace the separation model and rejected the notion of worldview as a suitable characterization of what philosophy should aspire to achieve.

After providing this rough sketch of the intellectual landscape on the issue of worldviews and philosophy, let me now turn to consider Jaspers' position, before discussing the issue of naturalism in subsequent sections.

2. Jaspers' Project of a Psychology of Worldviews

A cursory look at the lengthy introduction to Jaspers' Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (1922) might give the impression that he unreservedly embraces the expression model. Jaspers famously introduces the notion of "prophetic philosophy" (Jaspers 1922, p. 2) and juxtaposes it to what he calls "universal contemplation" (ibid.), the unparticipating attitude characterizing science, precisely in that prophetic philosophy, unlike universal contemplation, provides a worldview. Furthermore, he points out that "we never know which unnoticed worldview ultimately moves us" (Jaspers 1922, p. 5), thus indicating that philosophy does not construct worldviews drawing merely on intellectual resources, but rather expresses worldviews that are at work in us prior to their explicit thematization. For this reason one might be tempted to argue with David Naugle that "Husserl's vilification of worldview as the opponent of true scientific philosophy and Jasper's glorification of the same as the natural human response to the encounter with limit situations must be interestingly juxtaposed" (Naugle 2002, p. 128). On the other hand, however, Jaspers' own project falls entirely into the category of universal contemplation in that he does not set out to "propagate" (Jaspers 1922, p. 3) a particular worldview, but he offers a conceptual apparatus to understand worldviews as such by tracing them back to certain fundamental dynamics of human consciousness. This is why Jaspers chooses to call his project psychology, rather than philosophy, of worldviews, although he does remark that his book "could be called philosophical" (Jaspers 1922, p. 1). One can obviously criticize this terminological decision and the rather unilateral understanding of philosophy that goes along with it (see for instance Rickert 1921, p. 13); however, it is key to note that the antagonist of prophetic philosophy is not so much universal contemplation (including a psychology of worldviews), but rather the "surrogate philosophy" (Jaspers 1922, p. 3) that merely mimics the gravitas of true prophetic philosophy and despises the psychological attitude for refusing to take a stance for a particular worldview. By contrast, a genuine psychological (i.e., purely contemplative) inquiry into the basic structures and dynamics underlying the formation of worldviews can prove critical to "intensify our questioning" (Jaspers 1922, p. 4) and "liberate, inhibit, or render cautious, it can become a means to eliminate inauthentic larval forms of life [Larvenleben]" (Jaspers 1922, p. 5), thus proving indirectly beneficial to the genuine achievement of a worldview. Thus, Jaspers' project cannot be situated univocally in any of the three models described above. His characterization of prophetic philosophy is certainly in keeping with the expression model; however, his sharp distinction between psychology of worldviews qua universal contemplation and prophetic philosophy resonates with the separation model (although Jaspers refuses to use the term 'philosophy' for universal contemplation), and his remark that the psychological study of worldviews can have an indirect beneficial impact on the formation of one's worldview considers also the terminus ad quem of intellectual inquiry, as the construction model would have it.

In his methodological characterization of a psychology of worldviews Jaspers is adamant that the origin of such phenomenon is in lived experience [im Erleben] and that worldviews develop as alternative construals of the "fundamental phenomenon" (Jaspers 1922, p. 21) characterizing our lives, namely, the subject/object dichotomy. The hiatus between subject and object can be bridged with the aid of several, equally legitimate categorial "grids" [Gitterwerke] (Jaspers 1922, p. 25), whose origin is to be found in fundamental psychical energies and dispositions of the subject. These dispositions or Einstellungen are studied in the first part of the book. On the other hand, worldviews become objectified in 'world-pictures' (Weltbilder) that are distinct from psychological dispositions and must be considered on their own terms. For the purpose of this paper, I will not delve into the intricacies of Jaspers' analysis but I will rather focus on one particular dynamic that he describes in his preliminary systematic considerations and is particularly relevant for a philosophical appraisal of naturalism.

