Topic: World

In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality
or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different
fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds".
Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up
of many parts. In scientific cosmology the world or universe is commonly defined as "[t]he
totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". Theories of modality, on the
other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been.
Phenomenology, starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every
experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In
philosophy of mind, the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is
represented by the mind. Theology conceptualizes the world in relation to God, for example, as
God's creation, as identical to God or as the two being interdependent. In religions, there is often
a tendency to downgrade the material or sensory world in favor of a spiritual world to be sought
through religious practice. A comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it, as is
commonly found in religions, is known as a worldview. Cosmogony is the field that studies the
origin or creation of the world while eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last
things or of the end of the world.

In various contexts, the term "world" takes a more restricted meaning associated, for example,
with the Earth and all life on it, with humanity as a whole or with an international or
intercontinental scope. In this sense, world history refers to the history of humanity as a whole or
world politics is the discipline of political science studying issues that transcend nations and
continents. Other examples include terms such as "world religion", "world language", "world
government", "world war", "world population", "world economy" or "world championship".

Etymology
The English word world comes from the Old English weorold (-uld), weorld, worold (-uld, -eld),
a compound of wer "man" and eld "age," which thus means roughly "Age of Man." The Old
English is a reflex of the Common Germanic *wira-alđiz, also reflected in Old Saxon werold,
Old Dutch werilt, Old High German weralt, Old Frisian warld and Old Norse verǫld (whence the
Icelandic veröld).The corresponding word in Latin is mundus, literally "clean, elegant", itself a
loan translation of Greek cosmos "orderly arrangement". While the Germanic word thus reflects
a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare Midgard), presumably as opposed to the
divine sphere on the one hand and the chthonic sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-
Latin term expresses a notion of creation as an act of establishing order out of chaos.

Conceptions
Different fields often work with quite different conceptions of the essential features associated
with the term "world". Some conceptions see the world as unique: there can be no more than one
world. Others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some see worlds as complex things composed of
many substances as their parts while others hold that worlds are simple in the sense that there is
only one substance: the world as a whole. Some characterize worlds in terms of objective
spacetime while others define them relative to the horizon present in each experience. These
different characterizations are not always exclusive: it may be possible to combine some without
leading to a contradiction. Most of them agree that worlds are unified totalities.

Monism and pluralism

Monism is a thesis about oneness: that only one thing exists in a certain sense. The denial of
monism is pluralism, the thesis that, in a certain sense, more than one thing exists. There are
many forms of monism and pluralism, but in relation to the world as a whole, two are of special
interest: existence monism/pluralism and priority monism/pluralism. Existence monism states
that the world is the only concrete object there is. This means that all the concrete "objects" we
encounter in our daily lives, including apples, cars and ourselves, are not truly objects in a strict
sense. Instead, they are just dependent aspects of the world-object. Such a world-object is simple
in the sense that it does not have any genuine parts. For this reason, it has also been referred to as
"blobject" since it lacks an internal structure just like a blob. Priority monism allows that there
are other concrete objects besides the world. But it holds that these objects do not have the most
fundamental form of existence, that they somehow depend on the existence of the world. The
corresponding forms of pluralism, on the other hand, state that the world is complex in the sense
that it is made up of concrete, independent objects.

Scientific cosmology

Scientific cosmology can be defined as the science of the universe as a whole. In it, the terms
"universe" and "cosmos" are usually used as synonyms for the term "world". One common
definition of the world/universe found in this field is as "[t]he totality of all space and time; all
that is, has been, and will be". Some definitions emphasize that there are two other aspects to the
universe besides spacetime: forms of energy or matter, like stars and particles, and laws of
nature. Different world-conceptions in this field differ both concerning their notion of spacetime
and of the contents of spacetime. The theory of relativity plays a central role in modern
cosmology and its conception of space and time. An important difference from its predecessors
is that it conceives space and time not as distinct dimensions but as a single four-dimensional
manifold called spacetime. This can be seen in special relativity in relation to the Minkowski
metric, which includes both spatial and temporal components in its definition of distance.
General relativity goes one step further by integrating the concept of mass into the concept of
spacetime as its curvature. Quantum cosmology, on the other hand, uses a classical notion of
spacetime and conceives the whole world as one big wave function expressing the probability of
finding particles in a given location.

