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When Hans Jonas died in 1993 at the age of 89, he was revered among American scholars specializing in European philosophy, but his thought had not yet made great inroads among a wider public. In Germany, conversely, during the 1980s, when Jonas himself was an octogenarian, he became a veritable intellectual celebrity, owing to the runaway success of his 1979 book, The Imperative of Responsibility, a dense philosophical work that sold 200,000 copies. An extraordinarily timely work today, The Imperative of Responsibility focuses on the ever-widening gap between humankind’s enormous technological capacities and its diminished moral sensibilities. The book became something of a cultural shibbo...
Hans Jonas (1903–1993) was one of the most important German-Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. A student of Martin Heidegger and close friend of Hannah Arendt, Jonas advanced the fields of phenomenology and practical ethics in ways that are just beginning to be appreciated in the English-speaking world. Drawing here on unpublished and newly translated material, Lewis Coyne brings together for the first time in English Jonas's philosophy of life, ethic of responsibility, political theory, philosophy of technology and bioethics. In Hans Jonas: Life, Technology and the Horizons of Responsibility, Coyne argues that the aim of Jonas's philosophy is to confront three critical issues inhere...
Hans Jonas: The Integrity of Thinking provides the first overall account of the work of Hans Jonas. While Jonas is not the best-known thinker of the twentieth century, David J. Levy shows that he is one of the most important. Levy covers the philosopher's life and his contributions to the history of religion, philosophical biology, philosophical anthropology, ethics, and theology. Jonas's work is situated in relationship to that of his first intellectual mentor, Martin Heidegger, as well as that of such related thinkers among his contemporaries as Eric Voegelin. Setting Jonas's work in the historical and philosophical context of his life and times, Levy summarizes Jonas's original achievements in fields as apparently diverse as the history of ancient Gnosticism, the philosophical significance of biology, the problems of ethics in a technological age, and the mysteries of theology, while demonstrating the notable unity of theme and purpose that guided his various fields of inquiry.
Hans Jonas (1903-1993) was one of the most creative and original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth-century. This volume offers a retrospective of Jonas's life and works by bringing together historians of modern Germany, Judaica scholars, philosophers, bioethicists, and environmentalists to reflect on the meaning of his legacy today. From a historian of religions, who wrote a path-breaking monograph on Gnosticism, Jonas turned to the philosophy of nature, extending his existential philosophy and phenomenological analysis to include all forms of life. Unique among twentieth-century Jewish philosophers, Jonas argued for the possibility of a genuinely symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature, which he believed had been suppressed by modern technology. Jonas spoke against the human domination of nature on the basis of Jewish sources, especially the Bible and Lurianic Kabbalah, and he was among the first to define the ethical challenges that modern technology poses to humanity.
An analysis of the Jewish background of an eminent philosopher
"This book offers new perspectives on the early and formative years of the German-Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas, through innovative studies of his German and Hebrew work in pre-war Germany and Palestine. Covering all facets of Jonas's early work, the book brings together leading scholars to explore key conceptual, historical, genealogical, and biographical contexts. Some of the main topics examined include his deep intellectual history of Western thought and its origins in late antiquity through the category of Gnosis, the intellectual influence of Heidegger, Bultmann, Husserl, and Spengler, his relation to Christian theology, and his interest in Judaism and Zionism. Existing research on his...
Hans Jonas, a pupil of Heidegger and a colleague of Hannah Arendt at the New School for Social Research, was one of the most prominent phenomenologists of his generation. This carefully chosen anthology of Jonas's shorter writings - on topics from Jewish philosophy to philosophy of religion to philosophy of biology and social philosophy - reveals their range without obscuring their central unifying thread: that as living, biological beings, we are also beings who die, and who must consider the implications for current and future ethical and social relations.
Articulates the fundamental importance of ontology to Hans Jonass environmental ethics. Despite his tremendous impact on the German Green Party and the influence of his work on contemporary debates about stem cell research in the United States, Hans Jonass (19031993) philosophical contributions have remained partially obscured. In particular, the ontological grounding he gives his ethics, based on a phenomenological engagement with biology to bridge the is-ought gap, has not been fully appreciated. Theresa Morris provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of Jonass philosophy that reveals the thread that runs through all of his thought, including his work on the philosophy of...
Hans Jonas here rethinks the foundations of ethics in light of the awesome transformations wrought by modern technology: the threat of nuclear war, ecological ravage, genetic engineering, and the like. Though informed by a deep reverence for human life, Jonas's ethics is grounded not in religion but in metaphysics, in a secular doctrine that makes explicit man's duties toward himself, his posterity, and the environment. Jonas offers an assessment of practical goals under present circumstances, ending with a critique of modern utopianism.
The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity