From: "compciv" To: "H-NET List for World History" Subject: Worldviews and world systems Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 21:14:24 -0400 >From David Richardson My fellow social scientists, discussing the question of Eurocentrism (the West as premier hegemon), presuppose the civilization or world system. David Wilkinson's model puts Eurocentrism in the context of Central Civilization, now Global. Hence, Magian Culture appears in a new light, as I explain below. On the Role of Worldviews in World Systems Spengler's Magian Civilization (Near Eastern ecumene) appeared in 1 AD et seq. Toynbee never recognized the Magian Civilization, though his scheme of civilizations fairly well fits. I first called the post-1 AD Magian society "Magian II," in order to account for its long life prior to 1 AD. But I now believe civilizations often decline without perishing. David Wilkinson (bibl. below) also asserts the surviving quality of long-lived civilizations. Wilkinson's Central Civilization is, at least, coterminous with my idea of Magian Civilization during the first fifteen hundred years (1500 BC-1 AD). Wilkinson is one of the few who see a single Near Eastern civilization in that time period. He justifies his theory by a stuy of transactional networks. War itself signifies and causes an intersocietal system. His key idea of Central Civilization is compatible with my theory of the Magian Civilization. David views Central Civilization forming from Egypt and Mesopotamia around 1500 BC. And his Central Civilization resembles my worldview model. Two approaches bode well for the ancient Levant being an ecumene. Like sociologist Chase-Dunn, historian McNeill, and scientific philosopher Thos. Kuhn, David adheres to the conscious acts of history. Kuhn, Chase-Dunn, McNeill, and David avoid the worldview approach to history. Kuhn implicitly assumed that paradigms presuppose an intuitive origin. But, under intense pressure from fellow historians of science, he gave up his paradigm theory of scientific revolutions. Like Wilkinson and McNeill, Kuhn finally saw worldviews (paradigms) as intuitive. Yet, unfortunately, he decided to regard history not from a paradigm (worldview) model. His readers often prefer Kuhn's earlier paradigm theory. C.G. Jung's Psychological Types gave me a scientific approach to worldviews. My view agrees with Wilkinson, McNeill,and Kuhn's idea that worldviews are intuitive. C.G. Jung came close to my position. He was perhaps influenced by Wilhelm Dilthey's theory of worldviews. All types of worldviews are non-intuitive. Jung's "Weltanschauung" (in a long essay, so titled) means "worldview- consciousness." In the same essay, however, Jung held that "attitude" is all-important. "Attitude" is close to my (and Jung's) idea of unconscious intuition. Intuitions, for Jung, are naturally unconscious. Sometimes, less naturally, intuitions are conscious. They include feelings, values, reasons, sensations, and intuitions. Neither Jung or his followers have applied (psychiatric) analysis to civilizational worldviews. But Jung was a scientist. He determined the unconscious intuitions of his patients scientifically. He studied their unconscious feelings, reasonings, and sensibilities. I determine some unconscious intuitions composing a worldview scientifically. Thus, I study some unconscious feelings, reasonings, and sensibilities of the Magian worldview. From Max Jammer I learn, Magian space is the place of God; from study of law, Magian law is the absolute law of God; from John Hord and others, covenants were all-important for ancient Levantines; from study of Near Eastern religions, Magians give high value to emoton. That Magians felt at home with the Roman arch, while Indians, Chinese, and Japanese avoided the Roman arch, can be interpreted. That an Indian fifth century Jain monk discoursed on a dozen different infinities, and that Georg Cantor and Dietrich Dedekind used transfinite (infinite) numbers to create set theory, can be interpreted rationally. Both instances throw light on the Indian worldview and the post-Faustian worldview. I have examined methodically and with empirical historical study, the putative thesis: "Indian Buddhist point-instant theory affected the world's greatest mathematical discovery, the calculus." To do this last, I studied the Baghdad school's eighth century Mutazilite theologians and the tremendous effect, via Maimonides' report, on Renaissance natural philosophers and mathematicians. This was not, by far, the first Indian influence on the West. Wilkinson's, Frank's, Chase-Dunn's, Wallerstein's, and Sanderson's claims for binding contacts between civilizations reinforce my theory that the West was Sinified from 1600 onward and Indianized after 1790. Georg Cantor read Indian literature, but Indianization began in Alexander's time. China's cultural reputation in Europe reached a never to be exceeded peak in the eighteenth century. William McNeill's claim that China was paramount in the world from 1000 to 1500 supports my view of Europe's Sinification. Worldviews lack hegemons' brute strenght. As McNeill says, few citizens participate aesthetically in a society's history. "I fall back on 'style of life,'" writes McNeill, "a metaphor borrowed from art history." He thus recognizes worldviews' (secondary) importance. Yet, Western mechanics (hence, mechanical technology) came from the Faustian worldview. My idea of worldview-intuitions (archetypal exemplars, a Kuhnian term) in civilizations mostly agrees with with Wilkinson's different idea of Central Civilization. ## K. Sanderson, editor _Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Chane_ (Alta-Mira Press: Sage Publications, 1630 N. Main St., Walnut Creek, CA 94596, 1995), pp. 46-74. William H. McNeill, op cit, "The Rise of the West _after_ twenty five years," pp. 308-9. Sincerely, David Richardson compciv@msn.com