DOCSLIB.ORG

Should the Axial Age Be Renamed? Benjamin Schewel University of Virginia [email protected]

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Should the Axial Age Be Renamed? Benjamin Schewel University of Virginia Bbs9g@Virginia.Edu Volume 13, No 2, Fall 2018 ISSN 1932-1066 Should the Axial Age be Renamed? Benjamin Schewel University of Virginia [email protected] Abstract: The recent popularization of the term "axial age" has stimulated a debate about whether scholars should develop a more precise, way of describing the socio-spiritual parallelisms of the first millennium BCE. This essay evaluates Eugene Halton and John Torpey's recent contributions to this debate. Both authors agree on the basic problem with the term "axial age"—it falsely suggests that history displays one spiritual pivot—yet they reach quite different conclusions regarding terminological alternatives. Halton suggests abandoning the term "axial age" and speaking instead of a "moral revolution." Torpey recommends keeping it but simply applying it to several other periods of transformation. This essay ultimately rejects both suggestions and recommends instead that scholars continue using the term "axial age" in the same, heuristically vague way that they tend to employ other world-historical periodizing terms such as "antiquity," "medieval," or "modernity." Keywords: Halton, Eugene; Jaspers, Karl; Torpey, John; Axial Age; social theory; philosophy of history; historiography. The middle centuries of the first millennium BCE The recent popularization of the term "axial witnessed the emergence of the classical religious and age" has stimulated new lines of critical inquiry. A philosophical lineages—Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Indic, growing literature charts the pre- and post-Jaspersian and Chinese—that still orient the lives of most people development of the idea of an axial age. There is today. Given the centrality of these developments to all also a burgeoning, albeit still flawed, attempt to use subsequent history, Karl Jaspers described this period algorithmic tools for testing the empirical validity of as Achsenzeit (axial age).1 A wide range of distinguished the axial age thesis. Given its numerous empirical and intellectuals engaged and developed Jaspers' concept.2 conceptual limitations, an expanding debate has also But it is only in recent years that the term "axial age" emerged as to whether the term "axial age" is even worth entered the general academic parlance. preserving. Two recent proponents of this position are Eugene Halton and John Torpey. Both authors agree that the axial age thesis falsely suggests that history 1 Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, exhibits one and only one spiritual pivot, yet they differ München, DE: Fischer Bücherei, 1955. [Henceforth in their conclusions. Halton prefers to let go of the term cited as UZG] "axial age" and, instead, to speak of a first millennium 2 For example, Eric Voegelin, Arnold J. Toynbee, BCE moral revolution. Torpey alternatively keeps the Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Benjamin Schwartz, Shmuel concept of an axial age, yet applies it to several other Eisenstadt, Jürgen Habermas, John Hick, Robert periods of major socio-spiritual ferment. Bellah , or Charles Taylor. Benjamin Schewel, "Should the Axial Age be Renamed?," Existenz 13/2 (2018), 86-92 First posted 6-23-2019 Should the Axial Age be Renamed? 87 Eugene Halton's Argument debate represents. For example, let us consider the difference between the axial age debate and efforts In a major contribution to scholarship on the history by theoretical physicists to name a newly theorized of the axial age debate, Halton highlights the largely sub-atomic particle. Physicists largely agree about the overlooked line of axial thought that leads from content of their background theoretical framework nineteenth century Scottish folklorist, John Stuart- and of the characteristics of the newly identified sub- Glennie, through to the visionary American urban atomic particle. The only issue is how this sub-atomic planner and social critic, Lewis Mumford.3 However, particle should be named. In such cases, naming rights beyond merely clarifying the presence of this intellectual are given to the first or leading figure who theorized trajectory, Halton further suggests that scholars should the particle, perhaps even by attribution of that person's abandon the term "axial age" altogether and adopt as an name (for instance, the "Higgs-Boson particle"). In the alternative Stuart-Glennie's phrase "moral revolution."4 axial age debate, however, terminological differences Halton presents three arguments for his thesis. represent deeper disagreements about the content The first argument relates to what Halton calls and significance of the period, as well as about the the "ethics of terminology." Specifically, he claims that broader vision of history in which the period is placed. since Stuart-Glennie developed a resonant concept of For example, when Eric Voegelin rejects the idea of the axial age some seventy-five years before Jaspers, an axial age and proposes instead the term "ecumenic terminological ethics requires using Stuart-Glennie's age," the matter cannot be resolved by simply noting term instead of the one introduced by Jaspers. Halton that Jaspers wrote first about the period. For, though, quotes Charles