The Thinkers of the Axial Age

1. The Thinkers of the Axial Age (pages 161-168)

2. Approximately where and when did Zoroastrianism begin? • a. in China during the seventh century B.C.E. • b. in Greece during the fifth century B.C.E. • c. in Iran during the early sixth century B.C.E. • d. in India during the eighth century B.C.E. • Ans: c • Page: 161

3. The religion founded by Gautama Siddharta focuses on • a. escape from desire. • b. ascetic practices to free the soul from evil. • c. salvation of the soul through avoidance of sin. • d. devotion to gods as a means of gaining entry to heaven. • Ans: a • Page: 161

4. Jesus was a teacher who came out of the • a. Zoroastrian tradition. • b. Greek tradition. • c. Roman tradition. • d. Jewish tradition. • Ans: d • Page: 166

5. In the Christian Gospel of John, creation is connected with • a. the logos. • b. feeling. • c. a rearrangement of prior matter. • d. expansion from a tiny core. • Ans: a • Page: 169

6. According to the concept of Indian henotheism, • a. there is only one god. • b. there are many gods. • c. there are gods, but they do not care about humans. • d. many gods collectively represent a divine unity. • Ans: d • Page: 169

7. Confucius believed that human beings were essentially • a. evil. • b. good. • c. morally neutral. • d. sinful. • Ans: c • Page: 171

8. According to Plato, political power in a state should be in the hands of • a. the people. • b. aristocrats. • c. kings. • d. philosophers. • Ans: d • Page: 172

9. A Chinese belief system that focuses on following proper ethical practices within a strict hierarchy is called • a. Daoism. • b. Legalism. • c. Buddhism. • d. Confucianism. • Ans: d • Page: 173

10. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras is famous for his theorem and for the idea • a. of zero. • b. that musical harmonies can be expressed mathematically. • c. of pi. • d. of a system of notation that enabled the calculation of extremely large numbers. • Ans: b • Page: 175

11. Rationalism is a doctrine that holds that • a. reason accompanied by faith in higher powers leads to enlightenment. • b. knowledge may only be gained through meditation. • c. unaided reason can elicit truth. • d. an excuse can be made up for any occasion. • Ans: c • Page: 176

12. What were the four categories of axial-age sages? • a. professional intellectuals, military leaders, prophets, and charismatic leaders • b. professional intellectuals, political advisors, prophets, and wealthy aristocrats • c. professional intellectuals, wealthy patrons, prophets, and political leaders • d. professional intellectuals, political advisors, prophets, and charismatic leaders • Ans: d • Page: 182

13. Confucius (ca. 500 B.C.E.). • A bureaucrat in the Chinese state of Lu, Kong Fuzi (Confucius) developed an ethical system based on hierarchy and truth. Eventually would become dominant in China.

14. Zoroaster (7th-6th century B.C.E.) • He taught that the world was shaped by a battle between good deity, Ahura Mazda (represented by fire and light), against the evil Ahriman, who represented darkness and night. Influential religion in southern Asia.

15. Vardhamana Jnatrputra or Mahavira (6th-early 5th century B.C.E.) • He taught that the soul might be freed through ascetic practice of chastity, detachment, truth, selflessness, and charity that permitted one only what was freely given. Foundation of Jainism. Never popular outside India.

16. Gautama Siddhartha or Buddha (mid-6th to early 4th century B.C.E.) • Prescription of a combination of prayer, meditation, and unselfish behavior that would free the soul from desire, which is seen as the reason for suffering. Ultimate relief would come by achieving nirvana. This would be very difficult and few would make it, but reincarnation to “higher” bodies would be the reward of the virtuous. Religion spread across East Asia because of its universal appeal.

17. Laozi (probably 4th century B.C.E.) • Founder of Daoism. He taught disengagement from the world and that the individual should seek connection with the mystical “path” or dao that informs creation. In many ways, Daoism is a reaction to Confucian engagement with the world and its focus on social hierarchy and tradition.

18. Hebrews • Inhabitants of the hotly contested Levant, the Jews developed a close relationship with their God called a “Covenant.” In return for adherence to “the Law,” a set of rules that governed Jewish life, God promised the Hebrew peoples the substantial and rich lands of the Levant for their use. As time went on, this adherence to Law became a way to relieve sinfulness and perhaps even to convey a sense of immortality on a person.

19. Jesus (died around 33 C.E.) • A Jewish teacher or rabbi who taught an end to corruption by the established priesthood and a radical adherence not only to the letter, but also to the intention, of the Law of Moses. Some believed him to be the Messiah (translated into Greek as “Christ” or “anointed one”) and his teaching about the universal love of God that was passed on by his followers after his death led to the creation of the Christian faith.

