On the Differentiation Between Morality and Politics: Reassessing the Idea of the Axial Age

Abstract

The idea of the Axial Age was introduced by Karl Jaspers in his 1949 book on The Origin and Goal of History . Its main contention is that comparable yet independent ideas of transcendence emerged between 800 and 200 BCE in China and India (Buddhism and Hinduism), Persia (Zoroastrism), Greece (classical philosophy), and ancient Israel (Judaism). As it has gained greater traction over the past 75 years, this article reconstructs systematically the idea of the Axial Age in four steps: Jaspers’s original formulation with its cosmopolitan intent, Shmuel Eisenstadt's comparative approach to ancient civilisations, Robert Bellah's application of it as part of a general theory of religious evolution , and Jürgen Habermas’s study of the relationships between science, religion, and philosophy as a genealogy of postmetaphysical thinking . It then revisits two of the major criticisms that have been raised against the Axial Age in the works of Eric Voegelin and Jan Assmann. The article demonstrates that both supporters and critics identify that a similar rational core of the idea of the Axial Age lies in the rise of more differentiated relationships between moral and religious justifications, on the one hand, and political legitimacy, on the other.