The Core-based Worldview model

Abstract: This essay starts at the proposition that there is not yet a satisfying way to differentiate between different worldviews. Although many attempts have been made, they fail in ways that are difficult to pinpoint. The usual way of researching a worldview is to start from a set of questions that are deemed fundamental to our beliefs, a method the author regards as flawed. In this essay it is instead proposed that we should regard actions and behaviour to determine worldview, because they lead us to the essential part of worldview, the core. To get a worldview with this method, we would categorise different tendencies of actions of individuals, instead of trying to ask them questions and categorising the answers. From this, a model of four different worldviews is established based of four different aims that are sought in actions. These for are: the way of virtue; the way of empowerment or worldly security; the way of pleasure; and the way of spiritual liberation or salvation. The aim of this model is to increase our explanatory power in terms of what people believe, why they act as they do, and what decisions they reach.