The Axial Age: Pivotal Thinkers Across Ancient Civilizations
The Axial Age, coined by Karl Jaspers, refers to a period from the 8th to 3rd century BCE where pivotal thinkers emerged independently in Persia, India, China, Greece, and Rome, shaping the spiritual foundations of humanity. Jaspers, a German philosopher and psychiatrist, highlighted the importance of this age in laying the groundwork for human civilization. The era saw intense developments in various cultures, such as the Spring and Autumn Period in China, the birth of Buddhism and Jainism in India, and the rise of democratic principles in Greece. This transformative period marked a quest for human meaning amid social, political, and military conflicts, fostering a new elite class of intellectuals seeking to understand the essence of human existence.
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Ancient Global History Lecture 6 (week 7)
The Axial Age German Achsenzeit coined by Karl Jaspers in his book Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History) published in 1949 (also see his book The Way to Wisdom , translated into English and published 2003). Refers to period 8thcentury BCE 3rdcentury BCE Period of pivotal thinkers across several cultures: Persia, India, China, Greece and Rome in religion and philosophy (without, he claimed, contact between them .) Not just random coincidence but an empirical fact of history a moment in our human story As such, this Axial age is important as the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece. And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today (The Way to Wisdom 2003.98)
Karl Jaspers German philosopher + psychiatrist. Exiled during WWII along with his Jewish wife, just managed to avoid being sent to concentration camps Other works: cf 1957 The Great Philosophers series of examinations of most important figures in intellectual history (looked at Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes); Way to Wisdom (1951) a series of radio lectures on why human beings not only do but also must philosophize.
Way to Wisdom: Chapter 9 The History of Man (passages taken verbatim from his Axial Age book) No reality is more essential to our self-awareness than history. It shows us the broadest horizons of mankind, brings us the contents of tradition upon which our life is built, shows us standards by which to measure the present, frees us from unconscious bondage to our own age, teaches us to see man in his highest potentialities and his imperishable creations Way to Wisdom 1951.96. History sometimes appears to be a chaos of accidental happenings, an eddying flood. It passes on, from one turmoil, from one catastrophe to the next, with brief intervals of happiness, little islands which is spares for a time, until they too are engulfed. All in all as Max Weber put it a road paved by the devil with demolished values 1951.96-7. See text of his assessment of the Axial age - handout
What was going on: China: Spring and Autumn Period/ Warring States: intense warfare + production of 100 schools of thought India: Aryan Civilisation development of Vedic society and religion (Upanishads key parts of the Vedas), birth of Buddhism and Jainism Persia: adoption of Zoroastrianism as guiding philosophy Greece: Archaic and Classical worlds: political innovation (democracy) + philosophical innovation: Socrates/Plato, Aristotle et al. Rome: overthrow of Kings, development of Roman republic Jaspers: Axial Age as "an interregnum between two ages of great empire, a pause for liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness 1949.51. Jaspers: Common characteristics of these worlds: deep social, military and political conflict leading to rise of new elite class of thinkers, a quest for human meaning and a search for ways in which to better organise and run communities.
What was being articulated: Zoroastrianism: Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between asa (truth) and druj (lie). They believe in one god called Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and he created the world, and his symbol is fire. But he is in permanent battle with Evil (Angra Mainyu) not a god but a destructive energy that opposes Ahura Mazda s good energy. Bad things in life (and people following the way of the lie) as subject to destructive energy. Only when all people on earth follow truth will destructive energy on earth be banished and paradise found. China: 100 Schools of Thought: Laozi Daodejing The Way and The Power (modern Daoism/Taoism) action through non-action, spontaneity and simplicity, linking of one s desires to natural rhythm of the world. Mozi: argued that ritual and music were a waste of time it was all about austerity, self-restraint and simplicity. Strategists: success was the only arbiter Logicians: the best argument (rather than past precedent) was the best course of action Legalism developed by Shang Yang: might is right (official philosophy of Qin dynasty) Wise men make laws, stupid men are constrained by them. Good governance is achieved through strong laws, harsh punishments and a ruler s absolute authority.
Confucius When the way of the Zhou declined and fell to waste, Confucius was the supervisor of Justice in Lu.. He showed the rights and wrongs of 242 years so as to make a guide and standard for all under Heaven Shiji 120. Confucius as member of Shi Gentleman/Scholars class. Raised by his mother after his father died when young. Mum died when he was 20. Aged 20-50 he acted as clerk in state granaries + bureaucratic roles Turned to teaching as his brusque and chastising manner won him few friends. Gradually gained reputation as someone skilled in ceremony, genealogy, manners and ritual. Aged 50 for about 5 years he succeeded in becoming a Chief Magistrate and one of the State of Lu s inner circle Went into exile from state of Lu several times and acted as wondering wise man for rulers of different Warring states. In his final years set up a school that sort to teaching children from all classes from the man who paid in dried meat upwards, I have withheld teaching from no one Analects 7.7 Died c. 479 BCE a gatekeeper, who, on being told that someone had been sent on Confucius behalf, replied Confucius, the man who knows it s no good, but keeps on trying anyway? Analects 14.41.
Key Tenets of Confucianism (as put forward in the Analects) Continual self-improvement: To learn, and not to think over [what ones has learnt] is useless: to think without learning is dangerous Analects 2.15. Ren: love, benevolence, kindness (used over 40 times in Analects) how man behaves to fellow man. Zhong: loyalty Cf. in particular filial Piety: Our master s way is simply: loyalty and consideration Analects 4.15 Shu: consideration - what best sums up the duty of man? Shu do not do unto others what you would rather not have done to you Analects 15.23
Confucius on rulership: Asked by one ruler what kingcraft consisted of: when a king is king and the minister is minister, when the father is father and the son is son Analects 12.11. Equally a ruler must take care to achieve three things: sufficient food for people, enough troops for their protection and above all peoples trust. If any of these need to be sacrificed, first it s the troops, then the food, because without trust a people cannot stand Analects 12.7 If a ruler is set on good, his people do good. The king s mind is the wind, and the grass is the minds of the people. When the wind blows, so the grass bends Importance for the ruler of Te (virtue /moral force); Yi (righteousness), Li (adherence to all habitual, customary and socially accepted rites Li: A gentleman with courage but without righteousness will cause disturbances, a common man who possesses courage but not righteousness will become a theif Analects 17.23 Li was a lifelong endaevour perfecting and observing the rites and traditions of society through long periods of book learning and self-cultivation, practicing those rites with real emotion and belief. Good Li in a ruler would spread to the whole community.
What was being articulated (cont): India: Buddhism, Jainism and Vedic beliefs: Buddhism is a spiritual tradition that focuses on personal spiritual development and the attainment of a deep insight into the true nature of life. Developed through teachings of Buddha but in particular reacting to Vedic teachings re Braham (priestly class) as being access to spiritual world. Buddhism as idea that everyone can find their own access to spiritual world. There is no god. Buddhists believe that nothing is fixed or permanent and that change is always possible. The path to Enlightenment is through the practice and development of morality, meditation and wisdom Existence is endless because individuals are reincarnated over and over again, experiencing suffering throughout many lives Jainism: non-violence, non-attachment, aestheticism; no stealing, celibacy. Motto The function of souls is to help one another Vedic traditions (see previously in Rig Veda) modified in response to these new traditions. Development of the Upanishads: texts of philosophy shifting Vedic focus from external rites and sacrifices to internal spiritual quests in the search for answers. Development of key principles of samara (reincarnation), karma (all actions have consequences), dharma (right behaviour/duty), moksha (release, liberation).
What was being articulated (cont). Greece: Development of systems of government: tyranny, arbiters (like Solon), oligarchies, democracy Development of philosophies of governance and of individual life e.g. Plato on the Just Ruler and the Ideal State (Republic); Aristotle on Politics; Socrates the unexamined life is not worth living Key definitions of virtues. A movement away from religion towards reason ? Rome: Development of system of Republican government / balancing of needs to different sections of society / civil strife within republic over those rights and responsibilities Cf. Cicero Just as in the case of string instruments or flutes or singing, a certain harmony must be maintained out of distinct sounds and this harmony, arising out of a blending of very dissimilar notes, is nonetheless made concordant and in agreement, so a civitas is made harmonious by the common agreement of the most dissimilar elements through a blending of the highest, lowest and intermediate orders as if they were musical notes. What the musicians call harmony in song is concord in the state, the tightest and best bond of safety in a state, and it can in no way exist without justice Cicero De Res Publica 2.67-9.
Imagining the Dialogue Gore Vidal Creation 1981: The story follows the adventures of a fictional "Cyrus Spitama", an Achaemenid Persian diplomat of the 6th-5th century BCE who travels the known world comparing the political and religious beliefs of various empires, kingdoms and republics of the time. Over the course of his life, he meets many influential philosophical figures of his time, including Zoroaster, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Buddha, Mahavira, Lao-Tsu, and Confucius. (see Text) Fenelon (1651-1715) Dialogue des Morts a dialogue between Socrates and Confucius (see Text)
Support for the concept of the Axial Age David Christian Maps of Time 2005: notes that the first "universal religions" appeared in the age of the first universal empires and of the first all-encompassing trading networks David Graeber Debt: the first 5000 years 2011: The ultimate effect of the introduction of coinage was, an "ideal division of spheres of human activity that endures to this day: on the one hand the market, on the other, religion (coinage coming into being at same time in these societies) Karen Armstrong (The Great Transformation 2006): emphasis on religious development: At their core the Axial faiths share an ideal of sympathy, respect, and universal concern Regardless of their theological beliefs , they all concluded that if people made a disciplined effort to re-educate themselves, they would experience an enhancement of their humanity an alternative state of consciousness The Great Transformation 390-1 all the axial movements that arose in this period had essential ingredients: They were acutely conscious of the suffering that seemed an inescapable part of the human condition, and all stressed the need for a more spiritualised religion that was not so heavily dependent upon external rituals and practice. They had new concern about the individual conscience and morality All the sages recoiled from the violence of their time, and preached an ethic of compassion and justice. They taught their disciples to look within themselves for truth and not to rely on the teachings of priests and other religious experts. Nothing should be taken on trust, everything should be questioned, and old values must be subjected to critical scrutiny A Short History of Myth 2005.80-1. a Ewert Cousins Spirituality in Today s World : we are now in a second axial age.
Support for the Axial Age cont. It has become a commonplace, after Karl Jaspers s Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte - the first original book on history to appear in post-war Germany in 1949 to speak of the Achsenzeit, of the axial age, which included the China of Confucius and Lao-Tse, the India of Buddha, the Iran of Zoroaster, the Palestine of the Prophets and the Greece of the philosophers, the tragedians and the historians. There is a very real element of truth in this formulation. All these civilizations display literacy, a complex political organization combining central government and local authorities, elaborate town-planning, advanced metal technology and the practice of international diplomacy. In all these civilizations there is a profound tension between political powers and intellectual movements. Everywhere one notices attempts to introduce greater purity, greater justice, greater perfection and a more universal explanation of things. New models of reality, either mystically or prophetically or rationally apprehended, are propounded as a criticism of, and alternative to, the prevailing models. We are in the age of criticism. Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization 1975.8-9
Nuancing the Axial age: Samuel Eisenstadt ed. (The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilisations 2006): more important divergences than Jaspers allowed for? A new type of intellectual elite became aware of the necessity to actively construct the world according to some transcendental vision. The successful institutionalizing of such conceptions and visions gave rise to extensive re-ordering of the internal contours of societies as well as their internal relations. This changed the dynamics of history p. 1 In all these civilisations there also took place a far-reaching re-ordering rooted in the conception of the relation between the political and the higher transcendental order. In particular the idea of accountability of rulers/ rulership/ governance appeared (p.8) But while broad conditions or processes were common to all the Axial age civilisations, yet there developed great differences in their concrete constellation in the different Axial age civilisations, and these differences greatly influenced the basic contours of these civilisations p. 25 Cf work of E. Voegelin (Order and History 1957) rejects an axial age and speaks instead of a leap of being and a plurality of leaps that differ widely with regard to the radicalism of their break, as well as with regard to the comprehensiveness and penetration of their advance towards the truth about the order of being (vol 2.p.3-4) Cf S. Breuer 1994 Kulturen der Achsenzeit: Leistung und Grenzen eines geschichtsphilosophischen Konzepts , Saeculum 45.1-33: the changes happening in these places at roughly the same time are coincidences, not linked (but we can still call them an Axial age).
