Axial Age

In The Origin and Goal of History Karl Jaspers describes the rise of civilizations by using the phrase "Axial Age" to refer to a phenomenon that is not reducible to direct causal relations between different cultures. This essay addresses the question of how the new level of self-consciousness of mankind that has been achieved during the Axial Age can best be explained. Three possible explanations are being discussed, which comprise firstly, seeing the parallel cultural developments of the axial age as a pure temporal coincidence; secondly, identifying the simultaneity of the axial civilizations as a sign of destiny or as the work of God; and thirdly, identifying concrete cultural and anthropological patterns that have shaped the axial cultures. While the third explanation does not exactly correspond with Jaspers' original philosophical intentions, it is arguably the most defensible one.

“Throughout human history, perhaps even pre-human, there has been a tension between the need for order and the forces that cause change. That tension is greater now than ever, because, in our increasingly globalized world, the rate of change is also increasing. This book finally explains how we can cope: we have stories. We live our narratives.” Brian Spooner, University of Pennsylvania, is editor of Globalization: The Crucial Phase and Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order "The idea that Axial Ages occurred, and that they provide warnings/opportunities for us today, seems both new and useful. But the value of this book is additional to this stance, in that it looks at cultural change - civilizations - from a complexity viewpoint. These changes are certainly complicated, but the pressures are interwoven and therefore need to be understood as complex. The book does a good job of explaining our present cultural difficulties - our prospective emergencies s...

Im antiken Griechenland ebenso wie im alten China wurde das jeweils andere Ende des Eurasischen Kontinents als Heimat übernatürlicher Wesen betrachtet. In den historiographischen Werken beider Kulturen mischten sich diese mythischen Vorstellungen oft mit neuem Wissen über fremde Völker, das im Rahmen von Entdeckungsreisen und Fernhandel gewonnenen wurde, aber nur schwer in das bestehende geographische Weltbild eingeordnet werden konnte.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden wichtige historiographische und geographische Schriftquellen aus dem griechischen und chinesischen Kulturraum parallel auf ihre Darstellung des jeweils Anderen untersucht. Die aus den Texten extrahierten Fremdbilder werden in ihrer Entwicklung analysiert und in ihren kulturellen Funktionen miteinander verglichen. Neben Gemeinsamkeiten und Besonderheiten der Fremdvorstellungen steht der Einfluss der zentralasiatischen Seidenstraßen als Hauptverbindungen zwischen Europa und Ostasien im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtungen.

Jan Assmann es un egiptólogo alemán de las universidades de Heidelberg y Constanza nacido en 1938. Para quienes hemos recibido con entusiasmo la teoría de la religión en sociedad de Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998), es fácil identificar la reiterada presencia de Assmann en el aparato crítico de sus obras fundamentales. El tratamiento que Luhmann y Assmann hacen de la religión se roza. Sin embargo, es justo decir que mientras Luhmann pone en duda el rendimiento teórico del concepto de cultura y apuesta por dar a la religión el tratamiento de una semántica sistémica, Assmann lo abraza abiertamente y lo pone en el centro de una teoría general.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24283.08487/2

Курс лекций по истории Древнего Востока охватывает основные исторические события и процессы в странах Азии и Египте с IV тыс. до н.э. до первых веков н.э. Основной упор сделан на синтез политической, экономической, социальной и духовной истории. Курс предназначен для студентов, обучающихся по направлению подготовки «Зарубежное регионоведение 41.03.01».

