Description
With the term ‘Axial Age’, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers refers to the period between from about 8th to the 3rd century BC when the intellectual, philosophical, and religious systems came to shape subsequent human society and culture. A variety of religions and doctrines, still in practice today, simultaneously appeared: Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, Persian Zoroastrianism, prophets Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and in Greece Homer, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Plato. Jaspers describes the Axial Age as “an interregnum between the ages of great empire, a pause of liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness,†i.e., a period when old certainties had lost their validity and new ones were still not ready. This shift or turn constitutes a new spiritual awakening and new perception from societal to individual values.
After exploration of Jaspers’ position, this course will explore whether we are on the verge of a new axial age, this time affected by globaliz