I found a copy of this slim book while rummaging through dozens being given away from the library of a deceased professor. It looked interesting but little did I realize that it contained the most precise description of the problem of modern times: how should we live, how should we decide about "progress" such that we will best assure the future of man? Jonas makes a very powerful argument that extreme caution is advised and wrestles in detail with the difficulties of restraining ourselves when technology beckons us with the promise of anything and everything we want. The early part of the book is demanding as it is an intricate examination of logic as he defines his terms. Then there is a transition to the things which I think we all have on our minds as we race along with technological progress. While the ethics passed down to us from ancient times deal with how we treat each other as individuals, they assume man, as a creature living in his own world, will continue on regardless of setbacks in one or another situation, incapable of threatening his own essence or the natural world around him. Technology has altered this and placed such power in our hands that we have the fate of the future of man in our hands. Jonas points to genetic alteration and behavioral modification as areas in which we must act with the utmost restraint and makes a strong case for what we in the present owe to those who will live long after we are gone, unless we make it impossible for them to even be as we are. Page after page I would turn to find a new heading that made me exclaim "Aha! I was hoping he would talk about this!" He discusses the contrast between the excesses of consumerism and the widespread occurance of poverty and deprivation, warning that something must happen to lessen the divide while at the same time constraining the depredation of the natural world. He accurately points out the tightening squeeze where the system of production and endless growth is running up against a point where we will have to go with further change because we will have gone beyond a point that will allow an alternative to massive production at the highest efficiency just to keep our way of life going. When you hear people belittle such talk as "gloom and doom", ask them how the economy could survive with a flat stock market. Just as there is no perpetual motion machine, so there is no endless growth but we deny this daily in the way we live. Will we be able to carefully decide on such things as genetic manipulation in humans or will it take on a "progress" of its own in which the layman stands speechless before the decisions of experts? Is Capitalism or Marxism the best approach to these issues? Capitalism says press on with all deliberate speed. While we can almost all agree that Marxism has been swept under, Jonas discusses the foundations of Marxism and its undeniable weaknesses while at the same time showing that in some respects it has some creditable points to make. Jonas wrote the book when he was 80, with the wisdom of age that is so little valued these days. This is a must read, the sooner the better. We owe it to the future to be obsessed with the possible results of what we do with our unprecedented power. We cannot evade the imperative of resposibility.

I just wanted to insure that anyone coming across the previous review wasn't left with the impression that this book is applicable to medical ethics only. What Jonas is attempting here is broad in scope and deeply relevant. His basic thesis is that all previous ethics was based on a certain image of "man" that no longer holds. With the availability of power that technology has unleashed in the last century, our understanding of man, his place in the cosmos, and his power to effect both the present and the future has changed radically-- but our ethical theories have remained tied to an older image of a mankind much more limited in the effects of its actions.

His thesis has broad and deep implications in areas ranging from medical ethics to political ideologies... there is a thought-provoking critique of "Utopianism" and its expressions both in political ideologies and our relationship to technological praxis. This critique alone is worth purchasing and reading the book. He even enters into interesting discussions such as the metaphysics of the "mind-body" problem and its ethical implications.

Highly recommended reading, with a wonderful (and rare) combination of Germanic thoroughness and the clarity and elegance more typical of what comes out of English and American philosophical traditions.

And it's truly brilliant! In attempting to create a modern groundwork for ethics, it picks up where Immanual Kant left off. Although this book is huge in Europe, it has yet to be properly appreciated in this country. The writing is beautiful, although it helps to have serious philsophical training.

Highly spiritual and respectful of the reader, the text is grave without being pompous. Philosophy without a doubt,nevertheless extremely readable. I recommend it for anybody in search of the meanders of soul and mind, never one without the other.

I would not recommend this book as a clear and straightforward introduction to gnosticism. It is outdated, overrated, turgid, and scholastic. It has been surpassed as far as clear introductions go. It distorts the subject matter by forcing it through a lens of mid-20th Century existentialist and academic-styled expression; it converts the gnostics into 1950s existentialist academic dissertationists. Several more recent books have been written to provide a clearer, more straightforward introduction to this subject, including "Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism" by Kurt Rudolph, and "Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing" by Stephan Hoeller.

As an introduction to this insightful work, Hans Jonas opens with one of the most illuminating overviews of the condition of the Greco-Roman and the Orient from times of Alexander the Great to the early centuries of the Christian Era. Then, moving into the Gnostic texts, Jonas discusses the meaning of "gnosis", as the ancient man understood it, along with other terms pervasive throughout Gnostic literature. At last, in part one, Jonas describes the extent of the Gnostic movement, and ultimately sets the stage for his in-depth analysis of the various schools and Gnostic systems of thought in part two, namely those of Simon Magus, Marcion, Valentinian, Hermes Trismegistus, and the infamous Manes. In part three, Jonas deals with the Gnostic cosmology and morality, with some of the new discoveries in the field, and finally, in the epilogue, he closes with a dissertation on Gnosticism, Existentialism, and Nihilism. Hans Jonas' work, overall is an excellent, comprehensive study of the multifaceted belief systems of the Mediterranean World. While his treatment may exhaust even the most concentrated of readers, it nevertheless will furnish such a wealth of knowledge that it will act as a superb reference tool and will be a valuable source for religious, cultural, or philosophical studies.

