> the historical time frame he labels, "The Axial Age" it's not Graeber's idea.
from the WIKIPEDIA: >>The Axial Age or Axial Period (Ger. Achsenzeit, "axis time") is a term coined >>by German philosopher Karl Jaspers to describe the period from 800 to 200 BC, >>during which, according to Jaspers, similar revolutionary thinking appeared >>in Persia, India, China and the Occident. The period is also sometimes >>referred to as the Axis Age.[1] Jaspers, in his Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History), identified a number of key Axial Age thinkers as having had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Jaspers saw in these developments in religion and philosophy a striking parallel without any obvious direct transmission of ideas from one region to the other, having found no recorded proof of any extensive intercommunication between Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China. Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared. Jaspers' approach to the culture of the middle of the first millennium BC has been adopted by other scholars and academics, and has become a point of discussion in the history of religion.<< the explanation that makes most sense to me is that it was a period of city-building during which old tribal religions were subject to doubt, so that new ones had to be invented. >> Jaspers' axial shifts included the rise of Platonism, which would later >> become a major influence on the Western world through both Christianity and >> secular thought throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Parsva >> (23rd Tirthankara in 9th century BCE) and Mahavira, (24th Tirthankara in 6th >> century BCE), known as the fordmakers of Jainism lived during this age. They >> propagated the religion of sramanas (previous Tirthankaras) and influenced >> Indian philosophy by propounding the principles of ahimsa (non-violence), >> karma, samsara and asceticism. Buddhism, also of the sramana tradition of >> India, was another of the world's most influential philosophies, founded by >> Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha, who lived during this period; its spread >> was aided by Ashoka, who lived late in the period. In China, Confucianism >> arose during this era, where it remains a profound influence on social and >> religious life. Zoroastrianism, another of Jaspers' examples, is crucial to >> the deve! lopment of monotheism -- although Jaspers uses the Seleucid-era estimate for the founding of Zoroastrianism, which is actually the date of Cyrus' unification of Persia. The exact date of Zarathustra's life is debated by scholars with some, such as Mary Boyce, arguing that Zoroastrianism itself is significantly older. Others, such as William W. Malandra and R.C. Zaehner suggest that he may indeed have been an early contemporary of Cyrus living around 600 BC. Jaspers also included the authors of the Upanishads, Lao Tzu, Homer, Socrates, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Thucydides, Archimedes, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah as axial figures. Jaspers held Socrates, Confucius and Siddhartha Gautama in especially high regard, describing each of them as an exemplary human being and paradigmatic personality.<< -- Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, at the very least you should know the nature of that evil. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
