The Axial Age and Its Consequences
Main description: 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...
| Contributors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Book |
| Language: | English |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Berlin
De Gruyter
2012
Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press 2012 |
| In: | Year: 2012 |
| Reviews: | The Axial Age and Its Consequences (2014) (Erickson, Stephen A.)
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| Further subjects: | B
Electronic books
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Parallel Edition: | Erscheint auch als: Axial Age and Its Consequences: |
| Summary: | Main description: 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. Biographical note: Robert N. Bellah is Elliott Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley. Permanent Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and Professor of Sociology and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Main description: The first classics in human history—the early works of literature, philosophy, and theology to which we have returned throughout the ages—appeared in the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. The canonical texts of the Hebrew scriptures, the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle, the Analects of Confucius and the Daodejing, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddha—all of these works came down to us from the compressed period of history that Karl Jaspers memorably named the Axial Age. In The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Robert Bellah and Hans Joas make the bold claim that intellectual sophistication itself was born worldwide during this critical time. Across Eurasia, a new self-reflective attitude toward human existence emerged, and with it an awakening to the concept of transcendence. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter through human thought and action. Bellah and Joas have assembled diverse scholars to guide us through this astonishing efflorescence of religious and philosophical creativity. As they explore the varieties of theorizing that arose during the period, they consider how these in turn led to utopian visions that brought with them the possibility of both societal reform and repression. The roots of our continuing discourse on religion, secularization, inequality, education, and the environment all lie in Axial Age developments. Understanding this transitional era, the authors contend, is not just an academic project but a humanistic endeavor. |
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| Item Description: | Description based upon print version of record |