20. Plato and Aristotle (5th to 4th century B.C.E.) • Plato was an Athenian aristocrat who developed a system of thought that posited the existence of moral absolutes that has remained fundamental in the development of Western philosophy and religion. His student Aristotle developed the foundations for a systematic understanding of politics, ethics, literature, and natural science.

21. The Thoughts of the Axial Age (pages 168-182) • Rather than a more traditional regional approach, we will take a thematic approach to understanding the radical new ideas that develop during this period.

22. Religious Thinking • New ideas about a divine creator and a single God appeared, as did the idea of a God involved in the world. • Creation by a god or gods is not new. Many (if not all) civilizations have stories about how the universe came to be the way that it is. However, during the Axial Age there was a growing discussion of non-being. Some of the Indian Upanishads revile this notion, but in Greece early atomists like Leucippus raised it as a necessary consequence. Some of the early Greeks also raised the idea of creation as the result of an emotional force (Hesiod) or of thought or “logos” (the Stoics and then later picked up by the writer of the Gospel of John). • Monotheism or the idea that there is a single God was unusual in the West before the rise of Christianity. Most religions were polytheistic, Zoroastrianism was dualist, and Indian religion became gradually a “henotheism” or the belief that multiple gods were a reflection of a divine unity. Other new religions were unconcerned with divinity, as was Buddhism and Confucianism. The Jewish Yahweh was unique in his jealousy to be recognized as the only deity, but Judaism also did not seek new followers. With the rise of Christianity and its new appeal as a universal religion, so was there a rise in the idea of monotheism. This would be reinforced by the rise of Islam from the 7th century C.E. forward. • Divine Love or the idea that God was interested in his creation was ignored or repudiated by many early thinkers but in the East and West. Some early schools focused on an idea that all living things are equal (as the Pythagoreans and Jains), but with the rise of the idea that humans are made in the image of God and that God gave mankind dominion, a different idea emerged. Mankind was special and “higher” than other creatures (Aristotle, the Chinese sage Xunzi). With the rise of Christianity, the notion of God’s love for all people was a part of its appeal.

23. New Political Thinking • These new ways of thinking led to new ways of considering human nature and, thus, new ways of considering how the state should function. In the account of Genesis, humans were created to be good and free, but then “fell” as a result of an abuse of that freedom. Other traditions saw humans as essentially evil and in need of a restrictive and coercive government by nature. • Political pessimism about the inability of humans to govern themselves without “guardians” is reflected in Plato’s writings about the ideal state in his Republic and in the even more severe writings of the Legalists who believed that people should simply obey no matter what and that nothing else mattered. Legalism in some ways anticipated modern fascism with its denigration of the idea of human goodness and emphasis on absolute obedience to the state. • Political optimism reflects a belief that humans are essentially good and that rule of law or the following of a moral code was more important than simple obedience. Even the competing schools of Confucianism and Daoism agreed on the importance of virtue. However, the East maintained monarchy as the system of government. In the West, the practice of democracy (imperfect as it was and still is) arose in Greece, and in the growing Roman world a republic developed. These systems shared power uniquely at least among significant numbers of the male citizenry. • The teachings of Jesus were remarkably subversive with their replacement of all law with the command to love God and love one another. His favor for outcasts, sinners, and heretics likely also made him suspect in the eyes of the authorities and was key in his execution by the Roman authorities.

24. Challenging Illusion • New ways of thinking about the nature of reality and a struggle against falling to illusion were key to the developments of the Axial Age, but there were very different ways in which this occurred.

25. Math • In India, early speculations centered on calculations of enormous numbers partly to demonstrate the impossibility of attaining the infinite. In Greece, geometry was invented and mathematicians explored ideas like pi and complex ratios like ‘the Golden Number.’ These appeared to reveal a reality that was beyond sense perception, but susceptible to reason. Pythagoras (6th century B.C.E.) was one such mathematician whose exploration of numbers was developed by his followers into a religion. • Such explorations were also engaged in by Confucians and others in the East.

26. Reason • A purely rational understanding of the world was also explored by men like Parmenides (early 5th century B.C.E.), who thought that the world of insensible numbers was in fact reality and that the sensible world was not. Chinese philosophers like Hi Shih believed that thought was pure and did not require experience or objects outside itself. • This type of rationalism could become a form of escapism. For example, for Parmenides change was illusion and all was one. Despite such excesses, reason has acted as a control on systems founded on dogma or emotion. • One outgrowth was the development of logic, a system of organizing thoughts and arguments first put forward by Aristotle. In a similar fashion, the Nyaya School in India put forward a five-stage breakdown of analysis that resembles Aristotle’s syllogisms. However, Indians believed that this analysis came from God, a view that Aristotle did not share.