Peirce to support this view: "The author Voegelin acknowledges the same historical parallelisms of a scientific conception has the first right to name it; as Jaspers, he rejects the proposal that they constitute and his name ought to be accepted, unless there are facets of a common socio-spiritual breakthrough. The grave substantial objections to it" (AMR x). terminological divergence between Voegelin and I find this argument unconvincing. Stuart-Glennie Jaspers reflects a meaningful theoretical disagreement. was not the first to highlight the religious-philosophical The same can be said for Stuart-Glennie and Jaspers' parallelisms of the first millennium BCE, as it is shown respectively proposed terms. These debates cannot by Jan Assmann who mentions several thinkers who be resolved by referencing temporal priority. Indeed, preceded Stuart-Glennie on this front.5 So if one decides Halton's own arguments about the earliest stages of to apply Peirce's terminological ethics to the axial age religious history actually confirm the inapplicability of debate, naming rights would have to go to someone else, Peirce's ethics of terminology to the axial age debate. most likely Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, In addition to highlighting the existence and merits of who is, according to Assmann, the first known figure to Stuart-Glennie's concept of the moral revolution, Halton have written about the subject. also claims that Stuart-Glennie's notion of panzooinism Furthermore, Peirce's terminological ethics does is superior to Edward Tylor's term "animism," not apply to the kind of pre-paradigmatic social- developed in 1871, two years prior to Stuart-Glennie's scientific and humanistic inquiries that the axial age contribution (AMR xi). Halton's second argument concerns the possibility 3 Eugene Halton, From the Axial Age to the Moral of using the term "moral revolution" instead of "axial Revolution: John Stuart-Glennie, Karl Jaspers, and a age." His main claim on this front is that, whereas New Understanding of the Idea, London, UK: Palgrave "axial age" falsely suggests that there is only one Macmillan, 2014. [Henceforth cited as AMR] major pivot to history, the term "moral revolution" 4 Eugene Halton, "Sociology's Missed Opportunity: presents the socio-spiritual developments of the first John Stuart-Glennie's Lost Theory of the Moral millennium BCE as but one period of transformation Revolution, Also Known as the Axial Age," Journal of among others. Classical Sociology 17/3 (August 2017), 191-212. I agree with Halton's critique of this aspect of 5 Assmann lists Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil- the axial age thesis, which I henceforth describe as its Duperron, Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, Georg F. W. prioritization problem. The term "axial age" suggests Hegel, Eduard Maximilian Röth, Ernst von Lasaulx, that history's one axis emerges in the Eurasian cultural and Victor von Strauß und Torney. See Jan Assmann, developments of the first millennium BCE. Jaspers Achsenzeit: Eine Archäologie Der Moderne, Frankfurt, DE: C. H. Beck, 2018. [Henceforth cited as AAM] describes this situation as follows: Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 88 Benjamin Schewel It would seem that this axis of history is to be found of these complex developments. Yet it seems equally in the period around 500 B.C., in the spiritual process difficult to argue that any of the other specifying terms that occurred between 800 and 200 B.C. It is there that that authors put forth—transcendence, reflexivity, we meet with the most deepcut dividing line in history. reason and individuality, history, universal-imperial, Man, as we know him today, came into being. For short prophetic, or renunciation—are any more suitable. we may style this the "Axial Period."6 Herein remains the value of the word "axial." It One can expose the conceptual shortcoming in draws one's attention to a complex set of transformations Jaspers' logic by simply noting how, in addition to without suggesting an essential core. Mumford the important religious and philosophical lineages makes this point well when he describes "axial" as that admittedly arose during the first millennium "a deliberately ambivalent term."8 Thus, instead of BCE, "man, as we know him today," also came into limiting inquiry by proposing one theory of the period's being through the contributions of the languages and core, the deliberate vagueness of the term "axial age" patterns of small scale community that arose during the opens a horizon of comparative inquiry within which Paleolithic period, the plants and animals that Neolithic diverse insights can emerge. Indeed, I would go so far peoples domesticated, the cities and bureaucratic states as to argue that if scholars had followed Stuart-Glennie that the early civilizations established, and the new in adopting the term "moral revolution," it would have patterns of technical inquiry that appeared during been more difficult for the various perspectives that one Modernity.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • All and Nothing: Reflections on Experience and Transcendence in the Eurasian Axial Age, C. 800-200
    All and Nothing: Reflections on Experience and Transcendence in the Eurasian Axial Age, c. 800-200 BCE Copyright 2006 Peter von Sivers Salt Lake City , the place where my wife and I and our cats live, is roughly equidistant from the three states of Nevada , Idaho , and Wyoming . Ignoring the admonitions of local church authorities, every weekend thousands of Salt Lakers travel by car, bus, or plane to these neighboring states to gamble in casinos, buy lottery tickets, or (during the summer) bet on horse races. For better or worse, even some of my University of Utah colleagues cannot refrain from practicing a little mundane magic, by visiting their favorite slot machines or betting windows. Secularism has arrived in Zion . With this rather quotidian example, I want to draw your attention to the fact that experience followed by transcendence pops up in the strangest places (no double entendre intended with my reference to Salt Lake City ). In the Voegelin Society we normally expect to hear only about peak occurrences of experience and transcendence in noetic and revelatory thought. For the moment, however, bear with me and reflect, if you will, on the gambler's peak moment: When the dice are rolled, the lottery drum is turned, or the horses break from the starting gate, he or she experiences the thrill of All and Nothing, that is, of being at the brink where winning and losing are still indistinguishably intertwined and only moments before the two separate into either luck or loss. Once les jeux sont faits the two move so far apart that the gambler wonders how he/she could ever have experienced them as a continuum.
    [Show full text]
  • The Modern Tripartition, the Axial Age Thesis, and East-West Philosophical Communication Rajesh C
    Volume 6, No 2, Fall 2011 ISSN 1932-1066 The Modern Tripartition, the Axial Age Thesis, and East-West Philosophical Communication Rajesh C. Shukla Saint Paul University, Canada [email protected] Abstract: In this essay I examine the relationship of religion, philosophy, and science. I argue that despite their apparent epistemological and methodological differences, these three modes of human enquiry can be aligned together in thought as well as in experience. I contend that science provides us with contingent cognitions and that all such cognitions stand in an acute need of an ontological principle that can support them. Furthermore, following Karl Jaspers I suggest that the knowledge of Being necessitates a transcendence of the natural world and scientific framework associated with it. I conclude that Jaspers notion of "encompassing" and Buddhist theory of emptiness can be useful not only in resolving the conflict between religion, philosophy, and science, but also in fostering philosophical communication between East and West. At the outset one may say that an individual's religion, science and philosophy has occurred, which intellectual enquiry and imagination take various forms leaves these disciples to their more or less tightly and expresses themselves in various ways. Some of demarcated space. But the above separation, Jaspers these enquiries fall in the realm of science, others in the rightly points out, carries its own risk and contradiction. realm of religion and some in the realm of philosophy; The main risk lies in the thinness of epistemic content but common to all these realms is a shared cognitive of the scientific pursuits;1 and moreover it can also current that runs through all of them and binds them undermine scientific goals and projects by turning them together in their pursuit of truth, understanding of the into a pseudo-science or dishonesty.2 More clearly, the world and existential situation of humankind.
    [Show full text]
  • A Systematic Assessment of the Axial Age Thesis for the Emergence of Moralizing Religious Thought
    University of Oxford Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 2JD United Kingdom Tele: +44 1865 270000 Fax: +44 1865 270708 Web: www.ox.ac.uk A Systematic Assessment of the Axial Age Thesis for the Emergence of Moralizing Religious Thought Daniel Austin Mullins*1, Daniel Hoyer*2,6, Christina Collins3, Thomas Currie3, Kevin Feeney4, Pieter François1, Patrick Savage1, Harvey Whitehouse1, Peter Turchin5,6 1 University of Oxford 2 University of Toronto 3 University of Exeter 4 Trinity College Dublin 5 University of Connecticut 6 Evolution Institute Did universalizing moralizing ideologies and universal egalitarian ethics first emerge only in the complex social formations in what is today China, Greece, India, Iran, and Israel and Palestine between 800 BCE and 200 BCE, as proponents of the Axial Age thesis contend? Sociocultural transformations during this period remain poorly understood because of a lack of systematic historical-sociological analysis. Seshat: Global History Databank provides us with new tools for examining this topic in a large sample of social formations across Afro-Eurasia during the first two millennia BCE and first millennium CE, allowing us to evaluate the Axial Age thesis against alternative explanations. Pioneering analysis of this massive collection of historical information reveals that universalizing morality and egalitarian ethics did not first emerge only in the five regions identified by proponents of the Axial Age thesis between 800 BCE and 200 BCE but appeared across Afro-Eurasia hundreds and in some cases thousands of years prior to the proposed Axial Age before fluctuating dynamically for millennia. This result raises key questions for future empirically-led evaluations of the moral foundations of complex societies.
