Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of worldview and its place in culture. Since worldview is a phenomenon of consciousness, an analysis of consciousness is given. If in the West the subject of research is individual consciousness, then in the former Soviet philosophy (more specifically, in historical materialism) social consciousness was also studied, which is not a simple sum of individual consciousnesses. Worldview is precisely the form and level of social consciousness. This was the virtue of historical materialism. The article critically analyzes the interpretation of the essence and structure of social consciousness in historical materialism. It is shown that this structure is depicted inadequately, and in addition, it contains a number of absurdities. For example, the structure of social consciousness includes art, religion and science. This is despite the fact that the same science, especially natural science, is impossible without special equipment, instruments, etc. The same is true for art and religion. Art, for example, without works of art (and the latter without the means of creating them), art only as the content and form of consciousness is something that cannot be fixed. The article shows that worldview is the highest level of social and individual consciousness and does not reduce to knowledge, as it is sometimes interpreted, but synthesizes the content of all forms of social consciousness at the level of universality. The relationship between the worldview and the picture of the world (in other words, the model of the world) is analyzed. It is noted that the picture of the world is a visual duplicate of the worldview and serves as a reliable guide for most people. Attention is also paid to the cultural and historical nature of the worldview. The question is also raised about the relationship between worldview and philosophy. The latter is defined as a product of reflection on the worldview.