*Article* **A Systematic Framework for Exploring Worldviews and Its Generalization as a Multi-Purpose Inquiry Framework**

#### **David Rousseau 1,2,3,4,\* and Julie Billingham 5,6**


Received: 31 March 2018; Accepted: 5 July 2018; Published: 10 July 2018

**Abstract:** Systems science methodologies do not have a consistent way of working with worldviews, even though determining stakeholder perspectives is central to systems thinking. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive "Worldview Inquiry Framework" that can be used across methodologies to govern the process of eliciting, documenting, and comparing the worldviews of stakeholders. We discuss the systemicity of worldviews and explain how this can help practitioners to find the roots of stakeholders' disagreements about value judgements. We then generalize the structure of the Worldview Inquiry Framework to produce a "General Inquiry Framework" that can be used to govern an inquiry process in other contexts. We show that the presented Worldview Inquiry Framework is a special case of this General Inquiry Framework and show how the General Inquiry Framework can be tailored for other contexts such as problem solving, product design, and fundamental research.

**Keywords:** worldview; systems philosophy; Worldview Inquiry Framework; General Inquiry Framework

#### **1. Introduction: Worldviews in the Context of Systemology**

Determining and analyzing stakeholder worldviews (also called *weltanschauungen*) is a key step in the methodologies of systems science. Well-known instances are as the "W" in the "CATWOE" analysis technique in Peter Checkland's "Soft Systems Methodology" (SSM), [1] and also as one of the two dimensions of Michael Jackson's "System of Systems Methodologies" (SOSM) [2]. As Martin Hall explained, the power of systems methodologies derive from their taking account of worldviews, because worldviews create the context both for adequate modelling of problems and for appropriate selection of solutions [3].

In the light of the importance of worldviews to systems science and its applications, it is surprising that systems science does not have a canonical<sup>1</sup> model of the structure and dynamics of worldviews, and hence does not provide for a consistent way of working with worldviews across systems theories and methodologies. This shortcoming manifests in at least four ways.

First, different methodologies are not consistent or equally comprehensive about the aspects of worldviews they consider. For example, in SSM the "worldview question" is about what the

<sup>1</sup> If something has canonical status, it is accepted as having all the qualities that a thing of its kind should have (Collins English Dictionary, see https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/canonical).

participants perceive as the value of the project, while in SOSM, it is about the level of alignment between the attitudes of the participants to each other as well as to the project. It is peculiar that the term "worldview" should have both wide and narrow meanings within the discipline of systems science, and it begs the question of whether the methods that employ narrow applications of the term would be improved by taking a broader scope of worldview commitments into account.

Second, specific methodologies can be inconsistent in how they address the same worldview question, drawing out different worldview aspects in different instances. In fact, this even happens across projects in which the same team is employing the same methodology to address the same kind of problem within the same industry sector. An example of this covering five SSM case studies is given in [4]. Also, there are confusions amongs<sup>t</sup> practitioners about what is meant by the "worldview questions" within a methodology, leading to inconsistent or trivial outcomes. This is e.g., discussed in the context of SSM in [5].

Third, "worldview considerations" are often only applied to the participants or stakeholders in the project, while little or no attention is given to the impact on the project of the worldview of the person who is leading the application of the systems methodology. Different systemologists can, depending on their worldviews, associate very different meanings to the same terms, leading to fundamentally different ways of going about selecting and applying a systems methodology. For example, a recent study found that different systems engineers attach different meanings to the term "system," and the differences reflect seven different worldviews [6,7].

Fourth, without a consistent approach to working with worldviews, researchers are free to frame their findings about stakeholder worldviews as they see fit. However, this is problematic because the way in which information is framed can profoundly influence how that information is used. This was already shown in the 1970s, when cognitive psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky applied framing in experimental designs to understand risk judgments and consumer choices, producing Nobel Prize–winning research that concluded that "perception is reference dependent." This research showed that if individuals are reflecting on an ambiguous or uncertain situation then different ways in which a message is presented or framed (e.g., using different terminologies or different visual presentations) can—apart from the content itself—result in very different responses [8].

It has to be acknowledged that this situation is not unique to systems science, and the worldview concept is often applied very narrowly or inconsistently in other disciplines too (e.g., anthropology, sociology and religious studies). For example, "worldview" can be used to refer only to people's religious beliefs, or their moral commitments, or their stances on human rights.

This situation is somewhat understandable. Academic interest in "worldview" as a subject originated in late 18th century philosophy, but remained a minority interest outside of philosophy and theology until the 20th century, when it became important first in psychology (early 20th century) and then from the mid-20th century more widely in areas such as cultural anthropology, religious studies, the social sciences, and epistemology [9]. This wider interest in worldviews therefore only arose in academia around the time of the establishment of systems science as an academic endeavor (ca. 1950), and arguably only become significant in academic discourse in the last decades of the 20th century, notably due the work of Thomas Kuhn on the nature of paradigm change in science (1960s onward) [10,11], and the "science wars" of the 1990s, when differences between scientific realists and postmodernist critics about the nature of scientific theory and intellectual inquiry became prominent in the academic and mainstream press [12].