    [Show full text]
  • The World of the Axial Sages
    The World of the Axial Sages The World of the Axial Sages: The Age of Awakening By John C. Stephens The World of the Axial Sages: The Age of Awakening By John C. Stephens This book first published 2021 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2021 by John C. Stephens All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-6081-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6081-9 To Denise For the highest images in every religion there is an analogue in a state of the soul… —Frederick Nietzsche, Notes, 1875 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ....................................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One .............................................................................................. 15 A Day in the Life of Religion Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 27 Akhenaten’s Countermyth Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 37 The Visions of Zoroaster Chapter Four ............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Mcgilchrist and the Axial Age
    Article In Search of the Origins of the Western Mind: McGilchrist and the Axial Age Susanna Rizzo 1 and Greg Melleuish 2,* 1 School of Arts & Sciences, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Cnr Broadway and Abercrombie St, P.O. Box 944, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia; [email protected] 2 School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2525, Australia * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 26 November 2020; Accepted: 12 January 2021; Published: 25 January 2021 Abstract: This paper considers and analyses the idea propounded by Iain McGilchrist that the foundation of Western rationalism is the dominance of the left side of the brain and that this occurred first in ancient Greece. It argues that the transformation that occurred in Greece, as part of a more widespread transformation that is sometimes termed the Axial Age, was, at least in part, connected to the emergence of literacy which transformed the workings of the human brain. This transformation was not uniform and took different forms in different civilisations, including China and India. The emergence of what Donald terms a “theoretic” culture or what can also be called “rationalism” is best understood in terms of transformations in language, including the transition from poetry to prose and the separation of word and thing. Hence, the development of theoretic culture in Greece is best understood in terms of the particularity of Greek cultural development. This transition both created aporias, as exemplified by the opposition between the ontologies of “being” and “becoming”, and led to the eventual victory of theoretic culture that established the hegemony of the left side of the brain.
    [Show full text]
  • Axial Age Religious Commitment in Theoretical Perspective (Doi: 10.2383/73711)
    Il Mulino - Rivisteweb Mark Gould Axial Age Religious Commitment in Theoretical Perspective (doi: 10.2383/73711) Sociologica (ISSN 1971-8853) Fascicolo 1, gennaio-aprile 2013 Ente di afferenza: () Copyright c by Societ`aeditrice il Mulino, Bologna. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Per altre informazioni si veda https://www.rivisteweb.it Licenza d’uso L’articolo `emesso a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d’uso Rivisteweb, `efatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l’articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Symposium / Ritual and Religion in Human Evolution Axial Age Religious Commitment in Theoretical Perspective by Mark Gould doi: 10.2383/73711 While this paper aims to construct theoretical arguments, it might properly be viewed as a narrative, relating a story instead of making analytical contentions and evaluating them empirically. It is, however, “theoretic,” a second-order reflection on the logic of argument in Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution (RHE). I want to convey my conviction that RHE should be taken seriously, and that, both regarding its form of argumentation and the content of its arguments, taking it seriously requires a critical perspective on it. The focus of my concern is on “religion,” on what Bellah neglects in his characterization of “religion.” I contend that Bellah should reconsider certain lessons from our shared teach- er, Talcott Parsons: Parsons [1949] argued that Weber and Durkheim transcended the dichotomy between positivist and idealist theories, the former scientific and the latter humanistic.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Article
    Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 124 International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2017) Concept of the “Axial Age” in Modern Philosophy in Russia Sergei Nizhnikov Department History of Philosophy Peoples‟ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 6 Miklukho-Maklaya Street, Moscow, 117198, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Abstract—The article shows the principles of K. Jaspers’s Jaspers criticized the existing concepts of historical concept of “axial age” that were stressed and developed in development: “…in his dispute with Spengler, Jaspers insists modern philosophy in Russia. It analyzes ideas expressed from on the cohesion of the world‟s historical process, and in his philosophers and historians including M.K. Mamardashvili dispute with Marxism – on its “spiritual component”. This is (universalism of “axial age”), A.V. Semushkin (the ruin of due to Jaspers‟ comprehension that “… a genuine connection myth and the birth of reflection), P.P. Gaidenko (break to the among the peoples is a spiritual one, not hereditary or transcendent reality), A. Men' (Bible prophetism as an integral natural”. This cohesion, according to P. Gaidenko, the part of the “axial age”), P.K. Grechko (infinite thinker sees in a “transcendent source” [1. P. 310-311, 314]. communication). This piece of work opens a certain generality For Jaspers “Social conditions clarify the fact, but not give it in positions of the mentioned thinkers, universalism of their the causal explanation. For a certain social state belongs to thought and openness to other cultures, readiness for dialogue. the aggregated spiritual phenomenon of the axial age” [2.
