The Three Axial Ages

The Three Axial Ages Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of The Three Axial Ages book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

The Three Axial Ages

Author : John Torpey
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813590547

Get Book

The Three Axial Ages by John Torpey Pdf

How should we think about the “shape” of human history since the birth of cities, and where are we headed? Sociologist and historian John Torpey proposes that the “Axial Age” of the first millennium BCE, when some of the world’s major religious and intellectual developments first emerged, was only one of three such decisive periods that can be used to directly affect present social problems, from economic inequality to ecological destruction. Torpey’s argument advances the idea that there are in fact three “Axial Ages,” instead of one original Axial Age and several subsequent, smaller developments. Each of the three ages contributed decisively to how humanity lives, and the difficulties it faces. The earliest, or original, Axial Age was a moral one; the second was material, and revolved around the creation and use of physical objects; and the third is chiefly mental, and focused on the technological. While there are profound risks and challenges, Torpey shows how a worldview that combines the strengths of all three ages has the potential to usher in a period of exceptional human freedom and possibility.

The Three Axial Ages

Author : John Torpey
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2017-03-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813590523

Get Book

The Three Axial Ages by John Torpey Pdf

How should we think about the “shape” of human history since the birth of cities, and where are we headed? Sociologist and historian John Torpey proposes that the “Axial Age” of the first millennium BCE, when some of the world’s major religious and intellectual developments first emerged, was only one of three such decisive periods that can be used to directly affect present social problems, from economic inequality to ecological destruction. Torpey’s argument advances the idea that there are in fact three “Axial Ages,” instead of one original Axial Age and several subsequent, smaller developments. Each of the three ages contributed decisively to how humanity lives, and the difficulties it faces. The earliest, or original, Axial Age was a moral one; the second was material, and revolved around the creation and use of physical objects; and the third is chiefly mental, and focused on the technological. While there are profound risks and challenges, Torpey shows how a worldview that combines the strengths of all three ages has the potential to usher in a period of exceptional human freedom and possibility.

The Axial Age and Its Consequences

Author : Robert N. Bellah,Hans Joas
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2012-10-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674067400

Get Book

The Axial Age and Its Consequences by Robert N. Bellah,Hans Joas Pdf

This book makes the bold claim that intellectual sophistication was born worldwide during the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter. A variety of utopian visions emerged and led to both reform and repression.

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

Author : Stephen K. Sanderson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2018-01-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781350047433

Get Book

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age by Stephen K. Sanderson Pdf

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age describes and explains the evolution of religion over the past ten millennia. It shows that an overall evolutionary sequence can be observed, running from the spirit and shaman dominated religions of small-scale societies, to the archaic religions of the ancient civilizations, and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. Stephen K. Sanderson draws on ideas from new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, history, and sociology. He argues that religion is a biological adaptation that evolved in order to solve a number of human problems, especially those concerned with existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. Much of the focus of the book is on the Axial Age, the period in the second half of the first millennium BCE that marked the greatest religious transformation in world history. The book demonstrates that, as a result of massive increases in the scale and scope of war and large-scale urbanization, the problems of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity became particularly acute. These changes evoked new religious needs, especially for salvation and release from suffering. As a result entirely new religions-Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism-arose to help people cope with the demands of the new historical era.

Religion in Human Evolution

Author : Robert N. Bellah
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 777 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2011-09-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674063099

Get Book

Religion in Human Evolution by Robert N. Bellah Pdf

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Cultural Contact and Appropriation in the Axial-Age Mediterranean World

Author : Baruch Halpern,Kenneth Sacks
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2016-10-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004194557

Get Book

Cultural Contact and Appropriation in the Axial-Age Mediterranean World by Baruch Halpern,Kenneth Sacks Pdf

Cultural Contact explores adaptation, resistance and reciprocity in Axial-Age Mediterranean exchange, a discussion begun in antiquity. Real progress requires relearning the Mediterranean as a historical system. These essays illustrate the problems such study must overcome.

