Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man

by Hans Jonas, L.E. Long (Editor), Carl Mitcham (Foreword)

Philosophical Essays is a pivotal volume in the collected works of Hans Jonas (1903-1993), one of most important German-American philosophers of the last half of the 20th century. Of the four books published in English during his lifetime, it is the only one to include contributions from his three primary areas of philosophical reflection on gnosticism, on biology, and on technology - hence the subtitle, "From Ancient Creed to Technological Man." The three sections of the book are, however, given in reverse order with essays on "Science, Technology, and Ethics" preceding papers on "Organism, Mind, and History" and "Religious Thought of the First Christian Centuries." The temporally ultimate project is that which Jonas sees as having philosophical priority. This collection of 18 essays originally published between 1965 and 1974 - that is, after completion of The Phenomenon of Life (1966) but before The Imperative of Responsibility (1984) - manifests the most intensive integration of Jonas's three projects. As such, this volume provides special witness to the inherent unity of what might otherwise be seen as more episodic work. In the Introduction Jonas himself argues for both a biographical and a philosophical unity, the latter of which is emphasized in a new foreword by Carl Mitcham of the European Graduate School.

Genres: Philosophy

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Hans Jonas was a German and American philosopher whose work bridged existentialism, theology, philosophy of biology, and ethics. Born in Mönchengladbach to a Jewish family, he studied philosophy and theology at Freiburg, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Marburg, earning his doctorate under Martin Heidegger with a thesis on Gnosticism, and counted Edmund Husserl and Rudolf Bultmann among his advisors. He maintained a lifelong friendship with Hannah Arendt. Jonas left Germany in 1933 due to the Nazi rise to power, moving to England, then Palestine, where he married Lore Weiner and served in the British Army’s Jewish Brigade during World War II. After briefly teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he moved to North America, teaching at Carleton University and then holding the Alvin Johnson Professorship at the New School for Social Research from 1955 to 1976, later serving as Eric Voegelin Visiting Professor at the University of Munich. His major works include The Gnostic Religion, The Phenomenon of Life, and The Imperative of Responsibility, the latter formulating a moral imperative to act in ways that preserve genuine human life. Influenced by Heidegger yet critical of him, Jonas shaped bioethics, environmental philosophy, and philosophical understandings of life, technology, and human responsibility, emphasizing that ethical reflection must guide human action in a technologically complex world.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonas was ahead of his time in foreseeing the social and cultural implications of genetic engineering, experimentation on human subjects, and artificial intelligence. Were his forecasts perfect? Of course not. But in my opinion, Jonas was far more accurate than the technological optimists who believed that any technological advancement was progress. Such a conclusion was hard-won through a dense prose based on Jewish gnosticism informed by a dense study of Christian dogma. I respect Jonas's intellectual rigor, and appreciate the timelessness of his essays, but I'd rather skip the parts about St Paul and the attempts to reconcile Judaism and Christianity.

[Toby Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very subtle and, by turns, inspiring and chastening.

Jonas is concerned with the effects of humans on planet earth, given our dangerous profile: morally juvenile; technologically potent.

He urges that we take responsibility for ourselves and shows what that might look like. It's a tall order for an animal that is not naturally responsible, but at best a-responsible. Building people so that they can shoulder responsibility seems to me to be our species' greatest challenge.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

His essays on Gnosticism are some of the best that I have ever read. Incredible insight into the typology of Gnosticism, what it is and it’s essential characteristics. It will help to contextualize some the Gnostic origins that - in modernity - have substantiated the new New Agism and pop-occultist movements.

[TA · Rating 5 out of 5]

first off, it is worth saying that jonas is a really excellent writer--impressively precise and organized, especially seeing as he's a student of Heidegger.

the book begins with the general problematic: an essay urging a rethinking of ethics in view of the growth of technology, which i found convincing. he argues that all historical ethical systems are underequipped to deal with the sudden spatial and temporal expansion of human powers wrought by science, and the concomitant loss of a metaphysical ground for ethical principles which could direct their use: "Never was so much power coupled with so little guidance for its use." 176

in the following two chapters, Jonas goes on to give a genealogy of the viewpoint which gives birth to technology, coming out of the Middle Ages as a sort of "self-secularization" of Christian theology, through to the modifications it undergoes in the invention of modern science. this section is really excellent, my favorite part of the book; the second chapter remains one of my favorite short pieces of philosophical writing, and the third also does not dissapoint.

the chapter on the jewish perspective on modern ethics serves as a sort of rejoinder to the first chapter, but i felt that it really did not rise to the task that he had set for ethical thinking, and seems like a hopeless return to religion as the only solid basis upon which to base ethical thinking for the modern age, which i found unstatisfying. the same sort of conservative attitude enjoining us to humility in the face of theses gargantuan problems seems to run through the reflections on various ethical concerns which make up the rest of the first part. nevertheless he does make a lot of valid observations here. his concerns are by no means unfounded.

in the second part, there are a series of loosely-connected reflections on what it means to be human, a theory of the organism which sort of reminded me of Schelling's "personality", an excellent essay on Spinoza (which makes sense in view of the former), and other stuff that was cool i guess. the last part is a bunch of essays on various late-antique religious and philosophical trends which i very much enjoyed. Jonas is clearly in his element when it comes to this stuff and im an appreciator of the period so it was great!