Title: Ontology and nihilism in the environmental philosophy of Hans Jonas

Authors: Charles Bonner

Addresses: Cambridge, MA, USA

Abstract: This paper looks at two works of Hans Jonas from a Heideggerian perspective, contrasting the earlier, ontologically oriented philosophy of biology with his later and better-known articulation of environmental ethics. It is argued that philosophy|s proper contribution to the interdisciplinary problematic must include an ontological inquiry prior to any attempt to work out a ||new ethics||. Only in this way, caught sight of in Jonas|s earlier work but subsequently abandoned, can the nihilism of the value-neutral objective scientific enframing of the problematic be overcome.

Keywords: ontology; nihilism; environmental philosophy; Hans Jonas; Heidegger; biology; environmental ethics; interdisciplinary; value-neutral.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2002.053891

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2002 Vol.4 No.2, pp.13 - 22

Published online: 13 May 2013 *

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