Unsolicited Writings

When humans come across other cultures, these local models turn out to be
insufficient. In our actual historical situation this is what happens, and there are
several reasons. The part of reality that we reach increases constantly and the
depth of the involvement in our environment grows, and our action radius increases
constantly. Of course, individuals and collections of individuals are the ones who
act, but because of the intrinsic and fundamental nature of our actions, we engage
automatically all of humanity and future generations. In this way, the acting
subject becomes more and more the whole of humanity. In our actions we influence the
whole world, the whole of humanity and even the universe. By means of our knowledge
we relate with the whole observable universe and witness the increase of mans impact
on this whole. We are confronted with a multitude of interacting value systems.!
The tasks that have to be undertaken to be able to orient ourselves in a
meaningful way in our world, that slowly is becoming the whole universe, are more
urgent than ever. As we understand that our world is not our land or Europe or the
USA or another continent, but that we have to learn to live and think on a
planetary scale, the urgency of a global world view will become even more obvious.
A world view, however, cannot be determined by its relation to the sciences alone.
Our experience also contains our different systems of meaning. In our world view,
we also want to be faithful to these other aspects of our experience as we attempt
possible explanations of our world. A world view must allow us to understand as
many aspects of the world as possible. We have accentuated the way in which
different aspects of the world-view problem are connected. We still need to
mention that each of the sub-tasks assumes and promotes the others. The fact that
there can be knowledge only f!
or a knowing subject does not imply that reality is a purely subjectiv
e construction. Of course, every experience of value is intrinsically subjective,
since there can only be value for a value-experiencing subject. But this does not
imply that reality has no objective carriers that provide the material for this
process of evaluation. The search for objective carriers will be of profound
importance in the construction of a world view. Indeed, whether one gives preference
to certain values or not, whether one interprets values as purely subjective or not,
the question remains as to whether it is possible to say something about the world
in which we exist or about the world as a totality from the perspective of the
values that we hold. Ultimately this is also connected to the question of meaning:
what is it that gives value to our existence in this world? What is it that makes
life worth living? D. Our values are also expressed in our religious and ideological
systems. The world in which we are cognitively and emotionally involved is also our
field of action. To act in a meaningful way and to transform the world in function of
our purposes are characteristics typical of the human species. Therefore, a world
view must not only contain a model of description, an explanation and an
evaluation, but also an organised view of the factual and possible influences that
humans can have on the world. To define such an integral pattern of action, it is
necessary to bring together deeply divided disciplines, and perhaps even to use
them for purposes for which they were not originally developed. There is a general
tendency to neglect the applied sciences when one is looking for an insight into
reality. That they are called applied sciences suggests that they are expected to
merely apply the knowledge that has been acquired in a theoretical context. This is
only partly true. The applied sciences have a very rich potential for the
construction of a global world view, precisely because they are synthetic and
inter-disciplinary. For example, the engineer has to organise a production process as a totality that relates purely physical processes with economic, social, psychological and
ecological problems. The politician, the lawyer and the manager have to use
psychological, economic and social means to organise a society, striving towards
very general purposes. The physician can only achieve his or her goal if he or she,
besides healing, also tries to prevent illness, paying attention to each patient as
a physical, psychological and social being. This presupposes a holistic medicine.