    [Show full text]
  • A Quantitative Philology of Introspection
    ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 24 September 2012 INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE doi: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00080 A quantitative philology of introspection Carlos G. Diuk 1* †, D. Fernandez Slezak 2†, I. Raskovsky 2, M. Sigman 3 and G. A. Cecchi 4 1 Department of Psychology, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 2 Department of Computer Science, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina 3 Department of Physics, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina 4 Computational Biology Center, T.J. Watson IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA Edited by: The cultural evolution of introspective thought has been recognized to undergo a drastic Sidarta Ribeiro, Federal University of change during the middle of the first millennium BC. This period, known as the “Axial Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil Age,” saw the birth of religions and philosophies still alive in modern culture, as well Reviewed by: as the transition from orality to literacy—which led to the hypothesis of a link between Hernan Makse, City College, USA Joao Queiroz, Federal University of introspection and literacy. Here we set out to examine the evolution of introspection Juiz de Fora, Brazil in the Axial Age, studying the cultural record of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian *Correspondence: literary traditions. Using a statistical measure of semantic similarity, we identify a single Carlos G. Diuk, Department of “arrow of time” in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and a more complex Psychology, Princeton Neuroscience non-monotonic dynamics in the Greco-Roman tradition reflecting the rise and fall of the Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
    [Show full text]
  • GT and Literature Overview
    The Great Transformation: Classic Texts cited or alluded to: Literature by chapter and by tradition; underlined are found in Norton’s Anthology Note: in many cases the name of an author or tradition is used rather than a specific text; Greece Israel India China Chapter 1: Hexateuch Zend Avesta Genesis 1-3; Brahmanas Exodus 19-20; Rig Vedas; 2: Demeter 2 Kings 9; Dionysus Joshua 24; 3: Iliad Amos; Hosea; 6 Classics; Odyssey; Isaiah; 4: Hesiod 1-2 Kings 13 Upanishads Jeremiah; 5: Orpheus; 2nd Isaiah; Patanjali’s Yoga Psalms 137; Samkhya Job; Ezekiel; Genesis 1; Enuma Elish; 6: Aeschylus 2nd Isaiah Jain literature Sophocles Haggai; Euripides Zechariah; 1-2 Chronicles; 7: Zeno; 2nd Isaiah Dhammapada Yangzi Parmenides; Ezra; Mahabharata Mozi Empedocles; Nehemiah; Zhuangzi Anaxogorus; Democritus; Sophists; Protagorus; Thucydides; Herodotus; Aristophanes; Plato; Aristotle; 8: Plato; Mahabharata Yangzi Aristotle; Zhuangzi 9: Epicurus; I Maccabbees; Shvetashvatara Legalists; Zeno; Upanishad Han Fei; Pyrrho; Bhagavad-Gita Xunzi Epictetus; Daodejing 10: Talmud; Gospels; Paul; Quran; The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions, 2006. An outline by Dr. Kenney (this first installment includes Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2). Introduction: 1: The current state of affairs: A: Progress: 1: economic; 2. scientific B: Problems: 1: nuclear capacity; 2: environmental issues; 3: religious terrorism; 4: irrelevance of religion; 5: secularization; 6: fundamentalism; C: Solutions: 1: insights from the axial age and Karl Jaspers;
    [Show full text]
  • WORLD RELIGIONS and the THEORY of the AXIAL AGE Jan Assmann the Theory of the Axial Age As Put Forward by Karl Jaspers in 1949 A
    WORLD RELIGIONS AND THE THEORY OF THE AXIAL AGE Jan Assmann The theory of the axial age as put forward by Karl Jaspers in 1949 and elaborated since then especially by Shmuel Eisenstadt and his cir- cle1 is centred on the following principal assumptions: there is but One Truth and One Mankind.2 At a given point in its moral, spiritual and intellectual evolution, mankind ‘broke through’ to a much clearer apprehension of this Truth. This happened independently in several places at approximately the same time around 500 BCE. The main characteristics of this break-through may be summarized as univer- salisation and distanciation. Universalisation is concerned with the recognition of absolute Truths, valid for all