Theories of modality

The world-concept plays an important role in many modern theories of modality, usually in the
form of possible worlds. A possible world is a complete and consistent way how things could
have been. The actual world is a possible world since the way things are is a way things could
have been. But there are many other ways things could have been besides how they actually are.
For example, Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 US election, but she could have won them. So
there is a possible world in which she did. There is a vast number of possible worlds, one
corresponding to each such difference, no matter how small or big, as long as no outright
contradictions are introduced this way.Possible worlds are often conceived as abstract objects,
for example, in terms of non-obtaining states of affairs or as maximally consistent sets of
propositions. On such a view, they can even be seen as belonging to the actual world. Another
way to conceive possible worlds, made famous by David Lewis, is as concrete entities. On this
conception, there is no important difference between the actual world and possible worlds: both
are conceived as concrete, inclusive and spatiotemporally connected. The only difference is that
the actual world is the world we live in, while other possible worlds are not inhabited by us but
by our counterparts. Everything within a world is spatiotemporally connected to everything else
but the different worlds do not share a common spacetime: They are spatiotemporally isolated
from each other. This is what makes them separate worlds.It has been suggested that, besides
possible worlds, there are also impossible worlds. Possible worlds are ways things could have
been, so impossible worlds are ways things could not have been. Such worlds involve a
contradiction, like a world in which Hillary Clinton both won and lost the 2016 US election.
Both possible and impossible worlds have in common the idea that they are totalities of their
constituents.

Phenomenology

Within phenomenology, worlds are defined in terms of horizons of experiences. When we

perceive an object, like a house, we do not just experience this object at the center of our
attention but also various other objects surrounding it, given in the periphery. The term "horizon"
refers to these co-given objects, which are usually experienced only in a vague, indeterminate
manner. The perception of a house involves various horizons, corresponding to the
neighborhood, the city, the country, the Earth, etc. In this context, the world is the biggest
horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". It's common among phenomenologists to understand the
world not just as a spatiotemporal collection of objects but as additionally incorporating various
other relations between these objects. These relations include, for example, indication-relations
that help us anticipate one object given the appearances of another object and means-end-
relations or functional involvements relevant for practical concerns.

Philosophy of mind

In philosophy of mind, the term "world" is commonly used in contrast to the term "mind" as that
which is represented by the mind. This is sometimes expressed by stating that there is a gap
between mind and world and that this gap needs to be overcome for representation to be
successful. One of the central problems in philosophy of mind is to explain how the mind is able
to bridge this gap and to enter into genuine mind-world-relations, for example, in the form of
perception, knowledge or action. This is necessary for the world to be able to rationally constrain
the activity of the mind. According to a realist position, the world is something distinct and
independent from the mind. Idealists, on the other hand, conceive of the world as partially or
fully determined by the mind. Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism, for example, posits that
the spatiotemporal structure of the world is imposed by the mind on reality but lacks independent
existence otherwise. A more radical idealist conception of the world can be found in Berkeley's
subjective idealism, which holds that the world as a whole, including all everyday objects like
tables, cats, trees and ourselves, "consists of nothing but minds and ideas".

Theology

Different theological positions hold different conceptions of the world based on its relation to
God. Classical theism states that God is wholly distinct from the world. But the world depends
for its existence on God, both because God created the world and because He maintains or
conserves it. This is sometimes understood in analogy to how humans create and conserve ideas
in their imagination, with the difference being that the divine mind is vastly more powerful. On
such a view, God has absolute, ultimate reality in contrast to the lower ontological status
ascribed to the world. God's involvement in the world is often understood along the lines of a
personal, benevolent God who looks after and guides His creation. Deists agree with theists that
God created the world but deny any subsequent, personal involvement in it. Pantheists, on the
other hand, reject the separation between God and world. Instead, they claim that the two are
identical. This means that there is nothing to the world that does not belong to God and that there
is nothing to God beyond what is found in the world. Panentheism constitutes a middle ground
between theism and pantheism. Against theism, It holds that God and the world are interrelated
and depend on each other. Against pantheism, it holds that there is no outright identity between
the two. Atheists, on the other hand, deny the existence of God and thereby of conceptions of the
world based on its relation to God.