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The article is a case study of a single narrative in the Qur'an's sura 18. In this article, I explore and discuss the ethical dimensions of the Qur'anic world view. The article takes its point of departure in an outline of the predominant eschatological strand in the Qur'an and different Qur'anic perceptions about reward and punishment. Then, I discuss the moral implications of the idea of divinely sanctioned deeds and actions as well as the existence of a Judgment Day. In light of this discussion, and based on an analysis of sura 18, I argue that Qur'anic piety can be seen as encompassing a particular ascetic ideal. Rather than dictating a radical secession from the world in terms of ascetic denial, the ascetic ideal authorizes participation in worldly life.
DANSK RESUME: I denne artikel undersøger jeg en fortaelling i Koranens sura 18 med saerlig henblik på de etiske aspekter af denne fortaellings verdensbillede. Indled-ningsvis praesenterer jeg den eskatologiske tematik, som er dominerende i Koranen, herunder de forskellige opfattelser af belønning og straf. Herefter diskuterer jeg de mo-ralske implikationer, der følger af ideen om guddommeligt sanktionerede handlinger og om eksistensen af en Dommens dag. I lyset af denne diskussion, og på baggrund af en naermere analyse af sura 18, argumenterer jeg for, at koranisk fromhed og korrekt tro kan ses som udtryk for et saerligt asketisk ideal: Dette ideal fordrer ikke en radikal verdensafvisning, men tillader mennesker at deltage i det jordiske liv.

The „religious man“ (homo religiosus) is characterized by religious emotion, religious knowledge, religious practice, and involvement with a religious community. The historical survey offered in this extended paper sketches six stages of the evolution of homo religious in global history. The respective sections are entitled: (1) the era of the shamans and the discovery of the gods; (2) the era of the experienced elders and the invention of festivals; (3) the era of the divine kings and the invention of the cultic veneration of gods; (4) the activity of prophets and the Axial-Age invention of religious criticism and theology; (5) the era of the bishops and the invention of the congregation; (6) the era of the individual and the invention of piety. While each era is dominated by a leading type of homo religious, that type is accompanied by others. Thus, the era of the divine kings saw the emergence of priests associated with temples and the emergence of the pious individual who cultivates an emotional relationship with a personal god or divine patron. And the era of the bishops includes the development of a class of religious virtuosi that practices asceticism. Reference is made to the theory of the Axial Age (Karl Jaspers) and Robert N. Bellah’s classic essay on religious evolution (1964).

This dissertation presents evolutionary and developmental science models that integrate attachment theory and mentalization theory with mindfulness meditation. Attachment researchers study the quality of the evolved bond between infants and caregivers and its effects on childhood and adult functioning. Mentalization theorists examine the development of the human capacity to understand the behavior of self and others in terms of underlying mental states. Mindfulness therapists emphasize dis-identifying with painful thoughts by attending to and accepting our present, unfolding experience. Attachment- and mentalization-based therapies are relational, developmental, conscious- and unconscious-oriented, reflective, and past/present/future-oriented. Mindfulness therapies are intrapersonal, non-developmental, non-reflective, bodily- and mentally-focused, and present-oriented. Research suggests both approaches can treat the same affective and anxiety disorders. Both also cause changes in the brain, often in different neural networks. How might we explain this? I answer by appealing to evolution and human development. We see disparities in the research literatures because psychotherapy and meditation invoke different mechanisms in the brain, which have evolved in different periods of mammalian and human history. This dissertation has three central premises. First, attachment, mentalization, and mindfulness can be integrated in evolutionary and developmental models of human functioning. Attachment came first (200 million years ago); mentalization came second (200,000 years ago); and mindfulness came third (2,500 years ago). The neural mechanisms and psychological capacities underlying mentalization and mindfulness are shaped by early attachment bonds. Deficits in these capacities can account for problems encountered in meditation. Second, Buddhism, like all religions, builds upon attachment-related processes. Buddhist philosophies, rituals, and practices are suffused with attachment themes. Third, early attachment bonds shape moral sensibilities and empathy. Buddhist ethical and meditative practices have an important role to play in our globalized, interdependent world in helping us to extend empathy to others.

For thousands of years, men have struggled to establish their supremacy. At first, they used spirits to secure for themselves a function in a natural world that seemed to have taken sides with the feminine. Eventually, they created an all-mighty divinity, and established their status as second to none other than that highest of all authority.

Sailing through history, we show that the way procreation was perceived has determined how men and women positioned themselves in the universe. It has wielded consequences that have deeply affected our evolution, from the primal vision of an all-encompassing natural world in which Mother Nature represented the source of all life, to the subjection of nature and woman, with God the Father sitting at the summit of the creation.

This emphasis on gender and nature brings into perspective the current social and economic resurgence of women and the new attitude towards environment that needs to be protected from our own deeds. These intricate leitmotifs make us witness a turning point in our history.

Educational scholars, particularly those working in comparative education, have largely failed to recognise, let alone discuss, the impending finite-ness of global resources. The field continues to operate on an assumption of infinite resources, an implicit cultural horizon in place since at least the Western Enlightenment. It has missed the epochal shift that is now upon us; unable to contribute to the deep transformation of research and practices that has now become urgent. Herein we discuss how such concerns might be addressed, suggesting an approach that centres ontological alterity through comparative method as means of making the turn towards a sustainable future.

Il punto sul dibattito sull’età assiale è stato oggetto nel 2012 della pubblicazione negli Stati Uniti di The Axial Age and Its Consequences  con materiali ricavati dal convegno “L’età assiale e le sue conseguenze per la storia successiva e per il presente, tenutosi a Erfurt nel 2008. Dopo l’inquadramento generale del dibattito e la precisazione dei punti in discussione, il presente articolo propone tre percorsi ragionati, trasversali ai diversi contributi. Il primo è “età assiale e religione” per mettere in luce gli effetti di questo dibattito sul concetto stesso di religione. Il secondo è “età assiale e modernità” per verificare se sia possibile individuare già nell’età assiale i semi della modernità, rompendo la tradizionale narrazione illuminista. Il terzo è “età assiale e secolarizzazione” che si pone all’incrocio dei primi due percorsi per ridefinire la secolarizzazione come sfida della gestione dei possibili esiti violenti, sfida posta sia alle religioni sia alle filosofie. La conclusione diventa una agenda sociologica per uscire dalle categorie classiche, messe in crisi dalla globalizzazione.

Conferência na XVII Semana de Estudos de Religião (2013) do Programa de Pos-Graduacão em Ciências da Religião da Universidade Metodista de São Paulo. O autor enfoca a “grande transicão” que a humanidade estáatravessando, que inclui uma transformacão da consciencia religiosa e a aquisicão de uma nova visão. Isso éde natureza epistemológica, e o autor o trata a partir do conceito-chave de “novos paradigmas”, que expõe de modo sucinto: o pluralista, o ecofeminista, o pós-religional e o pós-teísta. Tudo focalizado a partir da perspectiva da nova visão que a religião deve adotar com urgência se quiser ser capaz de ajudar a humanidade.

In this chapter I explore Karl Jaspers’ idea of the ‘Axial Age’, and the complex relationship between ‘Axial’ cultures and the path to the Anthropocene. I then discuss a series of ‘theory-fictions’ that use a fictional Second Axial Age, based on a radically different metaphysics, in order to try to stretch the scholarly imagination. I develop in some detail one particular example of this imagined cultural shift, an offshoot of Tibetan Buddhism – Mangalayana or ‘Mars-Vehicle’ Buddhism, which involves a form of geological mysticism and a new understanding of cosmic human destiny.  I argue that such experimental fusions between literary genres can help us to understand what it might mean to escape the limitations of First-Axial-Age thinking and imagine radically different ‘geo-spiritual futures'.

Flavius Josephus, historian, Pharisee, priest, rebel and traitor, was proud to
say that he fought against Rome. Josephus is not closed to the value of freedom as
independence from foreign hegemony, nor is he deaf to hopes of the restoration of
Jewish freedom. By meditating on Josephus, with principal attention to his retelling of
the Bible and post-Biblical Jewish history in the Antiquities, I will explore the complex
dialectic Josephus presents of freedom and empire, for both Jews and Romans.

The Western world finds itself in a time of apocalypse. Narratives of collapse and despair permeate the religious, scientific, political and psychological spheres of Western culture. This sense of apocalypse, or meaninglessness, has been a perennial threat throughout human history. To explore the structure of meaninglessness and how to possibly alleviate its threat it is important to look back historically: firstly, to the formative period of human history, the Axial Age, which emerged from the ashes of the Bronze Age collapse, offering a profoundly different perspective of reality than had existed before. The sages of the Axial ‘Wisdom Traditions’ universally moved away from a worldview of divine retribution and determinism and responded to the collapse of ‘old systems’ with a new way of being, centred around wisdom. Wisdom was understood as both a transcendent encounter and immanent participation in existence, which aimed to speak directly into the cultural sense of meaninglessness. Secondly, one must look to the modern/postmodern deviations away from the insights of the Axial Age, to determine the places of epistemological and ontological fracture in the Western worldview. These ‘fractures’ between the Axial insights and (post)modern worldview have initiated the West into a liminal, ‘metamodern’ space, which oscillates somewhere between meaninglessness and hope. That wisdom might be a response to meaninglessness is not merely a theoretical argument; Western culture itself appears to be reengaging in the philosophies and practices of the Axial Wisdom Traditions. Rather than construct a new theory to combat and contain meaninglessness, the metamodern sense of ‘remembering’, integrating and yearning for something beyond must be understood for its sacred potential: to construct and participate in a poetic vision of reality.

The Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Multiple Secularities –
Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” deals with topics, at least some
of which I have myself dealt with throughout my sinological and philosophical life. I came to Frankfurt in autumn 1968: fascinated by Frankfurt School, I started studying sociology, but to my surprise this did not mean studying Critical Theory. Instead, it meant going through quite a conventional education in the social sciences, and moreover, it meant studying economics and statistics. This was not quite what I expected and after a few semesters I changed my major to philosophy. In need of a second subject, I chose sinology because of some vague interest in foreign cultures, and also because of the news coming from China at that time. It was the time of the Cultural Revolution that exerted a certain fascination on the German student movement especially since its revolutionary rhetoric differed so remarkably from the ossified language of Eastern European Marxist orthodoxy. So, like many members of my generation, I began to develop an interest in revolutionary China that was definitely not shared by my philosophy teachers – they were skeptical, at least to some extent.

This paper examines the political dimensions of the ongoing interdisciplinary debate about the occurrence of an "axial age" in human history during the first millennium BCE. It focuses on Karl Jaspers, who first formulated the "axial age" thesis, and Eric Voegelin, who was one of this thesis's earliest sympathetic critics.

Die Pluralität der Lebensorientierungen in einer zum globalen Dorf zusammengerückten Welt stellt noch immer eine grosse Herausforderung für uns dar. Doch worin liegt diese Herausforderung genau und wie ist darauf zu reagieren? Diese Arbeit untersucht das Werk von zwei verschiedenen Autoren und fragt danach, worin sie die Herausforderung dieser Situation erkennen und welche Umgangsweisen sie damit im Hinblick auf die Errichtung einer von beiden ersehnten globalen, nicht-totalitären Gemeinschaft entwickeln. Dazu wird in dieser Arbeit ihr Werk biografisch eingebettet und systematisch entfaltet. Der Teil 1 befasst sich mit dem pfingstlichen Theologen Amos Yong. Als Sohn chinesischer Missionare in Malaysia und Kalifornien sah er sich bereits von Klein auf mit der Herausforderung eines multikulturellen Umfeldes konfrontiert – einer Herausforderung, die für ihn nach einer theologischen Reflexion verlangte. Ein Grossteil seiner akademischen Arbeit kann deshalb als Reaktion auf diese Herausforderung verstanden werden, die er von einem spezifisch pfingstlichen Standpunkt aus angeht. Als Gesprächspartner wird in Teil 2 der amerikanische Religionssoziologe Robert Neelly Bellah präsentiert, der wie Yong in seiner Kindheit nach Kalifornien gezogen ist und die dortige kulturelle Pluralität als persönliche Herausforderung erlebte, die es wissenschaftlich zu reflektieren galt. Besonderes Gewicht wird dabei seinem letzten grossen Werk Religion in Human Evolution zugemessen. Im Teil 3 werden die beiden Ansätze auf Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede miteinander verglichen und reflektiert, um anschliessend im Rahmen einer Thesenreihe Yongs theologischen Ansatz weiterzudenken.

In his book on the "Axial Age" (München: C.H. Beck 2018)  the egyptologist Assmann refers both positively and critically to the cross-cultural idea of the Axial Age. However, he criticizes Jaspers' axial humanity as a retrospective construction, ultimately oriented towards Christianity, in the sense of highlighting a time of "classicism". The theory of the Axial Age was supposed to serve as a future orientation after the Second World War. However Assmann uses Jaspers' facets of this construct, but he takes a shift in the meaning of previous understandings of the Axial Age, because the global simultaneity of these thinkers from China to India and Greece circa 500 BC were fastened only about 200 years later by the canonization of their important writings. So they were hold in the cultural memory. At the same time, the cultures of Ancient Egypt and the Mesopotamia should by no means be ignored because the essential intellectual impulses of these "archaic" cultures particularly influenced Europe. Altogether, the Axial Age released normative concepts of humanistic thought, which only found their way into the cultural memory by the hermeneutic work of later generations. The "archaeologist" Assmann here uses the term "Axial Age" historically flexible. This allows him to “excavate” global relationships which changed the (intellectual) world in the horizon between 800 and 200 BC. In the light of events of major impact, such as September 11, 2001, the essential importance of these intellectual foundations of our culture becomes crucial for a contemporary global responsibility. This is not just a philosophical or religious task, but an eminently up-to-date political one.

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.

Il testo del filosofo/teologo inglese Anthony Carroll pubblicato in questo volume è la traduzione di una versione riveduta e ampliata della conferenza pubblica tenuta dall'autore a Trento il 6 dicembre 2017 presso l'Aula Grande della Fondazione Bruno Kessler. La cornice dell'evento era la seconda edizione della Davide Zordan Lecture, istitutita per onorare la memoria del teologo bresciano, ricercatore del Centro per le Scienze Religiose di FBK, scomparso prematuramente il 25 ottobre 2015. Introduzione e traduzione sono a cura di P. Costa. La pubblicazione del libro è prevista per marzo 2019. Questa è l'anteprima della mia introduzione.

Abstract.  This essay discusses the deep perceptual and social changes that the advanced applications of biotechnology could bring in the West. It examines the probable collapse of a fundamental perceptual bipolarity on which the Western mind and social mobilization have been based since its inception in the West: Athens--Jerusalem. This collapse will quite possibly radically reshape Western perceptions of self and nature and will remodel established constellations and modes of social mobilization and social organization. The radical collapse of the preceding established feature of Western modernity is due to take place in the field of biotechnology, since the latter promises to produce a deliverable perfection of flesh and an equally corporeal personal bliss. I call this promise ``eutopia,'' an actual and tangible utopia-- ``a laboratory on the hill.''

With his monumental genealogy of Western philosophy Jürgen Habermas delivers an achievement that is worthy of great praise. In carefully constructed arguments he presents in detail the close connection between, and the mutual indebtedness of, religion and philosophy as they developed in the West for more than two millennia. With regard to the current state of affairs he acknowledges that we should continue to engage with subjects such as purpose, meaningfulness, and how to behave. He proposes that where religion is withdrawing, philosophy should take its place. In spite of its great merits, there are some fundamental shortcomings in the overall image Habermas wishes to convey. By suggesting that Western religion and philosophy have been the major driving forces not only of cognitive but also of ethical progress, he underestimates the moral value of pre-Socratic and other holistic world views that radically differ from the idiosyncratic Western one. For example, he perceives Homer’s mythological thinking as nothing but a primitive state of mind against which the ethical and intellectual progress of later developments could come to the fore. This paper proposes that we should give much more weight to the difference between the ‘cognitive’ and the ‘ethical’ than Habermas does. In principle, as a form of argumentative reasoning, philosophy belongs to the (cognitive) domain of truth. As such, it is not a suitable successor to religion. On the other hand, provided they operate primarily within their own domain – which is the domain of meaningfulness –, religion (in whatever form), literature and the arts, ancient myth, friendship, love, and humour may still be best equipped to sharpen our sense of justice and help us deal with feelings of moral disorientation and fragmentation.