times and all peoples; this implies features such as reflexivity, abstraction, second order thinking, theory, systematisation etc. Distanciation is concerned with introduc- ing ontological and epistemological distinctions, such as the eternal and the temporal world, being and appearance, spirit and matter, cri- tique of the ‘given’ in view of the true, etc., in short: the invention of transcendence and the construction of two-world theories. The Axial Age is generally understood as an evolutionary achievement of the highest order, a kind of mutation through which, in Jaspers’ words, “entstand der Mensch, mit dem wir bis heute leben”3 – man as we know him today came into being, homo sapiens axialis, so to 1 Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, Munich: Piper 1949. The debate on the “Axial Age” was continued in the 70s in the American journal Daedalus whose most important issue appeared in 1975 under the beautiful title “The Age of Transcendence”.
    [Show full text]
  • Prolegomenon to Interreligious Dialogue in China
    relationship the Daoist concepts of the dialectic of harmony containing many elements: the abiding relationship of qi between the yin and the yang, the relationship between being and non-being, Dao and De, the imprints of one and three in all things, and the concept of self- emptying aiming at wu- wei (non-doing) as an ultimate goal of Prolegomenon to a human being in harmony with the Dao. He also finds that Chi- nese culture’s values of harmony, humility, and intuitiveness and its Interreligious Dialogue emphasis on relationship befit a good disposition for approaching the mystery of the Trinity, which is essential to Christianity. The proposal in China: of this prolegomenon is that an in- depth analysis of Daoism and the Daoism, the Trinitarian Relationship, Christian Trinitarian theology can contribute to the inculturation of the Christian faith in the Chinese context in ways that can contribute and Christian Inculturation to the positive development of Chinese culture in today’s world. Kin Sheung Chiaretto Yan Central and South China Seminary hina has gone through tremendous changes since the ini- tiation of its Open Door Policy in 1979. The paramount leader of this change, Deng Xiaoping, coined the phrase Abstract: While Matteo Ricci inaugurated a fruitful dialogue between C“building socialism with Chinese characteristics.” By putting this Christianity and Confucianism, today this dialogue must account for proposal into practice, an enormous potential has been unleashed, all of Chinese culture, including Daoism. Church Fathers, such as St. and China has achieved unparalleled development. Recently, Pres- Augustine of Hippo, made great contributions to theology out of their ident Xi Jinping expounded new policies concerning religions in profound experience of God and the encounter between Christianity China today.1 What consequences will these policies bring about? and Latin culture that has its roots in Greek philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Axial Period": What Was It and What Does It Signify? Author(S): Antony Black Reviewed Work(S): Source: the Review of Politics, Vol
    The "Axial Period": What Was It and What Does It Signify? Author(s): Antony Black Reviewed work(s): Source: The Review of Politics, Vol. 70, No. 1, Special Issue on Comparative Political Theory (Winter, 2008), pp. 23-39 Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20452955 . Accessed: 23/03/2012 01:25 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review of Politics. http://www.jstor.org The Review of Politics 70 (2008), 23-39. Copyright g University ofNotre Dame DOI: 10.1017/S0034670508000168 Printed in theUSA The "Axial Period": What Was It andWhat Does It Signify? AntonyBlack Abstract: Karl Jaspers coined the term the "axial period" to referto what he saw as the simultaneous development in several differentand separate societies-China, India, Iran, Israel, Greece-of "a new departure within mankind." What he meant has been characterized as "a kind of critical, reflective questioning of the actual and a new vision of what lies beyond." While it is true that people in each of these separate cultures began to develop new ways of talking about the cosmos, ethics, and community, Jaspers's approach and description of these phenomena were, I shall argue, highly defective.
    [Show full text]