The study of ramifications and transformations of worldviews has to consider four processes that lead from a nucleus or "center" of the worldview under scrutiny to a series of "derivative shapes" (Jaspers 1922, p. 30). Jaspers recurs to the notions of "substance" and "substantiality" (ibid.) to describe the original center of a worldview. Such phenomenon cannot be demonstrated or determined univocally through concepts. It is an "idea" (Jaspers 1922, p. 31) that guides and orients our study of worldviews as we attempt to discriminate between what is fundamental and what is peripheral. The idea of a substantial worldview can be further clarified by contrast to the derivative shapes, which represent both a departure from and a complexification of the original, intuitive core. Jaspers describes four processes that characterize the ramification of a substantial worldview into derivative shapes:

The center is authentic, but there is a series of inauthentic forms.
The center is concrete; it is a unity of content and form; it is full of life. There is a process of emptying at the level of content, which gives rise to lifeless forms: formalization.
The center is something substantial; it displays a self-identical something from its bud to its most differentiated forms. […]
The center is without pretense, without power cravings and without subordination. […] Each center assumes a particular form when it absolutizes itself into the whole and concurrently isolates itself, thereby exceeding itself. (Jaspers 1922, p. 34-35)

In our evaluation of naturalism points (2) and (4) are the most relevant. Commenting on formalization Jaspers explains that while in the substantial center form and matter are inextricably connected, derivative shapes are characterized by a "juxtaposition of form and matter", whereby one is often "played off against the other" (Jaspers 1922, p. 39). As for the process of absolutization: "Every objectification that claims to be the right, the one and only worldview points toward the fact that here some part, no matter how broad, has been taken for the whole. Already the fact that the worldview at issue has become completely objectified provides evidence for this state of affairs" (Jaspers 1922, p. 41).

We are now equipped to consider Jasper's own assessment of naturalism, which, as we will see in the next section, turns out to be the derivative shape of a 'substantial' worldview, rather than a worldview in its own right.

3. The sensory-spatial picture of the world and naturalism

The first Weltbild considered by Jaspers in the second section of Psychologie der Weltanschauungen is what he calls the "sensory-spatial picture of the world" (Jaspers 1922, p. 154). This is the picture of the world delivered first and foremost by our senses, and subsequently developed into a variety of ramifications. Following a suggestion by leading biologist von Uexküll, Jaspers distinguishes three notions of the world: the objective world [objektive Welt], i.e., the totality of existing things as investigated in natural science, the world of stimulus [Reizwelt], i.e., the portion of the objective world that has actual causal efficacy on a given organism, and the objectual world [gegenständliche Welt], i.e., the world that actually stands over against the conscious observer. This third dimension of the world is the most relevant. It determines the "immediately and presently experienced picture of the world" (Jaspers 1922, p. 155), which includes both the fullness of our sensibility and what Jaspers calls "the world of importance" [Wichtigkeitswelt] (ibid.), i.e., the hierarchies of value and significance established on the basis of our past experience. As Jaspers puts it by way of summary:

The immediate picture of the world is a living picture and as such in our experience it is rich and colorful, full of shapes and forms, it is always animated, meaningful and interesting; it can be damaging or beneficial to us, it can invite us to dominate and to accept the world as limit and resistance. (Jaspers 1922, p. 158)

But the objectual world with its lived immediacy does not exhaust the Weltbild under scrutiny. The first movement of expansion of the sensory-spatial picture of the world consists in positing a "world behind that which is immediately experienced" (ibid.) and developing the immediately experienced picture of the world into a "cosmic" one (ibid.). The first shape of the cosmic picture of the world is the finite universe of ancient Greek cosmology. The second shape comes onto the scene with the irruption of infinity in Renaissance cosmology. This new intellectual acquisition determines first a spatial expansion of the world into a plurality of worlds, according to the principle: "infinite worlds in infinite space" (Jaspers 1922, p. 156), and subsequently a temporal expansion into an ancestral past (pre-historical time, etc.). Parallel to this expansion of the world to an infinite cosmos Jaspers describes another line of development of the sensory-spatial picture of the world, namely, its differentiation in natural-mechanic, natural-historical, and natural-mythical pictures of the world (Jaspers 1922, p. 158). Jaspers recognizes that from a historical point of view the natural-mythical picture of the world is the oldest of the three; however, both the natural-mechanic and the natural-historical world pictures can be viewed as abstractive impoverishments, as it were, of the natural-mythical Weltbild, which can be thus reconstructed starting off with the two abstractions. For the purpose of this paper we will not discuss the natural-mythical world picture in further detail and will now turn to the natural-mechanic and the natural-historical.