C. Taylor’s A Secular Age and R. Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution have fostered the revival of metanarratives or Master Narratives after the post-modern disillusionment with metarécits and the too hasty statements about the alleged End of History. Behind this revival, one can detect the wish to reawaken the discussion on the meaning of great historical transitions (such as secularization or modernization), whose sense appears much more obscure and uncertain today than it did only few decades ago. Given that a renewal of the old unilinear and teleological philosophies of history seems implausible and not particularly promising nowadays, how can be justified this return to macrohistory? And, supposing that this theoretical warrant can be found, will it lead to a radical change in our understanding of the historical significance of the modern Western project?

This is a review of Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1: Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen; vol. 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen. [Also a History of Philosophy, vol. 1: The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge; vol. 2: Freedom based on Reason: Traces of the Discourse about Faith and Knowledge.] Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 11.11.2019. ISBN 978-3-518-58734-8 (hbk), €98.00; 978-3-518-58736-2 (pbk), €58.00. 1752 pages.

In the article, Karl Jaspers' thesis of axiality is analyzed from three points of view: as a historical claim, as a diagnosis of the present time and as a philosophical challenge. After a discussion of the tripartite structure of his argument, three aspects of the theoretical challenge of axiality are investigated in the final part of the essay: (1) the question of human unity in diversity; (2) the evolutionary significance of the discovery of «transcendence», understood as the inclusion into the struggle for existence of an ideal struggle for recognition; (3) the would-be impact that a purely immanent and horizontal life-form could have on the dialectics of sacralization and de-sacralization, which is a common trait of all axial and post-axial civilizations.

“Throughout human history, perhaps even pre-human, there has been a tension between the need for order and the forces that cause change. That tension is greater now than ever, because, in our increasingly globalized world, the rate of change is also increasing. This book finally explains how we can cope: we have stories. We live our narratives.” Brian Spooner, University of Pennsylvania, is editor of Globalization: The Crucial Phase and Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order

"The idea that Axial Ages occurred, and that they provide warnings/opportunities for us today, seems both new and useful. But the value of this book is additional to this stance, in that it looks at cultural change - civilizations - from a complexity viewpoint. These changes are certainly complicated, but the pressures are interwoven and therefore need to be understood as complex. The book does a good job of explaining our present cultural difficulties - our prospective emergencies social, ecological and physical - in a wholly new way. Perhaps we'll get new answers..." Jack Cohen, evolutionary biologist, is co-author of The Collapse of Chaos, with Ian Steward.

"This is a challenging and creative tour de force on comparative, global, world history and cross-cultural, complex societal dynamics. Without doubt one of the most stimulating works in the tradition of big history and macro analysis.” Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, George Mason University, is author of Power Laws in the Social Sciences: Discovering Non-equilibrium Dynamics in the Social Universe.

“In this book, Dmitri Bondarenko (Russia) and Ken Baskin (USA) compare Modernity with the period historians know as the Axial Age (800-200 BCE) as times of transformation, responding to rapidly increasing social complexity. In doing so, they try to apply the experience of the earlier period, and the time of cultural achievement that followed it, to our time of ideological tension among civilizations. The great achievement of this relatively small book is the lucid way in which the co-authors present a picture of complex worldwide developments, based upon their mastery of recent and older literature, and their efforts to point to a way out of the hopelessly divided socio-political situation of today.” Henri J.M. Claessen, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Leiden University, is author of Structural Change; Evolution and Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology.

