The Axial Age, social evolution, and postsecular consciousness. (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mendieta, Eduardo
• Other Names: Sheedy Matt guest-editor.; Craig Brittain Christopher guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Critical research on religion. Volume 6:Number 3(2018:Dec.)
• Page Start: 289
• Page End: 308
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: Axial Age -- postsecular -- evolutionary history -- cultural history -- postmetaphysical -- modernity; Religion -- Periodicals; Religion -- Research -- Periodicals; Religion and sociology -- Periodicals; Religion and politics -- Periodicals; 200.5
• DOI: 10.1177/2050303218800379
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-3032

Abstract

This article focuses on Karl Jaspers's notion of the Axial Age, some of its critical appropriation, and how in particular Habermas has returned to this idea, after several critical engagements with Jaspers's work through his long scholarly productivity. The article, however, centers on Habermas's selective and critical use of Jaspers's notion in his own latest and extensive engagement with what he calls "a genealogy of postmetaphysical thinking." The goal of the article is to identify the ways in which Habermas is refurbishing Jaspers's generative concept, but at the same time, how his work on postsecular consciousness opens itself to some liabilities by not taking enough distance from the concept.