Pathways of human understanding: An inquiry into western and North American Indian worldview structures

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 61-75

  Schelbert, Leo ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 77449136036     PISSN: 01616463     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17953/aicr.27.1.r5hl63g413018641     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. A pioneering work on worldviews is Wilhelm Dilthey, Weltanschauungslehre: Abhandlungen zur Phihsophie der Philosophie. Gesammelte Schrijten, vol. 8 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1931); pages 75-118 of this work are translated into English in H. P. Rickman, ed. and transl., W. Dilthey: Selected Writings (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 133-154.
2. Studies that address the aspect of Dilthey's wide- ranging ideas include: Michael Ermath, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 323-338;
3. H. P. Rickman, Wilhelm Dilthey: Pioneer of Human Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 47-51;
4. Theodore Plantinga, Historical Understanding in the Thought of Wilhelm Dilthey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 139-143.
5. A concise overview of Dilthey's thought is Rudolf A. Makkreel, "Dilthey, Wilhelm, 1833-1911," Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998), 3: 77-83;
6. Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, eds., Selected Works/Dillhey, 5 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).
7. Rickman aptly summarizes Dilthey's position: "The human metaphysical impulse craves a Weltanschauung (a world-view) which combines a coherent picture of reality with an ideal of life and principles of conduct," 47. Although Dilthey's suggestive Weltanschauungslehre is advanced for its time, the comment of Vine Deloria, Jr., applies: A major task is "to understand man's experiences ⋯ from a world viewpoint, not simply a Western one," God Is Red (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1973), 123. A valuable guide to such a task is Heinz Kimmerle, Interkulturelle Philosphie: Zur Einfiihrung (Hamburg: Verlag Junius, 2002), with an international bibliography, 157-166. Quotations from foreign language sources are given in my translation.
8. In the section "The Structure of Worldview," in Weltanschauungslehre, Dilthey does not sharply distinguish between the content and the structure of a worldview, yet states suggestively: "Each life-condition (Lebensverhāltnis) evolves into a system (Gefüge) in which the same forms of approach are structurally related. And thus also worldviews are ordered structures (regelmässige Gebilde)," 83. He declares, "The ultimate root of a worldview is life," ibid., 78.
9. The interpretative religio-philosophical struggles that the triumph of the Copernican system unleashed in Western Christendom are impressively documented in Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (New York: Walker, 1999).
10. Markwart Herzog states: "In the mainline churches hell does not play a foundational (tragende) role anymore";
11. see Metzler Lexikon Religion (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1999), 64. The influential theologian Karl Rahncr interprets hell as "a definitive state which man himself has achieved on his own behalf" and he dismisses Jesus' "images (fire, worm, darkness, etc.)" as part of "the mental furniture of [his] contemporary apocalyptic" tradition; see Encyclopedia of Theology (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 602-604, quotation 604, 603. Fundamentalist groups, in contrast, insist that hell is a place and an eternal state of torment for the damned; see the numerous doctrinal statements in The Encyclopedia of American Religions: Religious Creeds, eds. J. Gordon Melton and James Sauer, vol. 2 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1994), esp. 251-394.
12. These complex issues are discussed by Gary L. Francione, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996). The study contrasts the "Animal Rights and Animal Welfare" ideologies and concludes, "the animal protection movement will continue to march in one direction-backwards," 230.
13. See also Erica Fudge, Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000). In what Richard Ryder called 'speciesism' in 1971, three claims of Western ideology are at issue: the Jewish and Christian view that humans are created in God's image (a position anathema to Islam); the Aristotelian view that only humans are endowed with rationality; and the Augustinian position that original sin meant the descent of humans to the level of animals, especially as expressed in sexuality.
14. Stanley Walens formulates: "anthropologists ⋯ have been forced to revise their ideas about the course of human intellectual history ⋯ as a gradual progress from fantasy to rationality," that is "from animal worship, through a number of stages, to the worship of an anthropomorphic but invisible deity." He claims that "many of the spurious facts and interpretations of these schemes remain unquestioned"; see "Animals," in The Encyclopedia of Religions, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 1: 291-296; quotation, 292.
