Limitations of the Western Scientific Worldview for the Study of Metaphysically Inclusive Peoples

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.