Does a baby already have a preconceptual worldview?

[Joshs]

@Arne

I agree “appear” may not be the ideal choice of word but it is adequate to the degree that it is considered somewhat synonymous with emerge, materialize, show-up, and arise.

As Heidegger might say, symptoms of an illness could “appear” without the appearance being visible.

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)

[Arne]

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.

But thanks, I guess.

[Joshs]

@Arne

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.

[Arne]

Very good. I find your answer persuasive.

Sorry about the tardy response.

[Frank]

@Joshs

The answer is yes, for Heidegger a baby in its average everydayness already has an understanding of being and world

Are you sure? I would have thought he would require that one be able to contemplate their own death to really understand Being.

What in his writing would make you say otherwise?

[Joshs]

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)

[Frank]

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.

[Corvus]

@anon51686982

My claim is that a baby already has a worldview.

But it is not conceptual.

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.

[Arne]

@Frank

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.

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.

[Arne]

@Frank

@Joshs

The answer is yes, for Heidegger a baby in its average everydayness already has an understanding of being and world

Are you sure? I would have thought he would require that one be able to contemplate their own death to really understand Being.

What in his writing would make you say that?

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.

[Arne]

@Corvus

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.

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.

This is an interesting discussion.

[Corvus]

@Arne

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.

But I don’t understand the world.

[Arne]

@Corvus

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.

But I don’t understand the world.

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.

[Corvus]

@Arne

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.

[Arne]

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.

Being-in-the-world is all inclusive.

Enjoy the ride.

[Citizenschallenge]

@AmadeusD

I don’t think the baby is aware of the world. It’s aware of its needs and whether they are met. I don’t think we have any good empirical reason to think otherwise. There is currently no evidence that newborns can distinguish, tout court but more importantly, between themselves and the world around them.

A newborn is only newborn until it finishes with its "birth sleep.

After that its worldview is interpreting the flood of sensations, plus the discovery of its own body, and every wakeful period is full of experiences and nutrition, while the sleep periods are clean up and growth. The attentive can see the progress from first recognition of fingers, to tasting that first toe, from flaying arms to focused control. It’s the busies period of a persons life and we forget it all. Or more accurately it recedes to the inside, and our person is built up that template created during the first year.

@AmadeusD

This would then preclude a “worldview” in concept (I am not talking about your claim to ‘pre-conceptual’ here, but that the claim of a “worldview” in a newborn is inherently precluded if this fact obtains).

As for a baby having a worldview, think about it through an evolutionary bottom up perspective. That baby consists of a biological body with very literally a half a billion years worth of generational learning and experiencing. 100.00…% successful generational beings.

Without coming to terms with that reality and getting to appreciate it - the baby will look like a blank slate because said observer is the blank slate.

Over my decades I’ve been blessed with caretaking a couple newborn infants, a few babies within those first “sacred hundred days” (that it takes for the body’s biological autopilot to start getting squeezed in by the developing human ego, that is self-awareness.) Not to mention a handful of toddlers and beyond. Meaning my opinion is grown out of lived experience, so please excuse me if a sense of certitude creeps into my tone.

The thing about understanding what a baby is thinking about its world, is that one needs to be able to look into those eyes and see the person ‘striving’ to get out. An awareness, a nice smile, a gentle tone, restraint, allowing the baby to chose to come to you (be it gestures or actual interaction), rather than forcing one self upon her/him. Then acknowledging communication, and so on, it’s all about a healthy interaction, interaction is the key term.

A baby’s intelligence and awareness and willing to interact within physical limitations is there to tap - for those who know how the dance the dance. Plus that child is constantly growing, says the glowing Napa back from a short visit with his just about 2 year old, child of my child, and already one I can dialogue with, though the words are just beginning.

[Reflectivenomad]

I think the answer here depends almost completely on how the word “worldview” is being defined. If by “worldview” you mean a conceptual network of beliefs and interpretations, then I don’t think a newborn has one. But if you mean the structured way in which the world is experienced, then the claim becomes much more plausible. The world isn’t experienced as an undifferentiated stream of sensations; it already has patterns such as familiarity, responsiveness, continuity, and disruption. The real question, though, is whether we should call that a worldview or reserve the term for something conceptual.

[Citizenschallenge]

@Reflectivenomad

If by “worldview” you mean a conceptual network of beliefs and interpretations, then I don’t think a newborn has one.

Agreed

@Reflectivenomad

But if you mean the structured way in which the world is experienced, then the claim becomes much more plausible.

Okay

@Reflectivenomad

The world isn’t experienced as an undifferentiated stream of sensations; it already has patterns such as familiarity, responsiveness, continuity, and disruption.

Okay as far as it goes, though it is incomplete.

@Reflectivenomad

The real question, though, is whether we should call that a worldview or reserve the term for something conceptual.

Here we touch on an interesting conception about philosophy vs. science outlook that’s been developing within me. I hope you don’t mind me running it by you.

In philosophy I see the tendency of great minds to imagine concepts, find the words to enunciate those concepts, and then look natural evidence to support one’s conception.

Whereas I identify with the scientific spirit in that I’m all into the observing, experiencing, musing, writing, striving towards clearer understanding - allowing the evidence to create the story - rather than finding fact to fit one’s story.

Reflectivenomad thanks for the discussion.

[Reflectivenomad]

Whereas I identify with the scientific spirit in that I’m all into the observing, experiencing, musing, writing, striving towards clearer understanding - allowing the evidence to create the story - rather than finding fact to fit one’s story.

Well, this might be deviating a bit from the OP, and my apologies for that, but your point raises an interesting methodological question. I don’t think a philosopher of science would say that evidence simply “creates the story” by itself. Hanson and later even Kuhn both argued in different ways that observation is at least partly theory-laden. We don’t encounter facts entirely independent of the concepts we use to identify, classify, and interpret them.

That doesn’t mean evidence becomes secondary or that concepts can simply be invented at will; rather, concept and evidence seem to develop together. Good concepts are refined by observations, while observation itself is guided by conceptual distinction. So I suppose I see science and philosophy as less opposed than complementary.

[Corvus]

@anon51686982

The difficulty in recognizing that a baby has a worldview lies in a misdefinition of the term “worldview”.

Does the claim fail, and if so, where exactly does it fail?

If “worldview” is a concept rather than sense perception of the world, then “a preconceptual worldview” sounds premature or nonexistence entity for a baby.