Take your basic beautiful Platonism...already
threaded through with anti-worldly bias...a
feeling that the soul (the divine soul) is
trapped in exile in the body's decaying matter...
that the real realm of Reality and Truth exists
in another realm...away from the earth...that
the soul longs after the other realm...that
the soul brims with mystic love and yearning
to return to the Light of True Reality...and you
have the beginnings of Gnosticism...

...add deep grief over the loss of a beloved...
either through actual death...or through
enforced separation which brings on deepest
depression, melancholy, and a kind of
emotional death...in the deepest pit...slow
recovery...and a completely new perspective on
value and meaning...the world is a hell hole
filled with demonic forces and values, using
unwitting humans as their dupes and puppets...

The world -- which others accept as their reality
each time they "wake up" (which is actually their

sleep-walking...their death-in-life illusion, from
the Gnostic perspective) -- becomes, for the Gnostic,
only an illusion...a deceptive illusion...and not
the true Reality at all...but a lure...and a trap...
for the senses...for pleasure...for sensuality...
for materialism...for consumerism...for mediocrity...
for crassness and mass-mind values and mass-mind "thinking"...

The Gnostic can actually, with focused thinking
and control, transcend the worldly programming and

illusion...can "opt out" of the rat race and the
mutual delusion generated and perpetuated by the
day-by-day slavish obedience to the values and
lures of the world's messages about money, success,
status, ambition, security, and the world's opiates
of sex, violence, celebrity, gossip, lies, hypocrisy,
and pleasure-seeking as the number one priority for
establishing value and interest...

All of this is not stated directly in this
excellent study by Han Jonas...but these are some

of the fall-out understandings when the person
truly "wakes up"...of course, they are completely
antithetical to the world's desires and the world's
view of reality...so the Gnostic seems deluded...
"out of it"...cracked...whereas the Gnostic sees
the world and its yay-sayers in the very same way...
so it becomes a metaphysical battle over True
Reality...is it in the world?...or way away from
the world...beyond the cosmos of created, and
thus fallen, matter? Reality...Reality...who's got
the True Reality?

The World System becomes the enemy to the Gnostic
Mind...the world system and the instituions which
uphold and buttress and enforce and program the
furtherance and perpetuation of that system...and
man, more often than not, becomes the victim (either
willing...or unwilling) of that system...when he
becomes "hooked" on its lures and narcotic propaganda
and programming...man loses his soul...
his trapped divine spirit...if he dies without
release...perhaps he has to come around again and
again, until he finally truly wakes up, makes
the right choice or renunciation (is "born again"...
or "born renewed") of the world, its system, and its
values...and resists the temptation to fall back
under the world's soporific spell...

When such ideas and themes have been secretly used
by authors, the modernists have all too often been
prone to think that those authors are prescient "Existentialists"...

but as Jonas, a student of Heidegger and Bultmann,
came to realize...this alienation and nihilism
and view of the absurdity of worldly existence
has a more antique origin...extending far back...
perhaps as far back as Pythagoras...and if there
was a real Orpheus who taught and "preached"...then
back to him...I think it is instructive, too,
that the idea of the necessity of SECRECY
(to avoid detection by the demonic forces --
"The Matrix;" "Dark City") is a large part of

Gnosticism and Hermeticism (the *Corpus Hermeticum*
-- which has a dual element of Gnosticism in tandem with
Neo-Platonic theosophy...a "natural" enough yoking...
though Gnosticism denies the affirmation of the
positive aspect of the created world which the
Neo-Platonists sometimes preach)...thus you get
the Neo-Platonist Plotinus denouncing the Gnostics,
rather than embracing them as mirror-reversal
"brothers"...who certainly share some basic
Platonic biases, but have carried them further
in a very determined and no-compromise-with-the-
world alienation than the Neo-Platonists envision...

Most Gnostics of this "classic" variety are
determined Truth Tellers...and determined true
value seekers...not glitzy glitter grabbers...most
are "aristocratic" and elitist in their view of
value...but also "democratic" in their understanding
that everyone has the divinity in them...IF they
will ONLY FIND IT...TAP INTO IT...and BE GUIDED BY
IT...rather than continuing to follow in the world's
pathways...

