Sh. Muhyiddin Ibn al-ʿArabī

17a Any Worldview Depends on Transmitted Knowledge

It is clear that any worldview depends on transmitted knowledge. We think the way we do and believe what we believe because of what we have received, much of it unconsciously, from our social and cultural environment. We accept certain truths as self-evident not because they are in fact self-evident but because our culture has inculcated a way of thinking that makes them appear as self-evident.

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Once we step outside of our specific cultural limitations, we see that so-called facts and truths turn out to be situational. This statement sounds like ‘relativism,’ which is sometimes taken as a self-evident truth of academia.