It can therefore be considered that it is only in the last twenty years or so that academic studies on worldviews have become sufficiently deep, rich, and balanced to form a practical basis for developing a principled worldview model that can be operationalized across the methodologies of systems science.

In our view, a more comprehensive worldview documentation method could help to make systems methodologies more effective and more reliable [13,14].<sup>2</sup> It could also help to expand the use of systems research methodologies into areas currently lacking in systems methodologies, such as frontier science (where the implications of new theories may be challenging to contemporary worldviews) [15–18] 3 or social transformation (for example, where technologically driven change is disrupting the worldviews on which contemporary social and political structures and processes depend) [19].<sup>4</sup>

In this paper, we will present a proposal for a thorough worldview framework, based on analyzing and integrating inputs from a range of academic fields. We will argue that our framework represents worldviews comprehensively because it captures the main kinds of knowledge at stake in any scenario. This insight allows us to generalize it into a framework for gathering information in any context where there is uncertainty, risk or ambiguity. The present paper has two main objectives. The first is to present and explain these frameworks as a contribution toward establishing a comprehensive worldview inquiry framework for use in the systems field. The second is to show how this opens the way for establishing a general inquiry framework for use in multiple contexts.

We believe that using frameworks such as these could make systems methodologies more effective, more reliable, and more consistent, and that this will increase the perceived value of systems science in research, design, and intervention.

#### **2. General Background on Worldviews**

#### *2.1. The Meaning and Importance of Worldviews*

The term "worldview" is the English rendering of the term *Weltanschauung*. The term *Weltanschauung* was coined by Immanuel Kant in 1790 [20] (pp. 111–112), and it rapidly developed as "a term for an intellectual conception of the universe from the perspective of a human knower" [9] (p. 59). The term worldview has a rich academic history, and a dappled application of terminology, which we will not review here. For comprehensive surveys, see [9,21,22].

The term worldview is used differently in different disciplines, typically in each case in order to emphasize a particularly relevant aspect, so that, for example, in managemen<sup>t</sup> science, "worldview" is typically taken to be about an individual or group's value system, while in theology, "worldview" is often taken to be an individual's view about the existence and nature of God. However, worldviews are richer constructs that these uses suggest. Personal worldviews evolve as people try to integrate their knowledge, experience, and intuitions into a coherent framework they can use to make sense of their lives and make decisions about how to live and what to do [21,23,24]. A worldview, then, is the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world in all its diversity and complexity. It functions as a "map of reality" that people use to order their lives [9,21,22,25,26].

In this sense, the scope of worldviews covers all the domains of experience, decision-making, and action and covers all the kinds of information we might have about the nature of the world and our place in the scheme of things.

The general significance of worldviews lies in this: everyone has one, and it constitutes a set of beliefs that guides their judgment making and action taking in all spheres of activity. Different people have different worldviews, and individual worldviews change and develop on an ongoing basis. It is common to find worldview referred to as "a philosophy," meaning a *personal* philosophy. As G.K Chesterton expressed it,

<sup>2</sup> For a discussion of concerns about the success rate and reliability of systems methodologies, see e.g., [13,14].

<sup>3</sup> Unexplained phenomena such as consciousness, creativity, intuition, and savant syndrome present clear examples.See e.g., [15–17]. For discussion about the lack of suitable methods for effective frontier research, see e.g., [18].

<sup>4</sup> The rising tide if the so-called 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' is clear evidence of the need for methodologies to anticipate and manage social change in the face of technological advances. See, e.g., [19].

There are some people—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run anything else affects them [27] (pp. 15–16).

Worldviews, or significant portions of a worldview, could be held in common between members of a community, and in this case it is usually referred to as a "paradigm." A familiar example is "the scientific paradigm" as discussed by Thomas Kuhn [10].

#### *2.2. The Complexity and Dynamics of Worldviews*

The formation and ongoing adaptation of worldviews is a complex process, in which people integrate knowledge, experiences, and intuitions into a more-or-less coherent whole. The apparent implications of knowledge, personal experiences and intuitions are not always in complete agreement, so this balancing reconciliation is not a simple process, and tends to be under constant revision as more knowledge and experiences are gained. This is an autonomic and largely subconscious process, and for most people, the results are held subconsciously too, so people are typically not explicitly aware of everything in their worldview [25]. This makes it a difficult task in practice to characterize someone's worldview.

Moreover, individual worldviews cannot be classified in a simple way because someone's commitments in one area do not determine (although they do condition) what their commitments might be in another area [28]. For example, someone may be a scientific realist about the material world (i.e., believe that the physical world has an objective existence and we can gain universally valid knowledge about it through science) while being a social constructivist about the nature of values (i.e., hold that values reflect only subjective agreements made within social groups). We will say more about the systemic aspects of a worldview later on, after we have characterized the components of a worldview.
