The Concept of Worldview Marxism (feat. Mathilde Chevallier)

I'm joined by Mathilde Chevallier to discuss the philosophical concept of "weltanschauung" and the importance of the concept in post-Kantian thought and Marxist philosophy. We discuss the origins of the concept in Kant and how it is defined as a "world-intuition" in the sense of contemplation of the world given to the senses. The concept of worldview is connected to Kant's aesthetic forms of judgment and lies at the basis of how we come to understand truth, justice, beauty and meaning.

We introduce how the concept is theorized by figures like Schelling, Hegel and later Neo-Kantian philosophers. We then ask what Marxism thinks of the problem of worldview: Is there a class worldview? What is the difference between worldview and ideology? Against the irrationalism of worldviews and the imperialist drive to forge worldviews according to ethnic and racial communities, Lukács argues for a Hegelian philosophy that can combat the vitalist tendencies that sprouted up during the age of imperialism. Wilhelm Dilthey’s conception of worldview and the development of “worldview philosophy” will lead to a problem of subjectivism and historicism.

We briefly discuss Husserl’s critique of worldview in “Philosophy as Rigorous Science” and how Dilthey is a precursor to structuralism. Finally, we discuss how the Freud and Nietzsche tend to cast profound skepticism on the very notion of worldview.

SHOW NOTES & READINGS

“Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the Three Epochs of the Bourgeois Weltanschauung” by Mikhail Lifshitz

The Destruction of Reason by Georg Lukács

Anti-Duhring by Frederick Engels (read Part I: “Philosophy”)

Marxism and Philosophy by Karl Korsch

The Question of a Weltanschauung by Sigmund Freud (1932)

"The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview" by Martin Heidegger

"Philosophy as Rigorous Science" from Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy by Edmund Husserl

"The Types of Worldview and Their Development in Metaphysical Systems" by Wilhelm Dilthey