Axial Age (also Axis Age,[1] from the German Achsenzeit) is a term coined by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. It refers to broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred in a variety of locations from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE.
According to Jaspers, during this period, universalizing modes of thought appeared in Persia, India, China, the Levant, and the Greco-Roman world, in a striking parallel development, without any obvious admixture between these disparate cultures. Jaspers identified key thinkers from this age who had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged.
The historical validity of the Axial Age is disputed.[2][3][4] Some criticisms of Jaspers include the lack of a demonstrable common denominator between the intellectual developments that are supposed to have emerged in unison across ancient Greece, the Levant, India, and China; lack of any radical discontinuity with "preaxial" and "postaxial" periods; and exclusion of pivotal figures that do not fit the definition (for example, Jesus, Muhammad, and Akhenaten).[5]
Despite these criticisms, the Axial Age continues to be an influential idea, with many scholars accepting that profound changes in religious and philosophical discourse did indeed take place but disagreeing as to the underlying reasons. To quote Robert Bellah and Hans Joas, "The notion that in significant parts of Eurasia the middle centuries of the first millennium BCE mark a significant transition in human cultural history, and that this period can be referred to as the Axial Age, has become widely, but not universally, accepted."[6]
^Meister, Chad (2009). Introducing Philosophy of Religion. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-203-88002-9.
^Spinney L. (2019). "When did societies become modern? 'Big history' dashes popular idea of Axial Age". Nature. 576 (7786): 189–190. Bibcode:2019Natur.576..189S. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03785-w. PMID 31822841.
^Smith A. (2015). "Between facts and myth: Karl Jaspers and the actuality of the axial age". International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. 76 (4): 315–334. doi:10.1080/21692327.2015.1136794. hdl:2066/155741.
^Mullins, Daniel Austin; Hoyer, Daniel; Collins, Christina; Currie, Thomas; Feeney, Kevin; François, Pieter; Savage, Patrick E.; Whitehouse, Harvey; Turchin, Peter (2018). "A Systematic Assessment of "Axial Age" Proposals Using Global Comparative Historical Evidence". American Sociological Review. 83 (3): 596–626. doi:10.1177/0003122418772567. hdl:10871/36086. ISSN 0003-1224. S2CID 150014307.
^Iain Provan, Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, And The World That Never Was, 2013, Baylor, pp. 1–40.
^Bellah, Robert N.; Joas (2012). The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. p. 1.
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Earliest records Protohistory Proto-writing Ancient Copper Age Bronze Age Iron AgeAxialAge Classical antiquity Late antiquity Africa North America South...
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