Jaspers defines the natural-mechanic picture in the following terms: "Everything qualitative, everything actually intuitive, everything that appears as essential in itself is pushed out of the world. Nature is divested of its qualities, and thereby it is de-animated" (Jaspers 1922, p. 158). The natural-mechanic picture focuses especially on the measurable dimension of things and operates with theoretical models consisting of fundamental elements and forces governing their combination. Jaspers is adamant that "there is nothing in the world that hasn't been reinterpreted mechanistically in this way" (Jaspers 1922, p. 159). By contrast, the natural-historical picture maintains a direct reference to the multifarious world of sensory perception, including the fullness of its qualitatively distinct types and morphologies (ibid.). Unlike the natural-mechanic picture, the natural-historical picture does not only consider laws that hold uniformly in any time-venue. It takes into account the historical development of nature and the emergence of new species on the planet. Finally, the natural-mythical world-picture views nature as an animated whole, whose inner forces and secret dynamics influence our human existence in it (Jaspers 1922, p. 161-162). After this cursory description Jaspers introduces the following comment:

These three types may very well occur together in the same individual and enter into synthetic relations with one another; however, they reach their complete maturation, their clearest development in the one-sided form resulting from a conclusive realization. They have always been absolutized into philosophical world-picture at some point. The natural-mechanical world-picture has been absolutized into the mechanistic world-picture at the hands of materialists from Democritus to those of the 19th century; the natural-historical world-picture has been absolutized into the naturalism that places in the center of its world-picture the organism, the living and rich, qualitative multiplicity (e.g. Haeckel […]), and the natural-mythical world-picture has been absolutized into the romantic philosophy of nature […]. (Jaspers 1922, p. 163).

Thus, we can now locate precisely naturalism on Jaspers' conceptual map. It is a derivative shape of one particular ramification of the sensory-spatial picture of the world. Naturalism is an absolutization of the natural-historical world-picture, which, in turn, takes its bearings from a concentration on the world of living organisms and considers them as continuous with the rest of nature. Jaspers' reference to Haeckel, the most prominent spokesman for Darwinism in late nineteenth century Germany, implicitly recognizes the role of evolutionary theory for the absolutization of the natural-historical world-picture and thus for the emergence of naturalism. As Kelly James Clark recently argued with regard to Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859: "[p]rior to its publication, some areas of inquiry seemed shut off from scientific investigation. […] But Darwin opposed this idea. He suggested ways that science could investigate a whole host of phenomena, [including] previously untouchable items, [such as] morality and religion" (Clark 2016, p. 7).

At this stage of our analysis we may then raise the question: does contemporary naturalism amount to a genuine 'substantial' worldview? And can naturalism as such really offer something like a worldview, i.e., in keeping with our above definition, an immaterial cultural product that aim to provide orientation about the world as a whole and human life in it by way of answering fundamental and perennial questions of meaning?

The insufficiency of naturalism as a worldview

In this final section I want to argue that Jaspers' characterization of naturalism as the derivative shape of a worldview, rather than as a worldview in its own right, or 'substantial' worldview still applies to contemporary mainstream naturalism. I will then turn briefly to Heinrich Rickert (a critical interlocutor of Jaspers on the issue of Weltanschauung) and rehearse his argument that post-Darwinian natural science alone does not have the resources to produce a worldview. I will then suggest that in order for naturalism to live up to its aspiration to be a worldview, it should reactivate its original 'living' sources in the experience of nature prior to and beyond the orientation toward natural science.

