Abstract

The article compares the approach of Axial Turn and that adopted by Max Weber in its comparative survey of world religions. In Weber's sociology of religion are at work four distinct notions of transcendence: magical, ethical, "redemptive" (ability to transcend the world), theological/metaphysical. According to Weber every gain of transcendence has an essentially cognitive nature: it is "made of" beliefs, and is inextricably "linked to" representations of "what the world is" and "how it works". Just the cognitive nature of the worldviews is the ultimate reason of the precariousness and instability of human capabilities and forms of subjectivity induced by the religions of redemption.