From "Ming" to "Dao" (Ten Lectures on the Pre-Qin Thinkers)

Author: Huang Kejian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Any civilization that arose early and subsequently participated in the long-term creation of human culture with its initial achievements has experienced such an era: all preceding eras have moved towards it, as if preparing for its arrival, and all subsequent eras have repeatedly reminisced about it. This era seems to be the axis around which the surrounding eras revolve. The 20th-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers called it the "Axial Age." The characteristic of the "Axial Age," if summarized in a word, could be said to be the shift of humanistic focus from "fate" to "state" or what is referred to as the transformation from "destiny" to "path." China's "Axial Age" was during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods when the Hundred Schools of Thought flourished.