27. Science • Distrust of the senses by Eastern and Western thinkers paved the way for the development of science by Greeks like Democritus (5th-4th century B.C.E.) and Daoists like the writer of the Lü Shi Chong Qiu. Even some of the Upanishadsof India warn of the deceptive quality of appearances. • Chinese sages such as Shen Xu (ca. 679 B.C.E.) warned against following superstition, and although he always taught that tradition was important, Confucius cautioned his followers to concern themselves more with the affairs of the physical world. • In the Greek world rationalism began during the 5th century B.C.E. to turn away from popular notions of the supernatural. Again, Aristotle was a leader of a systematic attempt to understand the animal kingdom and, during the 3rd century B.C.E., Archimedes pioneered new understandings of hydraulics, mathematics, and mechanics. • In China, it was Daoist monks with their deep concern about the operation of nature who paved the way for experimentation and observation as the basis of understanding.

28. Medicine • Development of medicine based on observation and rational explanation also arose in China and Greece during roughly the same period. By the mid-6th century B.C.E. there is evidence of this in China, and during the late 5th-century B.C.E. texts attributed to Hippocrates appeared in Greece that provided naturalistic explanations for diseases and reviled supernatural ones. • The Arthaveda from India (early 1st millennium B.C.E.) had chronicled diseases as identical with demons, but by the 6th century and later a similar focus on rational explanations and treatments for disease appeared.

29. Skepticism • A consequence of scientific thought may be the idea that nothing may be known for certain and that there is no purpose inherent in the world or in our existence. Such ideas arose in China (ca. 200 B.C.E. in the Liezi) and among the Greeks such as Epicurus (d. 270 B.C.E.), and Pyrrho of Elis (4th century B.C.E). • Stoicism later focused more on personal development (as did Epicureanism) with the most important element being self-sufficiency.

30. Axial Age—Axial Area: The Structures of the Axial Age (pages 182-185) • Why were these new ways of thinking confined to relatively few societies? • Four categories: professional intellectuals, patronage by rulers, prophets, and charismatic leaders • Most sages had networks of supporters and students. These also stimulated innovation and competition. Institutions were created such as Plato’s school at the Academy or the Legalist school by Han Feizi. • Literacy helps, but isn’t necessary. Socrates, Jesus, and Buddha wrote nothing themselves. However, their followers did and that spread their messages and teachings. • Wealth also helps. Plato was an aristocrat. The Buddha and Mahavira were princes. Patrons were essential for men like Confucius or his later successor, Mencius, for success. • The Vedas of India contain bits of dialogues between sages and rulers.

31. The Reach of the Sages (pages 185-188) • Although these new ideas began in relatively confined pockets across Eurasia, they would spread because of trade and conquest across the globe. Rome brought Greek ideas to Europe, Buddhism spread via trade to East Asia, helped along by the Chinese empire’s success. Christianity and Islam would later also spread by such means. Such ideas would only spread later into sub-Saharan Africa, throughout the Americas, and across the Pacific Ocean because of the barriers that nature presents.

32. Approximately where and when did Zoroastrianism begin? • a. in China during the seventh century B.C.E. • b. in Greece during the fifth century B.C.E. • c. in Iran during the early sixth century B.C.E. • d. in India during the eighth century B.C.E. • Ans: c • Page: 161

33. Jesus was a teacher who came out of the • a. Zoroastrian tradition. • b. Greek tradition. • c. Roman tradition. • d. Jewish tradition. • Ans: d • Page: 166

34. In the Christian Gospel of John, creation is connected with • a. the logos. • b. feeling. • c. a rearrangement of prior matter. • d. expansion from a tiny core. • Ans: a • Page: 169

35. According to the concept of Indian henotheism, • a. there is only one god. • b. there are many gods. • c. there are gods, but they do not care about humans. • d. many gods collectively represent a divine unity. • Ans: d • Page: 169

36. What were the four categories of axial-age sages? • a. professional intellectuals, military leaders, prophets, and charismatic leaders • b. professional intellectuals, political advisors, prophets, and wealthy aristocrats • c. professional intellectuals, wealthy patrons, prophets, and political leaders • d. professional intellectuals, political advisors, prophets, and charismatic leaders • Ans: d • Page: 182