In contemporary accounts of naturalism it is customary to distinguish between so-called methodological and so-called ontological or metaphysical naturalism (Papinieau 2009; Clark 2016; Halvorson 2016). Ontological naturalism holds that "everything that exists is included in the natural world" (Clark 2016, p.3), whereas methodological naturalism, although it comes in many variants, roughly holds that the methods of inquiry characterizing the natural sciences are the only valid methods of inquiry. It is also commonly held that one can endorse methodological naturalism, while accepting in one's ontology non-natural entities such as numbers, meaning, conscious qualia, and values. This tendency to distinguish between a methodological and an ontological side of naturalism and consider the two sides detachable, as it were, can be read as an example of formalization as described by Jaspers in the previous section. Form and content no longer stand in a concrete unity and form gains the upper hand, such that the method of natural scientific inquiry is deemed fit to investigate whatever domain or reality is under scrutiny. This conception of the natural scientific method as universally applicable without qualifications disregards the fact that methods of inquiry project onto the objects of investigation a set of a priori requirements, and thus do have an implicit impact on ontology. For instance, the natural scientific method projects onto objects of investigation requirements such as mathematical formulation, conformity to causal-inductive laws, and indifference to normative standards and values. Methodological requirements thus eo ipso amount to ontological commitments. Given the adoption of the natural-scientific method, nothing will show up on the object-side of the inquiry that does not conform to this method's characteristic requirements.

Another symptom of the derivative status of contemporary mainstream naturalism can be seen in its way of characterizing both itself and possible alternative positions. In a canonical entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for instance, David Papineau identifies the two main aspects of naturalism in the assertion that "reality has no place for 'supernatural' or other 'spooky' kinds of entity" and "the claim of some kind of general authority for the scientific method" (Papineau 2009). The problem with these characterizations is that the way they are formulated seems to implicitly disqualify any criticism of naturalism before it is even articulated. To raise questions about the validity of naturalism would by definition lead to the possibility of readmitting 'spooky entities' into reality and a vaguely obscurantist skepticism about the authority of the scientific method. Aside from the fact that standards of spookiness may change with time, culture, and upbringing, it seems unfair to lump together under such a demeaning category all the different kinds of entities that critics of naturalism may want to admit in their ontology. After all, values, numbers, or conscious subjects, while not being strictly 'natural' do not seem to be as spooky as, say, poltergeists or zombies. Moreover, critics of naturalism may very well accept that the scientific method has some kind of general authority, without therefore agreeing that it is the only suitable method for rational inquiry. Going back to Jaspers' analysis, it seems that mainstream self-characterizations of naturalism do fall prey to power cravings and absolutization, such that any discussion of the limits of naturalism seems to be disqualified before it even gets off the ground.

Despite this somewhat critical picture of mainstream naturalism, one could ask whether some other form of naturalism could come forward as a worldview, that is, recover a substantial 'center' and offer one possible comprehensive orientation about our place and meaning in the world? Is a kind of naturalism centered on the natural sciences and, in particular, on the kind of monistic picture of the world made possible by the advent of Darwinian evolution theory fit to provide a worldview in the first place? We can turn briefly to Heinrich Rickert, a critical but appreciative reader of Jaspers (Rickert 1922) for an interesting set of remarks on this matter. In his two articles titled Naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung? (Rickert 1901; Rickert 1902) Rickert asks whether we can lean on the natural sciences and, in particular, Darwinian evolutionary biology to satisfy our need for a worldview. As a test to answer this question he considers some of the tendencies in the practical and political philosophy of his time, namely, individualistic democracy (embodied by Herbert Spencer), socialist democracy (Marxism), individualistic aristocracy (Nietzsche), and socialist aristocracy (reactionary nationalism and Volk ideologies) (Rickert 1901, pp. 816-819). He argues that each of these tendencies has attempted to draw on Darwinism to justify its standpoint. Thus, democratic individualists a là Spencer propagate the view that governments should intervene as little as possible in the organization of society in order to let the law of natural selection do its work. Marxists appeal to Darwinism in order to argue for the necessity to overthrow capitalism and restore a natural order in which all people can develop according to their capabilities, an order that the brutality of capitalism has destroyed. Nietzsche, by contrast, despises democratic ideals because they prevent the strong ones from prevailing and taking the next evolutionary step to the super-human. Finally, reactionary nationalists celebrate the fight for existence of entire populations and reject individualism. The incompatibility of these views is manifest. The fact that they all somehow appeal to Darwinism and natural science to justify their standpoint therefore raises the question: "Does the multifarious picture just offered perhaps find its explanation in the fact that Darwinian principles are ethically speaking so indifferent that one can use them to justify and ground any arbitrary social-political goal?" (Rickert 1901, p. 820) Rickert answers this question positively. Since it is impossible to derive the value-laden principle of progress from the value-neutral principle of natural selection (Rickert 1902, p. 8)—because that would amount to a secret restoration of teleology—it is impossible to appeal to the principle of natural selection to justify political or ethical standpoints. Rickert then concludes: "A natural-scientific worldview that sets out to take a stance also on problems of value is bound to be always a product full of unclarities and contradictions. Rather, the mechanistic standpoint is necessarily connected to an abstraction from values". (Rickert 1902, p. 11)