History of philosophy
In philosophy, the term world has several possible meanings. In some contexts, it refers to
everything that makes up reality or the physical universe. In others, it can mean have a specific
ontological sense (see world disclosure). While clarifying the concept of world has arguably
always been among the basic tasks of Western philosophy, this theme appears to have been
raised explicitly only at the start of the twentieth century and has been the subject of continuous
debate. The question of what the world is has by no means been settled.

Parmenides

The traditional interpretation of Parmenides' work is that he argued that the everyday perception
of reality of the physical world (as described in doxa) is mistaken, and that the reality of the
world is 'One Being' (as described in aletheia): an unchanging, ungenerated, indestructible
whole.

Plato

Plato is well known for his theory of forms, which posits the existence of two different worlds:
the sensible world and the intelligible world. The sensible world is the world we live in, filled
with changing physical things we can see, touch and interact with. The intelligible world, on the
other hand, is the world of invisible, eternal, changeless forms like goodness, beauty, unity and
sameness. Plato ascribes a lower ontological status to the sensible world, which only imitates the
world of forms. This is due to the fact that physical things exist only to the extent that they
participate in the forms that characterize them, while the forms themselves have an independent
manner of existence. In this sense, the sensible world is a mere replication of the perfect
exemplars found in the world of forms: it never lives up to the original. In the allegory of the
cave, Plato compares the physical things we are familiar with to mere shadows of the real things.
But not knowing the difference, the prisoners in the cave mistake the shadows for the real things.

Hegel

In Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy of history, the expression Weltgeschichte ist
Weltgericht (World History is a tribunal that judges the World) is used to assert the view that
History is what judges men, their actions and their opinions. Science is born from the desire to
transform the World in relation to Man; its final end is technical application.

Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Representation is the central work of Arthur Schopenhauer.
Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the
Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-
itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between
representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between
human will and human body.

Wittgenstein

Two definitions that were both put forward in the 1920s, however, suggest the range of available
opinion. "The world is everything that is the case," wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in his influential
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1921. This definition would serve as the basis
of logical positivism, with its assumption that there is exactly one world, consisting of the
totality of facts, regardless of the interpretations that individual people may make of them.

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger, meanwhile, argued that "the surrounding world is different for each of us, and
notwithstanding that we move about in a common world". The world, for Heidegger, was that
into which we are always already "thrown" and with which we, as beings-in-the-world, must
come to terms. His conception of "world disclosure" was most notably elaborated in his 1927
work Being and Time.

Eugen Fink

"World" is one of the key terms in Eugen Fink's philosophy. He thinks that there is a misguided
tendency in western philosophy to understand the world as one enormously big thing containing
all the small everyday things we are familiar with. He sees this view as a form of forgetfulness of
the world and tries to oppose it by what he calls the "cosmological difference": the difference
between the world and the inner-worldly things it contains. On his view, the world is the totality
of the inner-worldly things that transcends them. It is itself groundless but it provides a ground
for things. It therefore cannot be identified with a mere container. Instead, the world gives
appearance to inner-worldly things, it provides them with a place, a beginning and an end. One
difficulty in investigating the world is that we never encounter it since it is not just one more
thing that appears to us. This is why Fink uses the notion of play or playing to elucidate the
nature of the world. He sees play as a symbol of the world that is both part of it and that
represents it. Play usually comes with a form of imaginary play-world involving various things
relevant to the play. But just like the play is more than the imaginary realities appearing in it so
the world is more than the actual things appearing in it.

