{"title":"Myth, Modernity, and the Legacy of the Axial Age: Taylor, Habermas, Assmann, and Jaspers","authors":"Carmen Lea Dege","doi":"10.1353/jhi.2023.a909537","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article analyzes the legacy of the idea of an Axial Age with a particular focus on Habermas, Taylor, Assmann, and Jaspers. I ask what has motivated the use of the concept and illustrate the ways in which it is situated in the twentieth-century debate on myth. I then respond to the limitations of the concept’s legacy and turn to two overlooked elements of Jaspers’s initial intervention: In contrast to the dominant discourse, he argued that myth changed its form and was not replaced by logos; he also argued that the Axial Age failed rather than succeeded.","PeriodicalId":47274,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS","volume":"129 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2023.a909537","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract: This article analyzes the legacy of the idea of an Axial Age with a particular focus on Habermas, Taylor, Assmann, and Jaspers. I ask what has motivated the use of the concept and illustrate the ways in which it is situated in the twentieth-century debate on myth. I then respond to the limitations of the concept’s legacy and turn to two overlooked elements of Jaspers’s initial intervention: In contrast to the dominant discourse, he argued that myth changed its form and was not replaced by logos; he also argued that the Axial Age failed rather than succeeded.
期刊介绍:
Since its inception in 1940, the Journal of the History of Ideas has served as a medium for the publication of research in intellectual history that is of common interest to scholars and students in a wide range of fields. It is committed to encouraging diversity in regional coverage, chronological range, and methodological approaches. JHI defines intellectual history expansively and ecumenically, including the histories of philosophy, of literature and the arts, of the natural and social sciences, of religion, and of political thought. It also encourages scholarship at the intersections of cultural and intellectual history — for example, the history of the book and of visual culture.