These are the ideas Jonas examines through his
exegesis of the various sects, writings, and
"systems" of ancient Gnostic groups...

Many Gnostics, especially the Transcendental ones,
opted for a classical Pagan perspective...rather
than embracing any sort of Christian Gnosticism...
though many of them had had a grounding in Christianity,
something about Christianity's doctrinal rigidity
and exclusion of certain aspects of love and longing
alienated them from Christianity...drew them to
Platonism...and with their own initiation to alienation
towards the world...and their ironic if not sarcastic
defiance back towards it...set themselves on the
path towards Pagan Gnosticism and Hermeticism...
* * * * * * * * *
P.S. There are NO perfect or "pure" Gnostics in
the world...alas, they too fall victim to the
desire for books, and CDs, and DVDs...aieee...
the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...
but we are trying to wean ourselves down...
and pay off our outstanding bills...but
I did choose philosophy...and insight...
wonder if this is for the third time?...
* * *

Hans Jonas, previously a pupil of Heidegger, in the main departs from his mentor's work and reaches out in rather sophisticated and at times obscure writing, into the depths of the deeply thinking man's way of understanding "The Phenomenon of Life". Much like the other reviewer I agree with him concerning Jonas's deeply insightful essays on the philosophy of organism and mind, which he categorically states must be aspects of the one philosophy of life. Jonas's essays are in general quite brilliant with snippets of real insight that tower above the ordinary and yet it is written so that this occurs as part of the process of discovery which seems to be going on as he writes.

His first essay considers the development or rather alteration in the philosophy of being extending from ancient Greek times into the modern era: animism, and the remarkable instance of thinking of life as at one time the natural mode of being followed by the idea that death is the natural mode instead or that life is a preparation for it. Dualism is considered as the fundamental barrier underlying the comprehension of life although idealism leads to problems no less troubling than say materialism or mechanism.

In the second essay he looks at the fundamental aspects of philosophical Darwinism with its final application of mechanism to the biological realm which for so long eluded the mechanists. Descartes started the trend with his machine-like approach to animals. The third essay considers the meaning of metabolism using James Jeans's, God as a mathematician quote to initiate the discussion. He notes that a living being is one that is never the same from one moment to the next "perpetual self-renewal through process". As the other reviewer mentioned his fourth essay "To Move and to Feel: on the animal soul" is probably the most illuminating in the book. he considers what differs from animal to plant ie motility, perception and emotion. the ability to move using the evidence of perception leads to the idea of freedom, however how emotion is related to the above is less obvious althgough Jonas makes it so by simply stating that movement in pursuit or flight must necessarily lead to emotion because of its satisfaction or lack thereof. Plants possess immediacy in life between environment and the organism; animals are more separated than this being required to treat the environment as different from them to some degree at least.

Next he analyses the ideas of cybernetics and some differences between machines and organisms noting that machines act by feedback mechanisms whereas organism is "concerned in existing", this applies also to society where the cybernetic idea of information is empty. In the sixth essay he looks at perception through the senses sight, hearing and touch in the main and how and why they vary in importance to man. He alludes as to why and how concepts such as space and time arise through the function of the senses themselves rather than being free construction of the mind. This leads directly into the seventh essay on the difference between man and animal ie through the concept of image making rather than language or symbols. Again as the previous reviewer notes the later essays lack in depth, once he enters the realm of theology Jonas tends to outline his own beliefs rather than analysing them in depth as his earlier essays, again the relationship between Gnosticism and modern thought bears fruit in contrast to the writing on Heidegger and theology.

All together a brilliant style with difficult writing. In contrast to the usual length of time needed to read a book this took considerably longer just to comprehend. Well worth getting, superb at times, original at others.

The first seven chapters of _The Phenomenon of Life_, which present the substance and methodology of Jonas' "Philosophy of Biology," are as brilliantly lucid as they are orginal. Regarding the form, Jonas' language is, at times, obscure in its heavy academic prose but for those willing to give the time required it is nothing short of eloquent. Regarding the content, I would venture to say that no one can come away from this book without a changed perspective on everything living both in the simplest forms and in the complexities of the unique powers of mankind. The fifth chapter, etitled "To Move and to Feel-- On the Animal Soul" is about as dense with truth as one can handle. Also extraordinary are the first chapter and its first appendix--which in two paragraphs almost closes the book on the epistomological debate of Hume and Kant-- and the seventh chapter called "The Nobility of Sight." The last chapters of the book, which turn to a "Philosophy of Man" are less outstanding, although I make an exception for the one called "Gnostisism, Existentialism and Nihlism." Here Jonas speaks of a subject about which his lifelong passion shines through. Its observations are invaluable to one who seeks to understand the philosophical climate-- away from academic circles-- in the twentieth century.