Goodman

The concept of worlds plays a central role in Nelson Goodman's late philosophy. He argues that
we need to posit different worlds in order to account for the fact that there are different
incompatible truths found in reality. Two truths are incompatible if they ascribe incompatible
properties to the same thing. This happens, for example, when we assert both that the earth
moves and that the earth is at rest. These incompatible truths correspond to two different ways of
describing the world: heliocentrism and geocentrism. Goodman terms such descriptions "world
versions". He holds a correspondence theory of truth: a world version is true if it corresponds to
a world. Incompatible true world versions correspond to different worlds. It is common for
theories of modality to posit the existence of a plurality of possible worlds. But Goodman's
theory is different since it posits a plurality not of possible but of actual worlds. Such a position
is in danger of involving a contradiction: there cannot be a plurality of actual worlds if worlds
are defined as maximally inclusive wholes. This danger may be avoided by interpreting
Goodman's world-concept not as maximally inclusive wholes in the absolute sense but in relation
to its corresponding world-version: a world contains all and only the entities that its world-
version describes.

Religion
Mythological cosmologies often depict the world as centered on an axis mundi and delimited by
a boundary such as a world ocean, a world serpent or similar. In some religions, worldliness
(also called carnality) is that which relates to this world as opposed to other worlds or realms.

Buddhism

In Buddhism, the world means society, as distinct from the monastery. It refers to the material
world, and to worldly gain such as wealth, reputation, jobs, and war. The spiritual world would
be the path to enlightenment, and changes would be sought in what we could call the
psychological realm.

Christianity

In Christianity, the term often connotes the concept of the fallen and corrupt world order of
human society, in contrast to the World to Come. The world is frequently cited alongside the
flesh and the Devil as a source of temptation that Christians should flee. Monks speak of striving
to be "in this world, but not of this world" — as Jesus said — and the term "worldhood" has been
distinguished from "monkhood", the former being the status of merchants, princes, and others
who deal with "worldly" things.

This view is clearly expressed by king Alfred the Great of England (d. 899) in his famous
Preface to the Cura Pastoralis:

"Therefore I command you to do as I believe you are willing to do, that you free yourself from
worldly affairs (Old English: woruldðinga) as often as you can, so that wherever you can
establish that wisdom that God gave you, you establish it. Consider what punishments befell us
in this world when we neither loved wisdom at all ourselves, nor transmitted it to other men; we
had the name alone that we were Christians, and very few had the practices".

Although Hebrew and Greek words meaning "world" are used in Scripture with the normal
variety of senses, many examples of its use in this particular sense can be found in the teachings
of Jesus according to the Gospel of John, e.g. 7:7, 8:23, 12:25, 14:17, 15:18-19, 17:6-25, 18:36.
In contrast, a relatively newer concept is Catholic imagination.

Contemptus mundi is the name given to the belief that the world, in all its vanity, is nothing more
than a futile attempt to hide from God by stifling our desire for the good and the holy. This view
has been criticised as a "pastoral of fear" by modern historian Jean Delumeau.During the Second
Vatican Council, there was a novel attempt to develop a positive theological view of the World,
which is illustrated by the pastoral optimism of the constitutions Gaudium et spes, Lumen
gentium, Unitatis redintegratio and Dignitatis humanae.

Eastern Christianity

In Eastern Christian monasticism or asceticism, the world of mankind is driven by passions.

Therefore, the passions of the World are simply called "the world". Each of these passions are a
link to the world of mankind or order of human society. Each of these passions must be
overcome in order for a person to receive salvation (Theosis). The process of Theosis is a
personal relationship with God. This understanding is taught within the works of ascetics like
Evagrius Ponticus, and the most seminal ascetic works read most widely by Eastern Christians,
the Philokalia and The Ladder of Divine Ascent (the works of Evagrius and John Climacus are
also contained within the Philokalia). At the highest level of world transcendence is hesychasm
which culminates into the Vision of God.

Orbis Catholicus

Orbis Catholicus is a Latin phrase meaning Catholic world, per the expression Urbi et Orbi, and
refers to that area of Christendom under papal supremacy. It is somewhat similar to the phrases
secular world, Jewish world and Islamic world.

Islam
In Islam, the term "dunya" is used for the world. Its meaning is derived from the root word
"dana", a term for "near". It is mainly associated with the temporal, sensory world and earthly
concerns, i.e. with this world in contrast to the spiritual world. Some religious teachings warn of
our tendency to seek happiness in this world and advise a more ascetic lifestyle concerned with
the afterlife. But other strands in Islam recommend a balanced approach.