Nuancing the Axial Age (cont): R. Bellah 2005 What s Axial about the Axial Age? Archives Europeenes de Sociologie 46: 69-87 It has long been evident that the cultural transformations of the several societies that define the axial age: Greece, Israel, China and India in the first millennium B.C. are by no means uniform. All four exemplify or at least approach the capacity of theoretic culture for second-order thinking , the capacity to examine critically the very foundations of cosmological, ethical and political order. But second order thinking is, by its very nature, limited to an intellectual elite; it is never a popular enterprise. The invention of formal logic is surely an indication of the emergence of theoretic culture, but does not in itself signify a sociocultural breakthrough. If we take Plato as the prime exemplar of the Greek axial transformation we can see how the examination of the basis of argumentation went hand in hand with new cosmological and ethical conceptualizations. Formal logic appears in India and China in the axial age, but in both cases more as a specialized inquiry than as central to the axial transformation. Formal theoretic developments seem virtually absent in ancient Israel . Deep comparison of the four cases is an as yet unfulfilled requisite for further progress in understanding the axial age 2005.88
Bellah cont. those responsible for the most radical innovations were seldom successful. In the short run they usually failed: think of Jeremiah, Socrates, Confucius, Jesus. Buddhism finally disappeared in India, the Buddha s home ground. Jaspers sums it up starkly: The Axial Period too ended in failure. History went on So breakthroughs were not only preceded by breakdowns, they were followed by breakdowns. History indeed. The insights, however, at least the ones we know of, survived. The very failures that followed them stimulated repeated efforts to recover the initial insights, to realize the so far unrealized possibilities. It is this that has given such dynamism to the axial traditions. But important though these traditions are to us, and Weil reminds us that any talk of an axial age is culturally autobiographical - the axial age is axial because of what it has meant to us. They give us no grounds for triumphalism. The failures have been many and it is hard to gauge the successes. It is hard to say that we today, particularly today, are living up to the insights of the great axial prophets and sages. 2005.89
Disagreement with the Axial Age Iain Provan 2013: Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World that Never Was (Baylor University Press, Texas) Jaspers so driven in desire for future peace that he ended up re-writing the past to lend support for our hopes for the future (p.2) We don t know about the cultures that came before to justify the sharp disjuncture Jaspers calls for Nor did the axial age end in uniform decline (as Jaspers outlined) Each civilization is much more different than Jaspers allows for There never was an entity as an axial age. It is a construct that has little to say for itself from the point of view of actual historical data. Only inattention to the past, or indeed downright misrepresentation of it, provides the theory with the air that it needs to breathe in order to stay alive p. 39.
More disagreement: Diamond MacCulloch: Axial age is a baggy monster, which tries to bundle up all sorts of diversities over four very different civilisations, only two of which had much contact with each other during the six centuries that (after adjustments) he eventually singled out, between 800 and 200 BCE Ian Morris (Why the West Rules for Now 2010): This was a turning point because history failed to turn: both East and West continued to develop, having contrived solutions to help them outrun societal collapse (cf. back to 1200 BCE)
