Eric Voegelin and Karl Jaspers

the voegelian interpretation of the axial age

Abstract

Since the 18th century, some Orientalists have pointed to parallel events occurring at the same time in different civilizations around the world. However, it was only in 1949, with the publication of TheOrigin and Goal of History, that Karl Jaspers named such parallelism as the Axial Age (Achsenzeit). He designates the period between the 8th and 2nd centuries BCE as the time in which parallel events erupt in Persia, Israel, Hellas, India, and China. Within the scope of the philosophy of history, such an attempt stands against the perspective of a linear and entirely Westernized history, as seen in the 19th-century models, for example. Eric Voegelin, who engages with Jaspers' work, also addresses the problem of history in his opus magnum, Order and History, which is divided into five volumes. He is interested in investigating human actions and "spiritual eruptions" in time as phenomena of some kind of order or disorder. To this end, Voegelin directly addresses Jaspers' thesis in parts of volumes II and IV of Order and History. He shares some assumptions with Jaspers but does not accept the idea of the Axial Age. The goal of this article is to investigate Voegelin's assessment of Karl Jaspers' thesis.