Abstract

The study and understanding of peoples whose worldviews include metaphysical phenomena and explanations are undermined by the strict adherence of many social scientists to the Western scientific worldview which acknowledges only physical phenomena and explanations. The effect of employing Western science in studying the material and practiced cultures of these peoples is to reduce them to constituent ontological components, strip away and discard their metaphysical aspects, and then take what can be readily extracted while leaving what is not understood and therefore not valued. This disrespects the knowledge and alternative worldviews of the very peoples that social scientists seek to more fully understand. One solution is not only to acknowledge the existence of and study alternative worldviews, but also to include and even operationally adopt them when appropriate or necessary to more fully appreciate the metaphysical perspectives of other cultures. In anthropology, for example, this approach could be accomplished by extending the rationale for and methodology of participant observation to include worldview pluralism, and employing the most appropriate worldview for a subject or aspect of a subject under study. In archaeology, this approach is consistent with the goals of the growing Indigenous archaeology movement. Specifically, if the subject has a metaphysical aspect, then a non-Western scientific worldview should be employed in studying that aspect rather than simply dismissing it as unimportant or even non-existent. This paper summarizes the philosophical framework underlying Western science and the evolution and current state of the Western scientific worldview in the social sciences, compares and contrasts Western science with Indigenous peoples’ way of knowing, and presents an example of how the limits of the Western scientific worldview can negatively impact the study of metaphysically inclusive peoples.

Highlights

  • If the subject has a metaphysical aspect, a non-Western scientific worldview should be employed in studying that aspect rather than dismissing it as unimportant or even non-existent

  • We briefly summarize the philosophical framework underlying Western science, summarize the evolution of the Western scientific worldview in the social sciences, compare and contrast Western science with the Indigenous way of knowing, and present an example of how the Western scientific worldview negatively impacts the study of peoples with alternative worldviews

  • Implicit within the Western scientific worldview may be a socio-evolutionary scheme in which the hierarchical categories of “modern” and “primitive” have been replaced by the hierarchical categories of “metaphysically exclusive” and “metaphysically inclusive,” and in which the progress of peoples from darkness to enlightenment is measured in the degree of their acceptance of the Western scientific worldview

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Summary

Introduction

“Wrong thinking in the natural sciences is lamentable but, sooner or later, will be rejected. For example, it has negatively impacted the study of those Native American and other Indigenous peoples whose knowledge traditions and worldviews make few or no distinctions between or at least inextricably link the physical world and the metaphysical world. Most importantly, it devalues and disrespects the knowledge and alternative worldviews of the very peoples that social scientists are attempting to more fully understand. This paper includes an example of actual anthropological research in which the Western scientific worldview approach of the researchers had a clearly negative impact

Western Science and the Western Scientific Worldview
Scientism in the Social Sciences
Western Science as a Colonial Endeavor
The Indigenous Way of Knowing and the Indigenous Worldview
An Example
The Physical and Metaphysical Natures of Sacred Bundles
Scientific Desecrations of Sacred Bundles
Conclusion

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