The "Axial Period": What Was It and What Does It Signify?

Antony Black
2008 The Review of Politics  
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more » ... ss to The Review of Politics. Abstract: Karl Jaspers coined the term the "axial period" to refer to what he saw as the simultaneous development in several different and separate societies-China, India, Iran, Israel, Greece-of "a new departure within mankind." What he meant has been characterized as "a kind of critical, reflective questioning of the actual and a new vision of what lies beyond." While it is true that people in each of these separate cultures began to develop new ways of talking about the cosmos, ethics, and community, Jaspers's approach and description of these phenomena were,
doi:10.1017/s0034670508000168 fatcat:jkoj4n6tivggbgw62bezsb666e