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From World Religions To Axial Civilizations And Beyond
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Book Synopsis From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond by : Saïd Amir Arjomand
Download or read book From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond written by Saïd Amir Arjomand and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The post–World War II idea of the Axial Age by Karl Jaspers, and as elaborated into the sociology of axial civilizations by S. N. Eisenstadt in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, continues to be the subject of intense scholarly debate. Examples of this can be found in recent works of Hans Joas and Jürgen Habermas. In From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond, an internationally distinguished group of scholars discuss, advance, and criticize the Jaspers-Eisenstadt thesis, and go beyond it by bringing in the critical influence of Max Weber's sociology of world religions and by exploring intercivilizational encounters in key world regions. The essays within this volume are of unusual interest for their original analysis of relatively neglected civilizational zones, especially Islam and the Islamicate civilization and the Byzantine civilization, and its continuation in Orthodox Russia.
Book Synopsis Practicing Transcendence by : Christopher Peet
Download or read book Practicing Transcendence written by Christopher Peet and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-05 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces readers to the concept of the Axial Age and its relevance for a world in crisis. Scholars have become increasingly interested in philosopher Karl Jaspers’ thesis that a spiritual revolution in consciousness during the first millennium BCE decisively shaped world history. Axial ideas of transcendence develop into ideologies for world religions and civilizations, in turn coalescing into a Eurasian world-system that spreads globally to become the foundation of our contemporary world. Alongside ideas and ideologies, the Axial Age also taught spiritual practices critically resisting the new scale of civilizational power: in small counter-cultural communities on the margins of society, they turn our conscious focus inward to transform ourselves and overcome the destructive potentials within human nature. Axial spiritualities offer humanity a practical wisdom, a profound psychology, and deep hope: to transform despair into resilience, helping us face with courage the ecological and political challenges confronting us today.
Book Synopsis Religion in Human Evolution by : Robert N. Bellah
Download or read book Religion in Human Evolution written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal
Download or read book Religions of the Axial Age written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Axial Age and Its Consequences by : Robert N. Bellah
Download or read book The Axial Age and Its Consequences written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Book Synopsis Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age by : Heiner Roetz
Download or read book Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age written by Heiner Roetz and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1993-10-05 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age describes the formative period of Chinese culture—the last centuries of the Zhou dynasty—as an early epoch of enlightenment. It comprehensively reconstructs the ethical discourse as thought gradually became emancipated from tradition and institutions. Rather than presenting a chronology of different thinkers and works, this book discusses the systematic aspects of moral philosophies. Based on original texts, Roetz focuses on filial piety; the conflict between the family and the state; the legitimating of the political order; the virtues of loyalty, friendship, and harmony; concepts of justice; the principle of humaneness and its different readings; the Golden Rule; the moral person; the autonomous self, motivation, decision and conscience; and various attempts to ground morality in religion, human nature, or reason. These topics are arranged in such a way that the genetic structure and the logical development of the moral reasoning becomes apparent. From this detached perspective, conventional morality is either rejected or critically reestablished under the restraint of new abstract and universal norms. This makes the Chinese developments part of the ancient worldwide movement of enlightenment of the axial age.
Book Synopsis Religious Evolution and the Axial Age by : Stephen K. Sanderson
Download or read book Religious Evolution and the Axial Age written by Stephen K. Sanderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Evolution and the Axial Age describes and explains the evolution of religion over the past ten millennia. It shows that an overall evolutionary sequence can be observed, running from the spirit and shaman dominated religions of small-scale societies, to the archaic religions of the ancient civilizations, and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. Stephen K. Sanderson draws on ideas from new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, history, and sociology. He argues that religion is a biological adaptation that evolved in order to solve a number of human problems, especially those concerned with existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. Much of the focus of the book is on the Axial Age, the period in the second half of the first millennium BCE that marked the greatest religious transformation in world history. The book demonstrates that, as a result of massive increases in the scale and scope of war and large-scale urbanization, the problems of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity became particularly acute. These changes evoked new religious needs, especially for salvation and release from suffering. As a result entirely new religions-Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism-arose to help people cope with the demands of the new historical era.
