Hans Jonas

Hans Jonas (

Biography

Jonas was born in

While The Imperative of Responsibility has been credited with catalyzing the environmental movement in Germany, his work The Phenomenon of Life (1966) forms the philosophical undergirding of one major school of bioethics in America. Murray Bookchin and Leon Kass both referred to Hans Jonas's work as major, or primary, inspiration. Heavily influenced by Martin Heidegger but also one of Heidegger's most outspoken philosophical critics,^[10] The Phenomenon of Life attempts to synthesize the philosophy of matter with the philosophy of mind, producing a rich existential understanding of biology, which ultimately argues for a simultaneously material and moral human nature.^[11]On the question of abortion, Jonas was against saying. "a mother-to-be is more than her individual self. She carries a human trust, and we should not make abortion merely a matter of her own private wish", society had a "social responsibility" to pregnant mothers, and "To give this mission[motherhood] over completely to individual choice oversteps the order of nature."^[12]

His writing on the history of Gnosticism revisits terrain covered by earlier standard works on the subject such as Ernesto Buonaiuti's Lo gnosticismo: storia di antiche lotte religiose (1907), interpreting the religion from a unique version of existentialist philosophical viewpoint that also informed his later contributions.^[10] He was one of the first philosophers to concern himself with ethical questions in biological science.^[13] Jonas's career is generally divided into three periods defined by his three primary works, but in reverse order: studies of gnosticism, studies of philosophical biology, and ethical studies.^{[14] [11]}

Works

English books

• The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God & the Beginnings of Christianity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958)
  ISBN 0-8070-5801-7
  Second, enlarged edition, 1963. Third edition, 2001. (N.B. The "Introduction to the Third Edition" is in fact a talk given by Jonas in 1974.)
• The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (New York, Harper & Row, 1966) OCLC 373876 (Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 2001).
  ISBN 0-8101-1749-5
• The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age (translation of Das Prinzip Verantwortung) trans. Hans Jonas and David Herr (1979).
  ISBN 0-226-40596-6
• Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974)
  ISBN 0-226-40591-5
  • "Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Tasks of Ethics," Social Research 15 (Spring 1973).
  • "Jewish and Christian Elements in Philosophy: their Share in the Emergence of the Modern Mind"
  • "Seventeenth Century and After: The Meaning of the Scientific and Technological Revolution"
  • "Socioeconomic Knowledge and Ignorance of Goals"
  • "Philosophical Reflections on Experimenting with Human Subjects"
  • "Against the Stream: Comments on the Definition and Redefinition of Death"
  • "Biological Engineering—A Preview"
  • "Contemporary Problems in Ethics from a Jewish Perspective"
  • "Biological Foundations of Individuality"
  • "Spinoza and the Theory of Organism"
  • "Sight and Thought: A Review of 'Visual Thinking.'"
  • "Change and Permanence: On the Possibility of Understanding History."
  • "The Gnostic Syndrome: Typology of Its Thought, Imagination, and Mood."
  • "The Hymn of the Pearl: Case Study of a Symbol, and the Claims for a Jewish Origin of Gnosticism."
  • "Myth and Mysticism: A Study of Objectification and Interiorization in Religious Thought."
  • "Origen's Metaphysics of Free Will, Fall, and Salvation: a 'Divine Comedy' of the Universe."
  • "The Soul in Gnosticism and Plotinus."
  • "The Abyss of the Will: Philosophical Meditations on the Seventh Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans."
• Mortality and Morality: A Search for the Good After Auschwitz ed. Lawrence Vogel (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996).
  ISBN 0-8101-1286-8
• With Stuart F Spicker: Organism, medicine, and metaphysics : essays in honor of Hans Jonas on his 75th birthday, May 10, 1978
  ISBN 90-277-0823-1
• On faith, reason and responsibility (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978. New edition: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity,
  ISBN 0-940440-00-8
• Memoirs (Brandeis University Press, 2008)
  ISBN 978-1-58465-639-5

