The Origin and Goal of History [Hardcover]

Karl Jaspers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1977 | ISBN-10: 0837189837 | ISBN-13: 978-0837189833

First published in English in 1953, this important book from eminent philosopher Karl Jaspers deals with the philsophy of the history of mankind. More specifically, its avowed aim is to assist in heightening our awareness of the present by placing it within the framework of the long obscurity of prehistory and the boundless realm of possibilities which lie within the undecided future.This analysis is split into 3 parts: World history The present and the future The meaning of history

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press Reprint (January 12, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0837189837
• ISBN-13: 978-0837189833
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,596,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Axial Age is one of the most creative and influential eras in world history, October 16, 2009

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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I read this book for a graduate class in hermeneutical philosophy.

Karl Theodor Jaspers (pronounced Yaspers), 1883 - 1969, was a German psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. Jaspers coined this epoch the "Axial Age" (Ger. Achsenzeit, "axistime") in his book published in 1949, "The Origin and Goal of History," to indicate its pivotal importance in the evolution of human thought. In fact, Jasper argues that the years 800-200 BCE comprise one of the most creative and influential eras in world history. Around the globe, sages and moralists, philosophers and priests grappled with novel ideas about the nature of humanity, the world, and ultimate reality and approached these issues with fresh ways of thinking. Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared. Jaspers' approach to the culture of the middle of the first millennium BCE has been adopted by other scholars and academics, and has become a point of discussion in the history of religion.

The ferment of religious and philosophical activity centered in four distinct regions of civilization: East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and the northeastern Mediterranean. Each of these areas witnessed the emergence of several imaginative individuals whose exemplary lives and teachings prompted their followers to create the traditions that led to the birth of the world religions.

In East Asia, in the area we now call China, Confucius, Lao Tzu and their followers provided the religious, philosophical, and political foundations for more than 2,000 years of Chinese culture. At the same time Daoist philosophers produced a compelling alternative to Confucianism.

In South Asia, a countercultural movement of ascetics and mystics composed a collection of teachings called Upanishads that gave nascent Hinduism its characteristic features. Near the same time and place, Siddhartha Gautama, or Buddha, and Mahavira attained new insights that inaugurated Buddhism and Jainism.

In West Asia, in Israel, the prophets of Judah such as Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah helped shape the emerging religion of Judaism. Also in West Asia, in Iran, Zarathustra had recently established Zoroastrianism, which served as the state religion of three powerful empires and contributed decisive new ideas to Judaism and Christianity.

Finally, the northern Mediterranean, in the land of ancient Greece, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Homer, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle essentially invented the Western philosophical tradition.

Jaspers argued that during the Axial Age, "...there did arise something amounting, in the sense of its spiritual significance, to a single, universal history." [73]

Jaspers argued in his book that during the axial age, "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently... And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today". (98) These foundations were laid by individual thinkers within a framework of a changing social environment. What was happening during this period in these places to account for this prodigious outburst of critical ideas? Jasper pointed to several social and political developments that contributed to the opening of the Axial Age.

First, The Axial Age occurred at a time and in places of increasing urbanization and mobility. This trend had significant effects on social structures and the human psyche.

Second, the axial centers were generally characterized by political and legal upheaval. For instance, the Chinese Axial Age overlapped a brutal epoch in Chinese history known as the Period of Warring States, 600-221 BCE. India, Judah, and Iran underwent similar periods of turmoil and transformation.

Third, sages in all the axial centers became increasingly anxious about death and preoccupied by with what, if anything, lay beyond death. More concern with dying and the afterlife. Death is a rise in the sense of individuality. Greater consciousness of the human being as a moral agent. As a part of this quest, Axial sages developed a new way of thinking about the world and the place of humanity in it. S. N. Eisenstadt calls this way of looking at life transcendental consciousness.

Fourth, The Axial Age marks a dramatic change in the very function of religion in human life. During this era, the purpose of religion shifted from what theologian John Hick calls cosmic maintenance, where religion functions chiefly as a ritual means for human beings to collaborate with the divine powers to assist in keeping the world in working order, to personal transformation.

Finally, Jaspers was particularly interested in the similarities in circumstance and thought of the Age's figures. These similarities included an engagement in the quest for human meaning[ and the rise of a new elite class of religious leaders and thinkers in China, India and the Occident. The three regions all gave birth to, and then institutionalized, a tradition of travelling scholars, who roamed from city to city to exchange ideas. These scholars were largely from extant religious traditions; in China, Confucianism and Taoism; in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism; in Persia, the religion of Zoroaster; in Canaan, Judaism; and in Greece, sophism and other classical philosophy.

Too bad this book is out of print, recommended for anyone interested in history, religion, philosophy.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here is found a seminal articulation of the concept of the Axial Age, January 15, 2006

By 

C. Tomlinson "xristy" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Origin and goal of history (Hardcover)

This work describes the concept of the Axial Age and answers some early criticisms of the idea. Then Jaspers proceeds to develop a sweeping overview of human history from pre-history onward.

I don't see, however, that this work "makes mincemeat of Darwinian thinking" as is asserted by a previous reviewer. Rather, the concept that there could be parallel evolutionary developments re-evolving similar responses to similar situations is quite in accord with evolutionary thinking. There are numerous examples of such parallel developments in biological evolution (see Simon Conway-Morris' "Life's Solution"). No one to my knowledge is trying to suppress the simultaneous domestication of grains in (as I recall) seven locales around the planet (see Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel" for example).

Further, the assertion that the axial developments were completely independent (which was Jaspers' view as well as that of the previous reviewer) is on somewhat shaky ground owing to the work of Thomas McEvilley "The Shape of Ancient Thought", for example, who traces the continuous interplay of peoples along the axis thereby providing excellent opportunities for cross-fertilization of spiritual and philosophic ideas.

There is no disputing several centuries of Euro-centric views of history and Jaspers was one of the few in his era to thoughtfully step outside that box - and there are still only a few who have (Burkert and Hobson come to mind).

I do agree with the previous reviewer that this work is certainly worth being reissued or made available via books-on-demand.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Axial Age--The Cover Up, December 27, 2003

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origin and Goal of History (Hardcover)

This is one of the most significant works of the twentieth century yet it is not even in print. Deep sixed from the word go. Remarkable! Even books detailing the intellectual biography of Jaspers omit mention of it. The various efforts to subject the issues to scholarly study distort the original observations. What's going on? The reason is not hard to find. It contains the first crystallization of something current science and religion don't want to face, the phenomenon of synchronous parallel evolution, global in scale, and operating in a fashion that flagrantly contradicts received dogmas of religious, scientific and economic history. Check out the reviewer's World History and the Eonic Effect for a discussion of this text. Meanwhile it should be reissued and the public deserves to know the existence of this line of historical evidence going back to the nineteenth century. It makes mincemeat of Darwinian thinking. Aha! Now we know why they deep sixed the book.