Book Synopsis The Political Dimensions of Religion by : Saïd Amir Arjomand
Download or read book The Political Dimensions of Religion written by Saïd Amir Arjomand and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1993-08-03 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics. It brings a varied sample of richly detailed comparative and case studies together with a set of analytical paradigms in an integrated framework. It is a major statement on a timely subject, and a plea for the acknowledgment of normative pluralism as firmly rooted in the history of religion. The editor shows that the fact of political diversity in the history of world religions compels the acceptance of pluralism as a normative principle.
Book Synopsis A Fundamental Theological Study of Radical Secularization and its Aftermath by : Alpo Penttinen
Download or read book A Fundamental Theological Study of Radical Secularization and its Aftermath written by Alpo Penttinen and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-17 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of various secularization processes, a growing number of people in Western societies are now describing themselves as “non-religious.” But what does this sociological fact really mean, for the Church and for society at large? Has human religiosity a future after secularization? It does, this book argues, but in a radically altered form. Taking its cue from Pope Francis’s suggestion that globalizing humanity is presently living through a genuine “epochal shift,” this book presents an original analysis of the transformative effect of secularization on our spiritual predicament in the Western, now definitively post-Christian, world. Instead of succumbing to the all-too-common polarizations in contemporary religious discourse, this book aspires to overcome the “religious” vs. “secular” dichotomy through developing the logic of “Radical Secularization,” arguably the genuine novelty of the particularly Western process of secularization. The past homogeneously religious culture is certainly dusking, but this only paves the way for the dawn of the future and radically open horizon for our human search for meaning. This challenging book will offer intellectual impulses and spiritual incentives to everybody who ponders the future of human religious evolution after secularization.
Author :Shmuel N. Eisenstadt Publisher :State University of New York Press ISBN 13 :1438401949 Total Pages :572 pages Book Rating :4.4/5 (384 download)
Book Synopsis The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations by : Shmuel N. Eisenstadt
Download or read book The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations written by Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a new and original analysis of the great ancient civilizations, focusing on the breakthroughs and their institutionalization in Greece, Israel, China, and India. The conditions under which these civilizations developed are systematically explored. For comparative purposes, the civilization of Assyria, where such a breakthrough did not take place is analyzed. Attention is given to the transformation of modes of thought and symbolism. Special focus is brought to the development of the great religions and the perception of tension between the transcendental and mundane orders and between rulers and other elites.
Book Synopsis Civilization, Modernity, and Critique by : Ľubomír Dunaj
Download or read book Civilization, Modernity, and Critique written by Ľubomír Dunaj and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civilization, Modernity, and Critique provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge engagement with the work of one of the most foundational figures in civilizational analysis: Jóhann P. Árnason. In order to do justice to Árnason’s seminal and wide-ranging contributions to sociology, social theory and history, it brings together distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts. Through a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers an enrichment and expansion of the methodological, theoretical, and applicative scope of civilizational analysis, by addressing some of the most complex and pressing problems of contemporary global society. A unique and timely contribution to the ongoing task of advancing the project of a critical theory of society, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in historical sociology, critical theory and civilizational analysis.
Book Synopsis Beyond Tradition and Modernity by : R. J. Werblowsky
Download or read book Beyond Tradition and Modernity written by R. J. Werblowsky and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First delivered in 1974 as one of the Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, this book considers and compares traditional or pre-modern and post-traditional or post-modern religions. It assesses the processes as well as the images of change in various cultures – principally Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism – and examines how these religions handle the dialects of rejection, appropriation and integration.
Download or read book Convenient Myths written by Iain Provan and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contemporary world has been shaped by two important and potent myths. Karl Jaspers' construct of the "axial age" envisions the common past (800-200 BC), the time when Western society was born and world religions spontaneously and independently appeared out of a seemingly shared value set. Conversely, the myth of the "dark green golden age," as narrated by David Suzuki and others, asserts that the axial age and the otherworldliness that accompanied the emergence of organized religion ripped society from a previously deep communion with nature. Both myths contend that to maintain balance we must return to the idealized past. In Convenient Myths, Iain Provan illuminates the influence of these two deeply entrenched and questionable myths, warns of their potential dangers, and forebodingly maps the implications of a world founded on such myths.
