The term refers to a totality of belonging, a set of objects that have the same mode of being ( the “world of the senses,” the “intelligible world,” the “sublunar world” ), unlike a simple “summa” of objects. In Greek, as well as in Latin, it can have a “laudatory” meaning, that of a well-organized totality ( see WELT, Box 1 on the meaning of kosmos ). The Russian constellation, where “world” is always only one of a number of possible meanings, linked to “light” or to “peace,” is explored under MIR and SVET; cf. PRAVDA, RUSSIAN, SOBORNOST’.
The German WELT is the point of departure that introduces the division, particularly apparent in Kant, between a cosmological sense ( mundus as “universe” ) and an anthropological sense.
Finer distinctions can be made among the following:
1. A cosmological sense; see also NATURE.
2. An ontological sense, linked to the representation of the whole and of totality; see WELT, Box 2; see also OMNITUDO REALITATIS; cf. WHOLE.
3. A theological sense ( mundus, saeculum; cf. the scriptural expressions: “to come into the world, to leave the world” ); see OLAM, SECULARIZATION.
4. A chronological sense ( aiôn [αἰών] ), as in Weltalter ( historical time or period ); see AIÔN, and TIME; cf. HISTORIA UNIVERSALIS.
5. A sociological and anthropological sense, as in Umwelt ( world, environment, milieu ); see WELT, Box 3.
6. An existential sense, as in the world of experience, mundanity ( Weltlichkeit, in-der-Welt-sein ); see DASEIN, LEIB, Box 1, WELTANSCHAUUNG. (BCDU)