• Gnosis und spätantiker Geist (1–2, 1934–1954)
• Technik, Medizin und Ethik — Zur Praxis des Prinzips Verantwortung — Frankfurt a.M. : Suhrkamp, 1985 —
  ISBN 3-518-38014-1
  (On Technology, Medicine and Ethics: On the Practice of the Imperative of Responsibility)
• Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation (Frankfurt am Main : Insel-Verlag, 1979).
  ISBN 3-458-04907-X
• Erinnerungen. Nach Gesprächen mit Rachel Salamander, ed. Ch. Wiese. Frankfurt am Mein-Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 2003.
• Macht oder Ohnmacht der Subjektivität? Das Leib-Seele-Problem im Vorfeld des Prinzips Verantwortung. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1981, and then Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987.
  ISBN 3-458-04758-1
• Erkenntnis und Verantwortung, Gespräch mit Ingo Hermann in der Reihe "Zeugen des Jahrhunderts", Edited by I. Hermann. Göttingen: Lamuv, 1991.
• Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1992, and then Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994.
• Organismus und Freiheit. Ansätze zu einer philosophischen Biologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973.
• Augustin und das paulinische Freiheitsproblem. Ein philosophischer Beitrag zur Genesis der christlich-abendländischen Freiheitsidee, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1930. Second edition entitled Augustin und das paulinische Freiheitsproblem. Eine philosophische Studie zum pelagianischen Streit, with an introduction by J. M. Robinson. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965.

• Le concept de Dieu après Auschwitz
  ISBN 2-86930-769-1
• Evolution et liberté
  ISBN 2-7436-0580-4
• Le Principe responsabilité
  ISBN 2-0813-0769-3
• Le Droit de mourir
  ISBN 2-7436-0104-3
• With Sabine Cornille and Philippe Ivernel: Pour une éthique du futur
  ISBN 2-7436-0290-2
• Une éthique pour la nature
  ISBN 2-220-04795-4
• With Sylvie Courtine-Denamy: Entre le néant et l'éternité
  ISBN 2-7011-1923-5
• La gnose et l'Esprit de l'Antiquité tardive. Histoire et méthodologie de la recherche
  ISBN 978-88-6976-059-4
  .

• "The Right to Die." Hastings Center Report 8, number 4 (1978): 31–36.
• "Straddling the Boundaries of Theory and Practice: Recombinant DNA Research as a Case of Action in the Process of Inquiry." In Recombinant DNA: Science, Ethics and Politics, edited by J. Richards, 253–71. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
• "Toward a Philosophy of Technology." Hastings Center Report 9 (1979): 34–43.
• "The Heuristics of Fear." In Ethics in an Age of Pervasive Technology, edited by Melvin Kranzberg, 213–21. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980.
• "Parallelism and Complementarity: The Psycho-Physical Problem in Spinoza and in the Succession of Niels Bohr." In The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, edited by Richard Kennington, 121–30. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of the Americas Press, 1980.
• "Reflections on Technology, Progress and Utopia." Social Research 48 (1981): 411–55.
• "Technology as a Subject for Ethics." Social Research 49 (1982): 891–98.
• "Is Faith Still Possible? Memories of Rudolf Bultmann and Reflections on the Philosophical Aspects of His Work." Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982): 1–23.
• "Ontological Grounding of a Political Ethics: On the Metaphysics of Commitment to the Future of Man." Graduate Faculty Philosophical Journal 10, no. 1 (1984): 47–62.
• "Ethics and Biogenetic Art." Social Research 52 (1985): 491–504.
• "The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice." Journal of Religion 67, number 1 (1987): 1–13.
• "The Consumer's Responsibility." In Ecology and Ethics. A Report from the Melbu conference, 18–23 July 1990, edited by Audun 0fsti, 215–18. Trondheim: Nordland Akademi for Kunst og Vitenskap, 1992.
• "The Burden and Blessing of Mortality." Hastings Center Report 22, no. 1 (1992): 34–40.
• "Philosophy at the End of the Century: A Survey of Its Past and Future." Social Research 61, number 4 (1994): 812–32.
• "Wissenschaft as Personal Experience [brief memoir]," The Hastings Center report 32:4 (Jul–Aug 2002): 27–35
  ISSN 0093-0334
• "Materialism and the Theory of Organism." University of Toronto Quarterly, 21, 1 (1951): 39–52.

• "Causality and Perception," The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 47, No. 11 (May 25, 1950), pp. 319–324
• "The Nobility of Sight," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Jun., 1954), pp. 507–519. (also in The Phenomenon of Life)[15]
• "Immortality and the Modern Temper: The Ingersoll Lecture, 1961" The Harvard Theological Review, volume 55, number 1 (January 1962), pp. 1–20. (also in The Phenomenon of Life)
• "The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics," The Journal of Religion, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Oct., 1962), pp. 262–273.
• "Myth and Mysticism: A Study of Objectification and Interiorization in Religious Thought," The Journal of Religion, Vol. 49, No. 4 (October 1969), pp. 315–329
• "Freedom of Scientific Inquiry and the Public Interest," The Hastings Center Report, volume 6, number 4 (August 1976), pp. 15–17.

See also

• Natural environment
• Environmental movement
• Ethics of technology
• Noocracy
• Jewish philosophy

References