The study and understanding of
peoples whose worldviews include metaphysical phenomena and explanations are
undermined by the strict adherence of many social scientists to the Western
scientific worldview which acknowledges only physical phenomena and
explanations. The effect of employing Western science in studying the material
and practiced cultures of these peoples is to reduce them to constituent ontological
components, strip away and discard their metaphysical aspects, and then take
what can be readily extracted while leaving what is not understood and
therefore not valued. This disrespects the knowledge and alternative worldviews
of the very peoples that social scientists seek to more fully understand. One
solution is not only to acknowledge the existence of and study alternative
worldviews, but also to include and even operationally adopt them when
appropriate or necessary to more fully appreciate the metaphysical perspectives
of other cultures. In anthropology, for example, this approach could be
accomplished by extending the rationale for and methodology of participant
observation to include worldview pluralism, and employing the most appropriate
worldview for a subject or aspect of a subject under study. In archaeology,
this approach is consistent with the goals of the growing Indigenous
archaeology movement. Specifically, if the subject has a metaphysical aspect,
then a non-Western scientific worldview should be employed in studying that
aspect rather than simply dismissing it as unimportant or even non-existent.
This paper summarizes the philosophical framework underlying Western science
and the evolution and current state of the Western scientific worldview in the
social sciences, compares and contrasts Western science with Indigenous peoples’
way of knowing, and presents an example of how the limits of the Western
scientific worldview can negatively impact the study of metaphysically inclusive
peoples.
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