Mandaeism

In Mandaean cosmology, the world or earthly realm is known as Tibil. It is separated from the
World of Light (alma d-nhūra) above and the World of Darkness (alma d-hšuka) below by ayar
(aether).

Hinduism

Hinduism constitutes a wide family of religious-philosophical views. These views present

different perspectives on the nature and role of the world. Samkhya philosophy, for example, is a
metaphysical dualism that understands reality as comprising two parts: purusha and prakriti. The
term "purusha" stands for the individual conscious self that each of us possesses. Prakriti, on the
other hand, is the one world inhabited by all these selves. Samkhya understands this world as a
world of matter governed by the law of cause and effect. The term "matter" is understood in a
very wide sense in this tradition including both physical and mental aspects. This is reflected in
the doctrine of tattvas, according to which prakriti is made up of 23 different principles or
elements of reality. These principles include both physical elements, like water or earth, and
mental aspects, like intelligence or sense-impressions. The relation between purusha and prakriti
is usually conceived as one of mere observation: purusha is the conscious self aware of the world
of prakriti but does not causally interact with it.A very different conception of the world is
present in Advaita Vedanta, the monist school among the Vedanta schools. Unlike the realist
position defended in Samkhya philosophy, Advaita Vedanta sees the world of multiplicity as an
illusion, referred to as Maya. This illusion also includes our impression of existing as separate
experiencing selfs called Jivas. Instead, Advaita Vedanta teaches that on the most fundamental
level of reality, referred to as Brahman, there exists no plurality or difference. All there is is one
all-encompassing self: Atman. Ignorance is seen as the source of this illusion, which results in
bondage to the world of mere appearances. But liberation is possible in the course of overcoming
this illusion by acquiring the knowledge of Brahman, according to Advaita Vedanta.

Related terms and problems

Worldviews

A worldview is a comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it. As a

representation, it is a subjective perspective of the world and thereby different from the world it
represents. All higher animals need to represent their environment in some way in order to
navigate it. But it has been argued that only humans possess a representation encompassing
enough to merit the term "worldview". Philosophers of worldviews commonly hold that the
understanding of any object depends on a worldview constituting the background on which this
understanding can take place. This may affect not just our intellectual understanding of the
object in question but the experience of it in general. It is therefore impossible to assess one's
worldview from a neutral perspective since this assessment already presupposes the worldview
as its background. Some hold that each worldview is based on a single hypothesis that promises
to solve all the problems of our existence we may encounter. On this interpretation, the term is
closely associated to the worldviews given by different religions. Worldviews offer orientation
not just in theoretical matters but also in practical matters. For this reason, they usually include
answers to the question of the meaning of life and other evaluative components about what
matters and how we should act. A worldview can be unique to one individual but worldviews are
usually shared by many people within a certain culture or religion.

Paradox of many worlds

The idea that there exist many different worlds is found in various fields. For example, Theories
of modality talk about a plurality of possible worlds and the many-worlds interpretation of
quantum mechanics carries this reference even in its name. Talk of different worlds is also
common in everyday language, for example, with reference to the world of music, the world of
business, the world of football, the world of experience or the Asian world. But at the same time,
worlds are usually defined as all-inclusive totalities. This seems to contradict the very idea of a
plurality of worlds since if a world is total and all-inclusive then it cannot have anything outside
itself. Understood this way, a world can neither have other worlds besides itself or be part of
something bigger. One way to resolve this paradox while holding onto the notion of a plurality of
worlds is to restrict the sense in which worlds are totalities. On this view, worlds are not totalities
in an absolute sense. This might be even understood in the sense that, strictly speaking, there are
no worlds at all. Another approach understands worlds in a schematic sense: as context-
dependent expressions that stand for the current domain of discourse. So in the expression
"Around the World in Eighty Days", the term "world" refers to the earth while in the expression
"the New World" it refers to the landmass of North and South America.

