Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

Worldviews

A Comprehensive Approach to Knowing Self and Others

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. John Valk

    1. University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Presents a grand account of worldviews across different cultures and religions

  • Investigates the variant responses of worldviews to existential questions

  • Explores how various worldviews understand universal beliefs

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • John Valk
    Pages 1-29

  3. Personal and Group Identity

    • John Valk
    Pages 31-69

  4. Cultural Dimensions

    • John Valk
    Pages 71-119

  5. Ultimate/Existential Questions

    • John Valk
    Pages 121-173

  6. Ontological/Epistemological Questions

    • John Valk
    Pages 175-208

  7. Universal/Particular Beliefs, Values, and Principles

    • John Valk
    Pages 209-243

  8. Concluding Reflections

    • John Valk
    Pages 245-250

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 251-307
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book investigates the concept of worldview, in its numerous aspects, and how worldviews impact, shape, and influence individuals, communities, societies, and cultures. It explores various worldviews—religious, spiritual, and secular—using a comprehensive approach to highlight their breadth, depth, and scope. John Valk argues that everyone has a worldview, and that worldview is often shaped and influenced by individual circumstances and situations. While worldviews have similar structures to one another, they vary in content, including differences in metanarratives, teachings, ethics, and more. In the course of explaining how worldviews respond to life’s ultimate and existential challenges, the book poses ontological questions to highlight various (world)views on the nature of being and the human, and epistemological questions pertaining to sources of knowledge and certainty. Inviting readers to reflect on their own worldviews as they explore the worldviews of others, Valk also reveals how certain universal worldview beliefs are interpreted in particular contexts.

Reviews

“The book left me with a greater appreciation for worldview analysis as a diagnostic tool to better understand why I think and act as I do and why others come to different conclusions. … I will also be more careful in how I use the word publicly – or go back to Valk’s book as a reference.” (John Valk, christiancourier.ca, November 17, 2023)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada

    John Valk

About the author

John Valk is Professor of Worldview Studies at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He is coauthor (with Halis Albayrak & Mualla Selçuk) of An Islamic Worldview from Turkey: Religion in a Modern, Secular and Democratic State (2017).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Worldviews

  • Book Subtitle: A Comprehensive Approach to Knowing Self and Others

  • Authors: John Valk

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82491-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-82490-7Published: 02 October 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-82493-8Published: 03 October 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-82491-4Published: 01 October 2021

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 307

  • Topics: Comparative Religion, Philosophy, general, Cultural Studies

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation