UDC

122:172

DOI

10.37482/2687-1505-V464

Authors

Kirill S. Golikov, Cand. Sci. (Philos.), Junior Researcher, Department of Interdisciplinary Problems of Scientific and Technological Development, Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences (address: ul. Goncharnaya 12, building 1, Moscow, 109240, Russia).
е-mail: golikovk@gmail.com, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2815-0310

Abstract

This article attempts to analyse and characterize the thirty-year trend of scholars’ returning to Karl Jaspers’ concept of the Axial Age, but in its new semantic configurations. The paper studies the most significant Russian and foreign sources on this topic, identifying contemporary interpretations of Jaspers’ original concept regarding the unity of humanity’s spiritual and historical origins. Two methodological approaches to this problem were proposed: a comparative phenomenological and a rhythmic cascade (V.G. Budanov’s term) approach. While identifying the specificity of the current spiritual and historical situation, the author discussed the existential challenges that the contemporary limit situation of global uncertainty poses to the humanity, particularly from the perspective of the hypothesis of techno-humanitarian imbalance. This hypothesis was expanded with the idea that a perfect correlation between the levels of technological development and psychological maturity of humankind can be achieved by applying the golden ratio, including in its dynamic-evolutionary aspect in the form of the Fibonacci sequence. Based on the developmental trajectory of artificial intelligence, some qualitative indicators were proposed to assess the imbalance. It is concluded that the human being capable of managing the available level of modern technologies is still in formation. His emergence is linked with the necessity of an integral ethics of life rooted in human experience and encompassing a multiplicity of confessions. In the limit situation of digitalization and exponential development of artificial intelligence, humanity is faced with the ultimate questions of what humans are like as spiritual and moral beings. The author concluded by pointing out the need to recognize the acuteness of the current existential-historical situation that raises the question of a new human ontology, realized in the diverse forms of a person’s inner experience that can only be copied by a machine in a purely mechanistic way.

Keywords

new Axial Age, rhythmic cascade method, techno-humanitarian imbalance, big anthropological shift, integral ethics of the human community, supra-confessional religiosity, transcendence, new axial man

References

1. Cousins E.H. Christ of the 21st Century. New York, 1998. 224 p.
2. Wright M. The Second Axial Emergence. Center for Christogenesis, 26 September 2016. Available at: https://christogenesis.org/second-axial-emergence (accessed: 6 April 2025).
3. Gardels N. The New Axial Age. Noema, 17 June 2020. Available at: https://www.noemamag.com/the-new-axial-age (accessed: 6 April 2025).
4. Vermander B. The “Axial Age” and the Invention of a Shared Future. La Civiltà Cattolica, 5 October 2021. Available at: https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/the-axial-age-and-the-invention-of-a-shared-future/ (accessed: 6 April 2025).
5. Bellah R.N., Joas H. The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge, 2012. 500 p. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067400
6. Stout B. Welcome to the 2nd Axial Age: Toward the Next Evolution in Human Consciousness. 13 August 2019. Available at: https://citizenstout.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-2nd-axial-age (accessed: 6 April 2025).
7. Marshall P. A Complex Integral Realist Perspective: Towards a New Axial Vision. London, 2016. 296 p. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315753485
8. Hagemann R. A Technological Axial Age. Niskanen Center, 20 May 2016. Available at: https://www.niskanencenter.org/a-technological-axial-age (accessed: 6 April 2025).
9. Yakobson V.A. (ed.). Istoriya Vostoka. T. 1. Vostok v drevnosti [History of the East. Vol. 1. The Ancient East]. Moscow, 2002. 688 p.
10. Safonov A.L. Osevoe vremya-2: vozvrashchenie k istokam ili pogruzhenie vo t’mu? [Axial Age-2: Return to Origins or Dive to the Darkness?]. Vestnik BGU, 2012, no. 14, pp. 34–42.
11. Sterledeva T.D., Sterledev R.K. Osevoe vremya-2 v aspekte elektronnoy virtual’noy real’nosti [Axial Age-2 in the Aspect of Electronic Virtual Reality]. Manuskript, 2020, no. 1, pp. 99–103. https://doi.org/10.30853/manuscript.2020.1.20
12. Birich I.A. Novoe osevoe vremya i novyy osevoy chelovek kak otvet na vyzov antropnoy Vselennoy [The New Axial Age and the New Axial Man as a Response to the Challenge of the Anthropic Universe]. Sinergetika, 19 January 2025. Available at: https://spkurdyumov.ru/philosophy/16361 (accessed: 6 April 2025).
13. Jaspers K. Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte. Zürich, 1949. 360 p. (Russ. ed.: Yaspers K. Smysl i naznachenie istorii. Moscow, 1994. 527 p.).
14. Budanov V.G. Arkhetipicheskoe ekho v istorii: metod ritmokaskadov i priroda Bol’shogo antropologicheskogo perekhoda [Archetypical Echo in History: The Method of Rhythmocascades and the Nature of the Great Anthropological Transition]. Slozhnost’. Razum. Postneklassika, 2020, no. 4, pp. 34–44. https://doi.org/10.12737/2306-174X-2021-34-45
15. Budanov V.G., Arshinov V.I. Bol’shoy antropologicheskiy perekhod: metodologiya slozhnostno-setevogo myshleniya [The Big Anthropological Shift: Methodology of Complex Network Thinking]. Kursk, 2022. 129 p.
16. Budanov V.G., Arshinov V.I., Baeva A.V., Belonogov I.N., Belyaletdinov R.R., Gerasimova I.A., Lepskiy V.E., Popova O.V., Pronin M.A., Raev O.N., Rozin V.M., Svirskiy Ya.I., Strugovshchikova U.S., Tishchenko P.D., Shevchenko S.Yu. Sovremennye problemy sotsio-tekhno-antroposfery [Modern Problems of the Socio-Techno-Anthroposphere]. Kursk, 2022. 255 p.
17. Nazaretyan A.P. Vospitatel’nyy potentsial sinergetiki: gipoteza tekhno-gumanitarnogo balansa [The Educational Potential of Synergetics: Hypothesis of Techno and Humanitarian Balance]. Nauchnyy rezul’tat. Pedagogika i psikhologiya obrazovaniya, 2014, no. 2, pp. 98–105. Available at: https://rrpedagogy.ru/journal/annotation/747/ (accessed: 6 April 2025).
18. James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York, 1902. 534 p. (Russ. ed.: Dzheyms U. Mnogoobrazie religioznogo opyta. Moscow, 2017. 415 p.).
19. Golikov K. Do We Want Changes? Resorting to Karl Jaspers’ Metaphor of the “Shell”. Idei i idealy, 2020, vol. 12, no. 2, pt. 1, pp. 96–107 (in Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17212/2075-0862-2020-12.2.1-96-107
20. Buber M. Problema cheloveka [The Problem of Man]. Buber M. Dva obraza very [Two Types of Faith]. Moscow, 1995, pp. 157–232.