The ‘Axial Age’ (500–300 BCE) refers to the period during which most of the main religious and spiritual traditions emerged in Eurasian societies. Although the Axial Age has recently been the focus of increasing interest,1-5 its existence is still very much in dispute. The main reason for questioning the existence of the Axial Age is that its nature, as well as its spatial and temporal boundaries, remain very much unclear. The standard approach to the Axial Age defines it as a change of cognitive style, from a narrative and analogical style to a more analytical and reflective style, probably due to the increasing use of external memory tools. Our recent research suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely a change in reward orientation, from a short-term materialistic orientation to a long-term spiritual one.6 Here, we briefly discuss these 2 alternative definitions of the Axial Age. [This paper puts axial age between 500 and 300 BCE but other sources define it to span from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. The latter makes sense as axial age refers to the period when substantial changes occurred in cognitive styles or consciousness. For example the word ‘god’ was used for the first time in the 8th century, The Athenian government was created in the 6th century, and the SPA (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) group introduced society to classical philosophy in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE]
ፍትህ ለሁሉም / Justice for All