Worldviews in Mr. Wayne's Course.

What is "Worldviews" about?
 
It's about worldviews.

But what does “worldviews” mean, other than views of the world?
 
Well, when I looked the word up in Webster's Third New International Dictionary it told me that when most writers use the word worldview they mean weltanschauung.

Right! What does weltanschauung mean, and what kind of word is it anyways?

As Webster's tells us, its a German word.
Literally it translates as worldview, from welt world + anschauung view. It begins to be used as an English word around 1858.

Another edition of Webster's gives us more detail:

I myself, first encountered this concept in a history course in university. As I remember it now, it was used to bring attention to a shift in the way one might analyze their own perspective on things from a critical perspective. I also remember that this issue had been brought to our attention by a philosopher concerned with the meaning and reality of historical studies, his name was Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911).

Dilthey used the word weltanschauung to refer to that comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a particular standpoint that each of us grows into as a result of our socialization. During Wilhelm Dilthey's time it was customary to leave concepts from a foreign language untranslated. Thus the word has come into English usage in the writings of social scientists to call attention to what we impose on the data as we interpret the world.

Dilthey helped us to understand that there wasn't some totalistic absolute truth about reality and values. What we believe to be objective facts, what we see as good and as beautiful, and what actions we feel obligated carry out vary from time to time, from place to place, and from culture to culture. As we go about studying the human community it is important to be aware of this and to be more receptive and less judgmental lest we impose our own worldview on others arbitrarily and miss the particular aspect of truth the "other" witnesses to in the world.

These different perspectives on life show themselves most dramatically in our differing religions, in the diversity of our arts and letters, and in our different approaches to politics and economics. It is easy for us to see these differences in our own families, communities and country. We also see the problems that arise when we encounter irreconciliable differences. It was Dilthey's hope that all would see the relativity of all forms of faith, expression, and culture. (Hodges 1969)

He wanted us to be self critical when we were tempted to proclaim we had the Truth, or to impose our perspective of the truth on others as the Truth. (Walsh 1969)

It was his view that if we had a genuine desire to understand life, society, culture, and history, the whole life of the human community, we had to understand the fundamental relativity of all these expressions of humanity and work within that milieu. (Rickman 1967)

References

Herbert Arthur Hodges, "Dilthey, Wilhelm," Encylopaedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton, 1969). Vol. 7, p.439.

Rickman, H.P. "Dilthey, Wilhelm," Encyclopedia of Philosophy . New York: MacMillan, 1967. Vol. 2, 404-405.

William Henry Walsh, "Kant, Immanuel," Encylopaedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton, 1969. Vol.13, 217-223.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary. G.&C. Merriam Co.,1966.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Inc., 1995. Zane Publishing, Inc., 1996, 1995.