The Legacy of Hans Jonas ― Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life

Jewish-German philosopher Hans Jonas (1903-1993), a student of Heidegger who taught at the New School for Social Research, posed an existential biology to reconcile moral responsibility, biology, and modern technology. In this major contribution to Jonas studies in English, Tirosh-Samuelson (history/Jewish studies, Arizona State U.) and Wiese (German-Jewish studies, U. of Sussex, UK) introduce 22 chapters by interdisciplinary contributors that treat his influential writings in diverse fields which argue for a material and moral human nature: religion (The Gnostic Religion, 1958); the environmental movement in Germany (The Imperative of Responsibility, German 1979, English 1984); and bioethics (The Phenomenon of Life, 1966). Wiese supplies a Jonas chronology and bibliography of his works. The volume is based on a conference held at Arizona State in 2005. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Ph.D. (1978) in Philosophy and Mysticism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is professor of History, Director of Jewish Studies, and Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism at Arizona State University. She has published extensively on Jewish intellecutal history, including Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being (Hebrew Union College Press, 2003).Christian Wiese, Ph.D. (1997), is Director of the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex and taught at Erfurt University, in Montreal and Dublin, as well as at Dartmouth College. He has published extensively on modern Jewish history and thought, including Challenging Colonial Discourse: Jewish Studies and Protestant Theology in Wilhelmine Germany (Brill, 2005).