The orientation on absolute infinity and the openness of worldviews as the necessary foundation for models of developmental psychology

Abstract

In many contemporary models of adult development an end state of self-development is assumed, which is related to a specific worldview and concept of the absolute. In the present text these development models and their worldview are analyzed and contrasted with Karl Jaspers' psychology of worldviews and, what he described, the process of differentiation during development. In addition, findings from contemporary philosophy, mathematics and the natural sciences are given as examples to show how our world knowledge is constantly expanding and developing. Comparing these findings suggests that any unification or ultimate structure generates a limitation to the development of the self and new world knowledge and therefore can not be ultimate. Thus, it is shown that only an orientation towards absolute infinity as the horizon of unfinished and fluid worldviews, as described by Jaspers, can include newly acquired knowledge of the world, the self and its interdependence, which is not satisfied by any closed worldview with corresponding end state of development.

Keywords: psychology of worldviews; the absolute; self-development; self-transcendence; ontology and metaphysics


[Full Article PDF]