Cosmogony

Cosmogony is the field that studies the origin or creation of the world. This includes both
scientific cosmogony and creation myths found in various religions. The dominant theory in
scientific cosmogony is the Big Bang theory, according to which both space, time and matter
have their origin in one initial singularity occurring about 13.8 billion years ago. This singularity
was followed by an expansion that allowed the universe to sufficiently cool down for the
formation of subatomic particles and later atoms. These initial elements formed giant clouds,
which would then coalesce into stars and galaxies. Non-scientific creation myths are found in
many cultures and are often enacted in rituals expressing their symbolic meaning. They can be
categorized concerning their contents. Types often found include creation from nothing, from
chaos or from a cosmic egg.

Eschatology

Eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last things or of the end of the world. It is
traditionally associated with religion, specifically with the Abrahamic religions.
In this form, it may include teachings both of the end of each individual human life and of the
end of the world as a whole. But it has been applied to other fields as well, for example, in the
form of physical Eschatology, which includes scientifically based speculations about the far
future of the universe. According to some models, there will be a Big Crunch in which the whole
universe collapses back into a singularity, possibly resulting in a second Big Bang afterward. But
current astronomical evidence seems to suggest that our universe will continue to expand
indefinitely.

World history

World history studies the world from a historical perspective. Unlike other approaches to history,
it employs a global viewpoint. It deals less with individual nations and civilizations, which it
usually approaches at a high level of abstraction. Instead, it concentrates on wider regions and
zones of interaction, often interested in how people, goods and ideas move from one region to
another. It includes comparisons of different societies and civilizations as well as considering
wide-ranging developments with a long-term global impact like the process of industrialization.
Contemporary world history is dominated by three main research paradigms determining the
periodization into different epochs. One is based on productive relations between humans and
nature. The two most important changes in history in this respect were the introduction of
agriculture and husbandry concerning the production of food, which started around 10,000 to
8,000 BCE and is sometimes termed the Neolithic revolution, and the industrial revolution,
which started around 1760 CE and involved the transition from manual to industrial
manufacturing. Another paradigm, focusing on culture and religion instead, is based on Karl
Jaspers' theories about the axial age, a time in which various new forms of religious and
philosophical thoughts appeared in several separate parts of the world around the time between
800 and 200 BCE. A third periodization is based on the relations between civilizations and
societies. According to this paradigm, history can be divided into three periods in relation to the
dominant region in the world: Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural
balance until 1500 CE and Western dominance since 1500 CE. Big history employs an even
wider framework than world history by putting human history into the context of the history of
the universe as a whole. It starts with the Big Bang and traces the formation of galaxies, the solar
system, the earth, its geological eras, the evolution of life and humans until the present day.

World politics

World politics, also referred to as global politics or international relations, is the discipline of
political science studying issues of interest to the world that transcend nations and continents. It
aims to explain complex patterns found in the social world that are often related to the pursuit of
power, order and justice, usually in the context of globalization. It focuses not just on the
relations between nation-states but also considers other transnational actors, like multinational
corporations, terrorist groups, or non-governmental organizations. For example, it tries to explain
events like 9/11, the 2003 war in Iraq or the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

Various theories have been proposed in order to deal with the complexity involved in
formulating such explanations. These theories are sometimes divided into realism, liberalism and
constructivism. Realists see nation-states as the main actors in world politics. They constitute an
anarchical international system without any overarching power to control their behavior. They
are seen as sovereign agents that, determined by human nature, act according to their national
self-interest. Military force may play an important role in the ensuing struggle for power between
states, but diplomacy and cooperation are also key mechanisms for nations to achieve their goals.
Liberalists acknowledge the importance of states but they also emphasize the role of
transnational actors, like the United Nations or the World Trade Organization. They see humans
as perfectible and stress the role of democracy in this process. The emergent order in world
politics, on this perspective, is more complex than a mere balance of power since more different
agents and interests are involved in its production. Constructivism ascribes more importance to
the agency of individual humans than realism and liberalism. It understands the social world as a
construction of the people living in it. This leads to an emphasis on the possibility of change. If
the international system is an anarchy of nation-states, as the realists hold, then this is only so
because we made it this way and may well change since this is not prefigured by human nature,
according to the constructivists.

See also
Earth

Globe

List of sovereign states

Universe

World map

References
External links
World. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.

Media related to World at Wikimedia Commons