a point of reference

Everybody has a viewpoint. Everybody has a reference from which they look at the world. This “worldview” is absolutely necessary to live in society. If you arbitrarily used different filters for your thinking each time you were trying to make a decision it would be mental chaos. Seeking the truth, it is never a matter of values neutral thinking. It is always a matter of whose thinking best reflects reality.

Attempts to say there is no reality or there is no truth are only statements coming from a specific viewpoint. Perhaps nihilism (nothing really matters), perhaps relativism (reality is what you make it). Neither, however, neutral worldviews.

I am not as interested in what people say their worldview is as much as I am to see how they act. It is a valuable lesson to see what kind of behavior results from adherence to a viewpoint. This isn’t always an indication of the strengths and weaknesses of the worldview compared to reality, however it is an interesting point of reference.