Axial Civilizations And World History

Author : J©đhann P©Łll © rnason,S. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt,Björn Wittrock
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 586 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004139558

Get Book

Axial Civilizations And World History by J©đhann P©Łll © rnason,S. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt,Björn Wittrock Pdf

A collection of essays by social theorists, historical sociologists and area specialists in classical, biblical and Asian studies. The contributions deal with cultural transformations in major civilizational centres during the "Axial Age," the middle centuries of the last millennium BCE, and their long-term consequences.

The Age of the Sages

Author : Mark W. Muesse
Publisher : Fortress Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2013-08-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781451438611

Get Book

The Age of the Sages by Mark W. Muesse Pdf

By setting traditions and thinkers such as Zoroaster, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle side by side, we are able to see more clearly the questions with which they struggled, their similarities and differences, and how their ideas have influenced religious thought down to our day.

Convenient Myths

Author : Iain Provan,Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies Iain Provan
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2019-09-15
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1602589925

Get Book

Convenient Myths by Iain Provan,Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies Iain Provan Pdf

The contemporary world has been shaped by two important and potent myths. Karl Jaspers' construct of the "axial age" envisions the common past (800-200 BC), the time when Western society was born and world religions spontaneously and independently appeared out of a seemingly shared value set. Conversely, the myth of the "dark green golden age," as narrated by David Suzuki and others, asserts that the axial age and the otherworldliness that accompanied the emergence of organized religion ripped society from a previously deep communion with nature. Both myths contend that to maintain balance we must return to the idealized past. In Convenient Myths, Iain Provan illuminates the influence of these two deeply entrenched and questionable myths, warns of their potential dangers, and forebodingly maps the implications of a world founded on such myths.

Seshat History of the Axial Age

Author : Jenny Reddish,Daniel Hoyer
Publisher : Seshat Histories
Page : 520 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2019-12-08
Category : History
ISBN : 0996139567

Get Book

Seshat History of the Axial Age by Jenny Reddish,Daniel Hoyer Pdf

Applying insights from a massive historical research project-Seshat: Global History Databank-this edited volume reveals that there was no single "Axial Age" in human history. Instead, it points to cross-cultural parallels in the co-evolution of egalitarian ideals and constraints on political authority with sociopolitical complexity. The first book-length publication to make use of Seshat's systematic approach to collecting information about the human past, Seshat History of the Axial Age expands the Axial Age debate beyond first-millennium BCE Eurasia. Fourteen chapters survey earlier and later periods as well as developments in regions previously neglected in Axial Age discussions. The conclusion? There was no identifiable Axial Age confined to a few Eurasian hotspots in the last millennium BCE. However, "axiality" as a cluster of traits emerged time and again whenever societies reached a certain threshold of scale and level of complexity. Co-editors Daniel Hoyer and Jenny Reddish paired some of the world's leading historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists with members of the Seshat team. Hoyer, Project Manager with Seshat, is a historian and social scientist specializing in cross-cultural historical analysis. Reddish, Seshat's Lead Editor, is an anthropologist working on the material correlates of cultural systems from societies around the world. She is based at the Complexity Science Hub, Vienna. Seshat: Global History Databank was founded in 2011 to bring together the most current and comprehensive knowledge about human history in one place, collecting what is known about the social and political organization of human societies to track how civilizations have evolved over time. Seshat History of the Axial Age is the first entry in the Seshat Histories series.

From the Axial Age to the Moral Revolution: John Stuart-Glennie, Karl Jaspers, and a New Understanding of the Idea

Author : E. Halton
Publisher : Palgrave Pivot
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2015-11-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1349494879

Get Book

From the Axial Age to the Moral Revolution: John Stuart-Glennie, Karl Jaspers, and a New Understanding of the Idea by E. Halton Pdf

In 1873, John Stuart Stuart-Glennie elaborated a theory of 'the moral revolution' to characterize the historical shift from roughly 600 BCE in a variety of civilizations, as part of a critical theory of history. This book brings light to the now eclipsed theory and offers new contexts and understandings of the phenomenon.

