Heidegger had a lot to say about worldview. He also had a lot to say about world epochs and being in the world. World for heidegger is not a container filled with physical objects It is the total context of our useful involvement with things on the basis of how they matter to our aims and purposes.
“…man, in the essence and ground of his Dasein, is world-forming. World is the manifestness of beings as such as a whole. It is the Being of beings. Projection is world-projection. Projection unveils the being of beings. In the occurrence of projection world is formed. This ‘as a whole’ is not tailored to any particular area nor even any particular species of beings. Rather this ‘as a whole’, the world, admits precisely the manifestness of manifold beings in the various contexts of their being–other human beings, animals, plants, material things, artworks, i.e., everything we are capable of identifying as beings. This manifold, however, is poorly comprehended, or is not comprehended at all, if we take it merely as a colourful multiplicity of things at hand…so-called regions of being are not arrayed alongside one another or above or behind one another, but are what they are only within and out of a prevailing of world. This ‘as a whole’ that constantly surrounds us, and which has nothing to do with any pantheism, must, however, also be what brings with it that un differentiatedness of the manifestness of beings within which we commonly move.
“…in all comportment we become aware of comporting ourselves in each case from out of the ‘as a whole’, however everyday and restricted this comportment may be…However concerned we are to comport ourselves with respect to various issues and to speak in terms of individual things, we nevertheless already move directly and in advance within a tacit appeal to this 'as a whole‘. (Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics)
Be all of that as it may, the topic is whether a baby already has a preconceived world view. In that context, I cannot think of a better Heideggerian position to start from than whether a baby in its average everydayness already has a vague and average understanding of being.
Absent a vague and average understanding of being, there will be no disclosure of world.
The answer is yes, for Heidegger a baby in its average everydayness already has an understanding of being and world. As long as there is awareness, there are beings, and where there are beings there is Being. Like an adult, every perception a baby has produces a sense of meaning that pertains to the ‘how’ of its comportment in relation to its surroundings. What things are to the baby, as to the adult, is a function of what the baby is doing with them, and this relation of relevance forms a totality called world.
Heidegger doesn’t offer a developmental account of understanding. The only distinction he makes is between human Dasein and animals. Only humans have time, history and comport themselves toward beings. This comportment always involves affective (attuned) understanding.
If we interpret understanding as a fundamental existential, we see that this phenomenon is conceived as a fundamental mode of the being of Da-sein. In contrast, “understanding" in the sense of one possible kind of cognition among others, let us say distinguished from “explanation,” must be interpreted along with that as an existential derivative of the primary understanding which constitutes the being of the there in general.
Our previous inquiry already encountered this primordial understanding, but without explicitly taking it up in the theme under consideration.
The statement that Da-sein, existing, is its there means: World is “there”; its Da-sein is being-in. Being-in is “there” as that for the sake of which Da-sein is. Existing being-in-the-world as such is disclosed in the for-the-sake-of-which, and we called this disclosedness understanding. In
understanding the for-the-sake-of-which, the significance grounded therein is also disclosed. The disclosure of understanding, as that of the for-the-sake-of-which and of significance, is equiprimordially concerned with complete being-in-the-world.
Significance is that for which world as such is disclosed. The statement that the for-the-sake-of-which and significance are disclosed in Da-sein means that Da-sein is a being which, as being-in-the-world, is concerned about itself.Speaking ontically, we sometimes use the expression “to understand something” to mean “being able to handle a thing,” “being up to it,” “being able to do something.” In understanding as an existential, the thing we are able to do is not a what, but being as existing.
The mode of being of Da-sein as a potentiality of being lies existentially in understanding. Da-sein is not something objectively present which then has as an addition the ability to do something, but is rather primarily being-possible. Da-sein is always what it can be and how it is its possibility. The essential possibility of Da-sein concerns the ways of taking care of the “world” which we characterized, of concern for others and, always already present in all of this, the potentiality of being itself, for its own sake. (Being and Time)
Sure, but does an infant really have that kind of understanding of itself in the world? I you think that kind of reflection on events would come later, maybe around age 3.
Meurlou-Ponty seem to have thought so. According to his idea, human bodies are wired to the world from the birth. The world is part of human body. Body cannot exist without the world.
And the whole body of human is the perceptual organ of a human.
I would suggest that the only necessary evidence of a baby having an understanding of world is whether a baby has a sense of breakdown regarding a ready-to-hand entity.
My 12 month old grand daughter expressed significant puzzlement and displeasure the first time she found the Pez machine to be empty. It seemed to me that her vague and average understanding of being included an understanding of the Pez machine as the candy for me thingy.
And now that she is 2 1/2 years, she definitely understands the TV as the to watch cartoons thingy and the TV remote as the to make the TV work thingy.
Having a the vague and average understanding of being-in-the-world is not the same as being able “to really understand being”. Though Dasein is preontological, it is not required to theorize about ontology. And many people (including babies) don’t.
Is being wired to the world from birth necessarily the same as having an understanding of the world to which one is wired? And I do not think one could have a worldview without having an understanding of world. What is a worldview other than a disposition from which one views the world? Perhaps having an understanding of world and having a worldview are the same.
I think I do have a worldview. Every morning, I open the curtain, and look out the window into the world. I see the sky, houses, hedges, grass, trees, roads and folks walking in the world through the window. That is my worldview.
If one understands that sky is different from houses which are different from hedges which are different from grass and so on, then one has an understanding (however vague and average it may be) of the world seen through the window as that wherein entities are encountered.
If one also understands that folks use roads to get to houses, then one has a somewhat deeper understanding (however vague and average it may still be) of the world seen through the window as that wherein entities encountered (such as roads and houses) are dealt with and understood as the entities they are.
If one understands the world as that wherein entities are encountered, dealt with, and understood as the entities they are, then one has an understanding of world (however vague and average it may be.).
Dude, not only do you have an understanding (however vague and average it may be) of the world, you are an understanding of the world.
The worldview I have is about 5km in distance from inside of the window where I stand and stare out to the top of the hills, and the sky in the size of the window. The top of hill I see is the end of my world view because behind the hill is not visible. The sky opens up wider covering the distance to the hills, when I go out the room into the garden and look it up.
When I drive to the other city, my usual worldview disappears, and I see busy bustling town centre with many cars and fast walking folks heading to some unknown destinations for their business, in the streets with lots of shops and big buildings.
When I return home, the fleeting world in the city disappears from my sight, and I am back to my usual old worldview, quiet and darkness descended from the night sky.
I have no idea what is happening in the more distant parts of the world I don’t perceive.
I have no idea how old the world is, and when was the very first day the world started, and how all it began.
Be all of that as it may, not only do you have an understanding of the world, you have an understanding of the world as a world that includes far more than you or anyone could see at any given time and from any given perspective. And that in and of itself is an understanding of the world that is far more than a vague and average understanding of the world.
Not only are you an understanding of the world, you are clearly more than a vague and average understanding of the world.
All you need to know about the history of the world is that the world in which you find yourself is always already existing and that resistance is futile.