Book Synopsis Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction by : Stephen Kalberg
Download or read book Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction written by Stephen Kalberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines civilizations through the broad lens articulated by the works of Max Weber. In focusing upon his comparative-historical mode of analysis and his causal explanations for the sources, contours, and trajectories of civilizations, this study reconstructs Weber’s sociology in a manner that provides clear guidelines to researchers seeking to investigate civilizations systematically. Through detailed interpretations of the West’s unique development from Antiquity to the Modern era, precise comparisons to the long-range and singular pathways taken by China and India, and careful demarcations of the "particular rationalisms" of several civilizations, the author addresses Weber’s powerful model-building on the one hand and his opposition to organic holism and structural presuppositions on the other hand. Both a broad-ranging conceptual framework and case-based empirical investigations are pivotal to Weber. His research strategy emphasizes further the "subjective meanings" of actors East and West and the deep cultural origins of groups. Finally, this volume masterfully conveys Weber’s contextual and multi-causal methodology rooted in a tight interweaving of the present with the past. Max Weber’s Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction will appeal to comparative sociologists and historians, as well as to theorists of all persuasions. The social scientist pursuing a cross-civilizational agenda will here discover the distinct contribution of Weber’s "interpretive understanding" procedures to the now-essential field of civilizational analysis.
Book Synopsis Challenging Modernity by : Robert N. Bellah
Download or read book Challenging Modernity written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-16 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1960s until his death in 2013, Robert N. Bellah was the preeminent figure in the study of religion and society. He broke new ground in mapping the religious dimensions of human experience, from the great breakthroughs of the first millennium BCE to the paradoxes of American civic life. In three final essays, published here for the first time, Bellah grapples with the contradictions of modernity, and seven leading thinkers respond with profound, exhilarating new perspectives on our present predicament. Challenging Modernity critically assesses the modern project to shed light on the tensions between its transcendent aspirations and the perils we now face. Its contributors analyze the roots of the collapse of the political, economic, and cultural institutions that promised perpetual progress but now threaten global catastrophe. Reflecting the range of Bellah’s scholarship, they span the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. They extend Bellah’s insight that only deep historical, cultural, and religious understanding can help us meet modernity’s harrowing challenges by sharing responsibility for the global interdependence of our common fate.
Book Synopsis From House Societies to States by : Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
Download or read book From House Societies to States written by Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The organization and characteristics of early and ancient states have become the focus of a renewed interest from archaeologists, ancient historians and anthropologists in recent years. On the one hand, neo-evolutionary schemas of political transformation find it difficult to define some of their most basic concepts, such as chiefdom, complex chiefdom and state, not to mention the transition between them. On the other hand, teleological interpretations based on linear dynamics, from less to increasingly more complex political structures, in successive steps, impose biased and too rigid views on the available evidence. In fact, recent research stresses the existence of other forms of socio-political organization, less vertically integrated and more heterarchical, that proved highly successful and resilient in the long term in tying together social groups. What is more, such forms quite often represented the basic blocks on which states were built and that managed to survive once states collapsed. Finally, nomadic, maritime and mountain populations provide fascinating examples of societies that experienced alternative forms of political organization, sometimes on a seasonal basis. In other cases, their consideration as marginal populations that cultivated specialized skills ensured them a certain degree of autonomy when living either within or at the borders of states. This book explores such small-scale socio-political organizations, their potential and the historical trajectories they stimulated. A selection of historical case studies from different regions of the world may help rethink current concepts and views about the emergence and organization of political complexity and the mechanisms that prevented, occasionally, the emergence of solid polities. They may also cast some light over trajectories of historical transformation, still poorly understood as are the limits of effective state power. This book explores the importance of comparative research and long-term historical perspectives to avoid simplistic interpretations, based on the characteristics of modern Western states abusively used retrospectively.