At the end of his essay Rickert asks if we cannot conceive of a different picture of nature, one in which nature is not fully divorced from values and meaning. He references Goethe as an example. Goethe's conception of nature, however, is precisely not oriented toward the natural sciences: "Goethe always considered nature from the point of view of man […] and placed the whole value and richness of his essence in nature." (Rickert 1902, p. 12) Similarly, in his masterful reconstruction of naturalism, Wilhelm Dilthey (one of Jaspers' key sources for his Psychologie der Weltanschauungen) traces the origin of naturalism back to the living experience of our existence in a natural order that stands in all sorts of value-relations with us (Dilthey 1966, pp. 100-107). This kind of naturalism flourishes as a worldview especially in epochs characterized by a sense of oppression by cultural forces that are hostile to the sensible-physical dimension of man: "Its battle-cry is the emancipation of the flesh" (Dilthey 1960, p. 101). Naturalism thus comes forward as an attempt to reconcile humans with nature and articulate the meaningfulness and greatness of their finite existence in it. The perennial appeal of naturalism (as well as its philosophical 'credibility', as it were) is thus predicated upon our immediate, value-laden, and sensory experience of the natural order surrounding us. This experience is pre-scientific; it cannot be supplanted by the natural sciences and their deliverances. Our sensory-spatial world-picture, to speak with Jaspers, has to be recovered in its fullness (including value-experiences and the subjects having such experiences) in order to articulate a form of naturalism that can legitimately come forward as a worldview.

The implications of this conception and the concrete ways in which philosophy can rehabilitate our human experience of nature cannot be spelled out in the limited space of this paper. Our goal here was to show how Jaspers' analysis of worldviews can be brought to bear on the contemporary issue of naturalism. Combined with insights by Rickert and Dilthey, Jaspers teaches us an important lesson about worldviews in general and naturalism in particular. A kind of naturalism that orients itself exclusively toward the natural sciences is not a worldview in its own right, but rather a derivative shape of a worldview. By contrast, a full-fledged naturalism should take into account our human experience of nature prior to and beyond the natural sciences and thus recuperate the center of the sensuous-spatial picture of the world as described by Jaspers.



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Stoljar, D. 2010: Physicalism, London/New York, Routledge.

von Wiesner, J. 1911: "Naturforschung und Weltanschauung", in M.
Frischeisen-Köhler (ed.), Weltanschuung: Philosophie und Religion in Darstellungen, Berlin, Reichl & Co., pp. 171-188.




Incidentally, this tentative definition is not substantially different from the one once proposed by Freud: "Weltanschauung is, I am afraid, a specifically German concept, the translation of which into other languages might well raise difficulties. If I try to give you a definition of it, it is bound to seem clumsy to you. In my opinion, then, a Weltanschauung is an intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis, which accordingly, leaves no question unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its fixed place. It will easily be understood that the possession of a Weltanschauung of this kind is among the ideal wishes of human beings" (Freud 1989, p. 783).
Although Husserl arguably abandoned the separation model in his post-war writings. A notable predecessor of Husserl's separation model is Alois Riehl, who contrasts scientific and non-scientific philosophy and demotes the latter to a 'mere' worldview (Riehl 1883, p. 12).
For an informative presentation and critique of Haeckel and other forms of biologism in early twentieth century Germany see von Wiesner 1911.
See for instance Jaspers 1922, p. 163, footnote.
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