15. Joseph Bruchac III observes succincdy, "the Western view of the world ⋯ remains shaped by linear thinking, straight lines, and hierarchies"; see "The Circle of Stories," in Buried Roots and Indestructible Seeds: The Survival of American Indian Life in Story, History, and Spirit (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 14;
16. Vine Deloria.Jr., Singing for a Spirit: A Portrait of the Dakota Sioux (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers, 1999), "They always camped in a circle ⋯ so that they could remember that they were all equals," 155.
17. Western ideas about history as a directional flow are sketched by Karl Löwith, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949);
18. see also the unique study of Michael Murray, Modern Philosophy of History: Its Origin and Destination (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970). The study traces the main positions from Martin Heidegger over Hegel and Joachim of Flora to Augustine and it critically complements Löwith's book.
19. A keen critique is offered by Ali A. Mazrui, " 'Progress': Illegitimate Child of Judeo- Christian Universalism and Western Ethnocentrism-A Third World Critique," in Progress: Fact or Illusion? eds. Leo Marx and Bruce Mazlish (Ann Arbon University of Michigan Press, 1996), 153-174;
20. Mazrui claims, "The jews taught the world about one universal God-and then identified themselves as the chosen people. Similarly the West told the world about the universalism of both science and the gospel of Jesus-and then the white man of the West put himself forward as ⋯ the role model of humanity," 154.
21. See Ugo Bianchi, "Dualism," in Encyclopedia of Religion, 4: 506-512, a summary of his Dualismo Religioso: Saggio Storico e Etnologico, 2nd. rev. ed. (Roma: Edizioni dell' Ateneo, 1952);
22. Bianchi applies the term "to those religions, to those ideological systems whose mythology implies an original and substantial dichotomy in relation to superhuman and pre-human beings who rule the world ⋯ [and] who are viewed as antagonistic and evil on the basis of intrinsic nature," 7.
23. See Melton and Sauer, eds. Religious Creeds, 2:447-451, for neo-pagan and Wiccan statements of faith.
24. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrianism: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 1, views "Zoroastrianism as the oldest of the revealed world religions" and claims that "it probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith ⋯ and some of its leading doctrines were adopted by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."
25. See also her Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigor (Costa Mesa, CA: Biblioteca Persica, 1992), 62-82. Her observation resonates also for the later Middle Eastern traditions: "Zoroaster ⋯ concentrated his thoughts and devotion on Mazda himself, the mightiest of Beings, whose Holy Spirit yet enters into everyone who is worthy to receive it," 71.
26. For the relationship of Islam to Moses see Brannon M. Wheeler, Moses in the Qur'an and Islamic Exegesis (London: Routledge Courzon, 2002);
27. For Islam's view of Jesus, see Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim fesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
28. Although Khalidi observes "certain broad atmospheric continuities between the Qur'an and certain books of the Old and New Testaments, canonical and apocryphal," he finds that "The Quranic Jesus ⋯ has little in common with the Jesus of the Gospel," 16.
29. Roger Arnaldez, "Three Messengers and Three Messages," in Three Messengers for One God, trans. Gerald W. Schlabach with Mary Louise Gude and David B. Burrell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 1-55.
30. Dilthey, Weltanschauungslehre, laments "the familiar, yet vexing fact that world- views vary so widely and conflict so sharply" and seem to be "at war with each other," 47.
31. Quoted by L. S. Cousins, "Buddhism," in A New Handbook of Living Religions, ed. John R. Hinnells (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 379.
32. Several encyclopedic works may be mentioned: Duane Champagne, ed., The Native North American Almanac (Detroit: Gale Research, 1994);
33. Federick R. Hoxie, ed., Encyclopedia of North American Indians (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996);
34. Sharon Malinowski and Anna Sheets, eds., The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, 4 vols. (Detroit: Gale, 1998);
35. Rayna Green, ed., The British Museum Encyclopedia of Native North America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); this volume, designed for the general reader, combines impressively explanatory texts, primary sources, and pictorial materials.
36. Vine Deloria, Jr., however, observes: "Neihardt's Black Elk and When the Tree Flowered, and The Sacred Pipe by Joseph Epes Brown, the basic works of the Black Elk theological tradition, now bid fair to become the canon or at least the central core of a North American theological canon which will someday challenge the Eastern and Western traditions as a way of looking at the world";
37. see the foreword to John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks, Twenty-First Century Edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), xvi.
