%0 Journal Article
%T Worldviews: A blessing or a curse?
%A Bert Olivier
%J Koers : Bulletin for Christian Scholarship
%D 2012
%I AOSIS OpenJournals
%R 10.4102/koers.v77i1.24
%X The concept of a worldview resonates with other concepts, such as those of ¡®culture¡¯, ¡®civilisation¡¯, and ¡®way of life¡¯. Arguably, it is a modern phenomenon, the possibility of which was actualised at the dawn of the modern epoch. Nevertheless, in principle, its ¡®possibility¡¯ goes back as far as Plato¡¯s Republic. It is Heidegger, however, who is most informative for understanding what a worldview is, as well as why the modern epoch is its time of provenance. Consequently, an analysis of Heidegger¡¯s essay, ¡®The time of the world picture¡¯ (or worldview) provided the framework within which it was argued that worldviews are both blessings and curses in the current era: blessings, because, as Harries has argued, we have been disabused of the modern idea of one encompassing worldview or ideology, so that one can no longer believe in only a single ¡¯correct¡¯ view of the world; curses, because they bedevil any wellintended attempts at communicating with understanding on issues of common concern. It was the burden of this article to provide a way of addressing this state of affairs with some hope of transcending the causes of alienation and it is again Heidegger who is the source of such a way, through his notion of the ¡®fourfold¡¯.
%K Fourfold
%K Heidegger
%K World Picture
%K Worldview
%U http://www.koersjournal.org.za/index.php/koers/article/view/24