“With a lens of great magnification, the authors search through the intricacies of history, selecting its most important threads to weave together. What emerges is a rich tapestry in which the underlying trajectory of history, not clearly visible to the untutored eye, is brought boldly to the surface. And far from being couched in academic jargon—as one might have supposed—the book is a rare combination of brilliant analysis and beautifully crafted prose. Moreover, it ends on a hopeful note with the authors prescribing what they think societies must do if they are to confront and surmount the challenges that lie ahead.” Robert L. Carneiro, Curator Emeritus of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, is author of Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Critical History.

"I find this a very insightful book, that will help readers to place current cultural developments within the framework of our common past, while contemplating what the future may bring." Fred Spier, University of Amsterdam, is President, International Big History Association, and author of Big History and the Future of Humanity.

The philosophy of existentialism is undergoing an ecological renewal, as global warming, mass extinction, and other signs of the planetary scale of human actions are making it glaringly apparent that existence is always ecological coexistence. One of the most urgent problems in the current ecological emergency is that humans cannot bear to face the emergency. Its earth-shattering implications are ignored in favor of more solutions, fixes, and sustainability transitions. Solutions cannot solve much when they cannot face what it means to be human amidst unprecedented uncertainty and intimate interconnectedness. Attention to such uncertainty and interconnectedness is what "ecological existentialism" (Deborah Bird Rose) or "coexistentialism" (Timothy Morton) is all about.

This book follows Rose, Morton, and many others (e.g., Jean-Luc Nancy, Peter Sloterdijk, and Luce Irigaray) who are currently taking up the styles of thinking conveyed in existentialism, renewing existentialist affirmations of experience, paradox, uncertainty, and ambiguity, and extending existentialism beyond humans to include attention to the uniqueness and strangeness of all beings—all humans and nonhumans woven into ecological coexistence. Along the way, coexistentialism finds productive alliances and tensions amidst many areas of inquiry, including ecocriticism, ecological humanities, object-oriented ontology, feminism, phenomenology, deconstruction, new materialism, and more. This is a book for anyone who seeks to refute cynicism and loneliness and affirm coexistence.

“Come tornare a casa”: questo provava Hannah Arendt ogni volta che, in occasione dei suoi ritorni in Europa, faceva visita a Karl Jaspers a Basilea. Prima un legame di discepolato, poi un sodalizio intellettuale, infine una profonda amicizia: ecco le tappe di un irripetibile confronto umano e spirituale durato più di quarant’anni e qualche volta messo alla prova da aspre polemiche, come quelle sulla “essenza tedesca” negli anni trenta e sulla “questione della colpa” negli anni quaranta. Espressione di questa singolare amicizia filosofica tra un uomo e una donna, prima ancora che tra due grandi personalità del pensiero del Novecento, sono i tre contributi arendtiani dedicati a Jaspers qui presentati per la prima volta al pubblico italiano: lo Jaspers cittadino del mondo? (1957) che propone una lettura della storia universale jaspersiana in chiave cosmopolitica; Il futuro della Germania (1967), in cui la Arendt, sulla scia di Jaspers, denuncia i rischi della democrazia tedesca post-bellica; infine Jaspers a ottantacinque anni (1968), un toccante ritratto del filosofo un anno prima della morte, da cui emergono due vibranti testimonianze arendtiane sulle esemplari virtù della “fedeltà” e della “gratitudine”.

Between 1940 and 1944, sociologist Talcott Parsons and political scientist Eric Voegelin engaged in a vigorous correspondence, discussing the origins of totalitarianism and modern anti-Semitism, the legacy of Max Weber, patterns of secularization set in motion by the Protestant Reformation, the methodology and goals of social science, and more. This article introduces and explicates the surprisingly amicable and intellectually rich exchange between these two seemingly different thinkers. Although the letters hold obvious historical interest, their variegated topics are also closely thematically related, revealing an inner logic that we interpret as a theoretical search for “critical na ̈ıvete”. This logic, we argue, is relevant to contemporary discussions about the social, political, and scientific legacies of world-transcendent spiritual traditions.