38. See, however, the incisive critique by Julian Rice, Black Elk's Story: Distinguishing Its Lakota Purpose (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), esp. 15-35;
39. The author stresses the importance of the transcripts, published as The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984).
40. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, recorded and edited by Joseph Epes Brown (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 106-107.
41. See George M. Guilmet and David Lloyd Whited, "American Indian and Non- Indian Philosophies of Technology and Their Differential Impact on the Environment of the Southern Puget Sound," American Indian Culture and Research foumal 26, 1 (2002): 36-41.
42. Black Elk Speaks, 49-50.
43. Kenneth M. Morrison, "Native American Religions: Creating Through Cosmic Give-and-Take," in Native North American Almanac, ed. Champagne, 639;
44. James Wilson, The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America (New York: Grove Press, 1998), 25-26.
45. Rice, Black Elk's Story, 25.
46. Among numerous other valuable tides see Deloria, God Is Red; Jamake Highwater, The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in American Indian America (New York: Harper and Row, 1981);
47. Joseph Epes Brown, The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian (New York: Crossroads, 1982);
48. Arthur Versluis, The Elements of Native American Traditions (Rockport, MA: Element, 1993);
49. J. Donald Hughes, American Indian Ecology (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1983; 1996).
50. Rice, Black Elk's Story, seems to suggest that "spirit" should be understood as a metaphor pointing to the process of activating power; he observes, "Embodiment is the culmination of the spiritual process," 28.
51. Rice, Black Elk's Story, 68-69, 71,93-94.
52. The term "spirit," especially as used in the term "Great Spirit," is misleading, not the least on a linguistic basis since the English language seems to lack a proper word for the reality toward which indigenous terms point. Concerning the thought- shaping force of language see Benjamin Lee Whorf, "An American Indian Model of the Universe," in Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings, ed. John B. Carroll (New York: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley and Sons, 1956), 57-86.
53. Rice, Black Elk's Story, formulates it concisely: "Lakota religion enhances life on earth through ritual disciplines," 65, and "The ritualizing of physical necessity helps to create an existence of joy and meaning," 67, a principle that seems to apply also to other indigenous religio-philosophical traditions. Consequently, "neglecting or improperly performing rituals" was a major trespass, 65.
54. Morrison, "Native American Religions," 633.
55. Rice, Black Elk's Story, 28.
56. See Kimberly Blaeser, "Trickster: A Compendium," in Buried Roots, 47-66, with per tinent bibliographical titles.
57. Rice, Black Elk's Story, 39.
58. Quoted by Peter Matthiessen in The Snow Leopard (New York: Penguin, 1987), 64; an attempt to locate the passage in Heisenberg's publications remained unsuccessful.
59. Rice, Black Elk's Story, 148, title of "Conclusion."
60. Quoted in Deloria, God Is Red, 115; see the whole chapter "The Concept of. History," 111-117. Deloria suggests a view that parallels the traditions of India.
61. Deloria, God Is Red, 75; and Arthur Versluis, Earth: The Spiritual Landscape of Native America (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1992), 102-112.
62. John Loftin, "Traditional Practices Among Contemporary Indians," in The Native North American Almanac, ed. Duane Champagne (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1994), 649, states succinctly: ".. . space always has a sacred center."
63. William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), describes in detail the incompatibility of the economic ideals and resulting economic systems of the indigenous peoples with those of the invader peoples, yet without probing the underlying divergent religio-philo- sophical positions. He shows that both peoples were shapers of their environments, but in radically different ways. Whereas the indigenous world approached their surroundings from the perspective of symbiosis, the Euro-Americans understood their task in the light of the biblical command to make the earth subject to them, if in proper stewardship. The article by Guilmet and Whited, "American Indian and Non-Indian Philosophies of Technology" relating to the Puget Sound is a superb case study of the issues involved (American Indian Culture and Research foumal 26 [2002], 36-41).
64. See, for instance, Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, ed. Joseph Campbell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969);
65. On the Yoruba, see E. Thomas Lawson, Religions of Africa (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985), 50-76;
66. Michael Kioni Dudley, Man, God, and Nature (Honolulu: NaKane oka Malo Press, 1990), 9-29.
67. "Handschriftliche Zusatze ⋯ Zur Weltanschaungslehre," vol. 8, 218-224. Dilthey wrote the passage for an address titled "Traum" [Dream] which he gave on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, but did not use this passage.