The Axial Age and the Problems of the Twentieth Century

Du Bois, Jaspers, and Universal History

Bibliographic Data

ID5800036
AuthorsJohn D Boy (0000-0003-2118-4702, University of Amsterdam, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume46
Issue2
Pages234-247
Publication date2015-03-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe American Sociologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-1232 • E-ISSN: 1936-4784
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12108-015-9254-0
PMID26074622
PMCIDPMC4457807
OpenAlexW2009358728
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited45

The axial age debate has put big questions of social and cultural change back on the agenda of sociology. This paper takes this development as an occasion to reflect on how social thought works with (and against) nineteenth-century intellectual traditions in its efforts to understand history on a macro scale. Karl Jaspers, who initially formulated the axial age thesis in The Origin and Goal of History, revised the Hegelian account of world history by broadening the scope of the narrative to encompass all civilizations participating in the events of the first millennium BCE that saw the rise of major philosophical and religious traditions. However, his account, like the earlier philosophical accounts he seeks to improve upon, privileges cognitive developments over material practices and social interactions, and as such offers little to those seeking to make sense of how cultural patterns interact with others and spread. Here another social theorist engaging with Hegel, W. E. B. Du Bois, provides a helpful contrast. His account of the development of double-consciousness in "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," the opening chapter of The Souls of Black Folk, helps us to understand experiences of encounter and the perduring historical effects they may have. Du Bois' relational theory reminds us of the importance of unpacking abstractions and understanding processes in terms of social interactions

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Narrative · Philosophy of history · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory