Axial Age worldviews came into existence against a background of growing literacy, complex political organizations, early urbanization and advances in metal technology. Hereafter cited in text by page number. 5Karl Jaspers, "The Axial Period," in Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 1-25, 17. It has been argued that there was no notion of 'religion' in Japanese culture until the fateful collision between Japan and the west when American warships appeared off the Japanese coast on 8 July 1853. This sociological vision of an ethical realm standing over and against politics was tragic in the sense that love Bellah's sociology of religion is exceptional in terms of its evolutionary framework and its large-scale perspective. Generally speaking, Weber did not see Islam in the same light despite the theme of suffering in both Sunni and Shi'ite traditions (Turner 1974). Only Law Universal is true Law" (Gathas, 43.1). This selection and Jaspers' general approach indicates the fact that the tradition of humanities in Germany was not invariably Orientalist in denying the value of the religions and philosophical systems of Asia. Firstly Jaspers' work and its legacy sought to avoid any notion of western supremacy and therefore the selection of religious leaders (the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus) was overtly eclectic and global. Continuing to use this site, you agree with this. The Axial Age (also called Axis Age) is the period when, roughly at the same time around most of the inhabited world, the great intellectual, philosophical, and religious systems that came to shape subsequent human society and culture emerged—with the ancient Greek philosophers, Indian metaphysicians and logicians (who articulated the great traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and … Jaspers is important for my interpretation of the history of the sociology of religion, because his work is directly influential in Bellah's approach to the evolution of religion and specifically to the religions of China. Despite their global significance, for Jaspers and subsequently for Bellah, the religions and philosophies of the Axial Age with their theme of acosmistic love were failures in the sense that they ultimately offered no satisfactory answer or practical solution to the institutionalized presence of violence in human societies. These early religio-ethical movements therefore established a division between a spiritual sphere and the everyday world of violence, need and interest.
In summary these religious leaders separated the spiritual world of self-development from the mundane callings of kings and warriors through critical worldviews that were revolutionary.
Jaspers' The Origin and Goal of History was published in 1949; to Hannah Arendt, he had described his ideas on the Axial Age as 'a presumptuous project' (Arendt and Jaspers 1992: 109). Jaspers' The Origin and Goal of History was published in 1949; to Hannah Arendt, he had described his ideas on the Axial Age as 'a presumptuous project' (Arendt and Jaspers 1992: 109). The second axial shift, then, represents the collision of earlier cultural spheres, each of which imposed their own monologues onto the world. The discovery of the Axial Age is one of the great episodes in… Humankind's consciousness is becoming increasingly global. The ancient The idea that we should treat others as we would like them to treat us, known as the The Axial Age may have started earlier than Jaspers thought. For example, Plato looked towards Socrates the philosopher as the kingly personality and not to military heroes such as Achilles.In China it was Mencius who championed the legacy of Confucius as the wise official whose political vision promised peace and stability.