Sociology of the Axial Age Civilizations

Abstract

The most significant shift in Axial Age scholarship is from Jaspers’ philosophy of history approach to a sociology of civilizations approach. Following the sociological attention paid to empirical particulars, this chapter summarizes the comparative sociology of the Axial Age civilizations of China, India, Israel, and Greece, focusing on the new class of dissident intellectual created (the shi, shramana and sannyasin, prophets, and philosophers, respectively). Common features are described: of their marginal status, the “master-disciples” composition of schools, the proliferation of schools, the structural rivalry of the field they compose (following Randall Collins), the importance of text, and their countercultural, civilization-renouncing practices. These new elites manifest interstitial networks that, following Michael Mann’s and Shmuel Eisenstadt’s convergent interpretations, carry Axial visions forward and found “universal” world religions.