The Great Transformation

Author : Karen Armstrong
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Page : 594 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2009-02-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780307371430

Get Book

The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong Pdf

From one of the world’s leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work: a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period – the ninth century BCE – the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanity’s spiritual development. Now, Karen Armstrong traces the rise and development of this transformative moment in history, examining the brilliant contributions to these traditions made by such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Ezekiel. Armstrong makes clear that despite some differences of emphasis, there was remarkable consensus among these religions and philosophies: each insisted on the primacy of compassion over hatred and violence. She illuminates what this “family” resemblance reveals about the religious impulse and quest of humankind. And she goes beyond spiritual archaeology, delving into the ways in which these Axial Age beliefs can present an instructive and thought-provoking challenge to the ways we think about and practice religion today. A revelation of humankind’s early shared imperatives, yearnings and inspired solutions – as salutary as it is fascinating. Excerpt from The Great Transformation: In our global world, we can no longer afford a parochial or exclusive vision. We must learn to live and behave as though people in remote parts of the globe were as important as ourselves. The sages of the Axial Age did not create their compassionate ethic in idyllic circumstances. Each tradition developed in societies like our own that were torn apart by violence and warfare as never before; indeed, the first catalyst of religious change was usually a visceral rejection of the aggression that the sages witnessed all around them. . . . All the great traditions that were created at this time are in agreement about the supreme importance of charity and benevolence, and this tells us something important about our humanity.

From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond

Author : Saïd Amir Arjomand,Stephen Kalberg
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-03-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781438483412

Get Book

From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond by Saïd Amir Arjomand,Stephen Kalberg Pdf

The post–World War II idea of the Axial Age by Karl Jaspers, and as elaborated into the sociology of axial civilizations by S. N. Eisenstadt in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, continues to be the subject of intense scholarly debate. Examples of this can be found in recent works of Hans Joas and Jürgen Habermas. In From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond, an internationally distinguished group of scholars discuss, advance, and criticize the Jaspers-Eisenstadt thesis, and go beyond it by bringing in the critical influence of Max Weber's sociology of world religions and by exploring intercivilizational encounters in key world regions. The essays within this volume are of unusual interest for their original analysis of relatively neglected civilizational zones, especially Islam and the Islamicate civilization and the Byzantine civilization, and its continuation in Orthodox Russia.

The Origin and Goal of History

Author : Karl Jaspers
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-03-28
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781000357790

Get Book

The Origin and Goal of History by Karl Jaspers Pdf

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was a German psychiatrist and philosopher and one of the most original European thinkers of the twentieth century. As a major exponent of existentialism in Germany, he had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. He was Hannah Arendt’s supervisor before her emigration to the United States in the 1930s and himself experienced the consequences of Nazi persecution. He was removed from his position at the University of Heidelberg in 1937, due to his wife being Jewish. Published in 1949, the year in which the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, The Origin and Goal of History is a vitally important book. It is renowned for Jaspers' theory of an 'Axial Age', running from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Jaspers argues that this period witnessed a remarkable flowering of new ways of thinking that appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world, in striking parallel development but without any obvious direct cultural contact between them. Jaspers identifies key thinkers from this age, including Confucius, Buddha, Zarathustra, Homer and Plato, who had a profound influence on the trajectory of future philosophies and religions. For Jaspers, crucially, it is here that we see the flowering of diverse philosophical beliefs such as scepticism, materialism, sophism, nihilism, and debates about good and evil, which taken together demonstrate human beings' shared ability to engage with universal, humanistic questions as opposed to those mired in nationality or authoritarianism. At a deeper level, The Origin and Goal of History provides a crucial philosophical framework for the liberal renewal of German intellectual life after 1945, and indeed of European intellectual life more widely, as a shattered continent attempted to find answers to what had happened in the preceding years. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Christopher Thornhill.

A Secular Age

Author : Charles Taylor
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 889 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2018-09-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780674986916

Get Book

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor Pdf

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.