Wolin appears to be a decent philospher and researcher, but
he needs to learn how to write. Herky jerky style and skewed syntax make this one an almost impossible read. Sorry folks, but
I have to rate this one as unintelligable garble.

You have to give Wolin credit for choosing a very deserving topic, and the relationship of Heidegger to his many disciples, and especially his Jewish disciples, is worthy of a big fat book. This is not that book. First, he leaves out Leo Strauss, arguably the most interesting case among Heidegger's Jewish students, and the one with the most critical stance towards his teacher. Second, Wolin's ignores the basic fact that the antimodern views of "Heidegger's children" were shared by many in Weimar Germany who never studied with Heidegger. Marcuse, Arendt, etc. were more children of their time and place than of Heidegger.

Wolin also attributes to Heidegger an antimodernism that his philosophy itself dismantles. The real story of Heidegger's Nazism is not how much his philosophy accomodated Nazism but how little mind the opportunistic philosopher paid his own philosophy when the party called. Wolin gives Heidegger more credit for being principled than he deserves. Wolin also pays too much attention to deciphering Heidegger's opinions from his biography and too little time actually reading Heidegger. In fact, at no point in the book does Wolin betray ever having read Being and Time.

Let us take one example of Wolin's woeful prosecutorial method. He refers to some pamphlets that Heidegger wrote as a student for a Catholic, antimodern publisher. In the pamphlets, Wolin reports, Heidegger valorizes reason and strict rationality above the modern devotion to the self, an unsurprising argument coming from a seminary student. Wolin then draws a straight line from that antimodern Catholic upbringing to Heidegger's later devotion for the Fuhrer. This is perhaps the first time that Thomas Aquinas has ever being accused of encouraging Nazism.

One of the most interesting things about Heidegger's students is that they reached such a broad audience in America. Marcuse and friends were the stars of a worldwide youth movement despite having thick German accents. The commanded such a large audience in part because they were so much more impressive than their colleagues. Wolin does not give sufficient weight to the possibility that Heidegger's students may have learned something worthwhile from their teacher. Wolin is too busy contorting himself into fits of indignant censure.

Considering the current emphasis on Martin Heidegger and his thought during the last decade, it is more than a bit surprising this book wasn't written sooner. Besides being one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Heidegger was also a university professor, and quite a charismatic one at that. Living and teaching in Weimar Germany, it is not surprising, then, that many of his best students were Jews. And if we were to, say, pick a 'cream-of-the-crop' among those Jews, the names of Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse would easily spring to mind.

It is interesting to note that none of the above were practising Jews; rather they saw themselves as assimilated and cosmopolitan in outlook. Ironically it would be their teacher, one of the greatest existentialist philosophers, who drove home to them the inauthenticity of their position when he dedicated himself to National Socialism. By abandoning them he turned his back on them and forced them to face their Jewishness, no longer as a metaphysical question, but in the harsh light of ontological reality, as an important component of their social being. Despite religious assimilation, they were still outcasts, only this time by basis of their racial identity - their very being.

Though abandoned by their mentor, each of Heidegger's students would go on to make a mark in the field of philosophy. In the chapters concerning their careers Wolin takes the time to carefully not their contribution to phliosophy and their attachments to their former teacher. Each discourse is concise and to the point, often giving the reader important insights into the relationship between student and teacher in ways not directly observable. With Arendt, this is easy due to the mass of scholarship, some excellent, some on the level of a supermarket tabloid. With a thinker such as Jonas, whose public career is not so well known, such insights are most welcome. I remember Jonas as a teacher and remember quite well his relationship with Heidegger. Although he would criticize his mentor in the strongest possible terms, when traveling to Europe he would still be careful to make the pilgrimage to the Black Forest to pay homage to the old man. Jonas made his mark both as an expert on Gnostic philosophy and as a philosopher of the environment, his works helping to build the basis of Germany's Green Party.

Lowith developed a love-hate relationship with his former teacher, becoming one of Heidegger's most insightful critics, and yet refusing to pull the trigger. One should not stop reading Heidegger; but one should refrain from reading him so naively. Perheps it was Heidegger's own latent, and naive, romanticism that led him from a critique of nihilism into the arms of totalitarian philosophy.

Marcuse is the strrangest case yet, if we view he and his teacher merely from the outside. It would appear Marcuse made the strongest reaction of all to his former teacher, by Msarcuse incorporated more of his teacher's thought into his own than any of the others. Compare Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man" with Heidegger's "Letter on Technology." Marcuse's retreat into the pseudo-rationalism of Marx to escape the demons of nihilism strangely mirrors Heidegger's own retreat into National Socialism for the same reason. Taking Spengler at his word, Marcuse accepted the decline and retreated into a new world order of sorts while Heidegger fought Spengler's prognosis by adopting the standards of what he saw as the defence of civilization in the Swatstika.

Wolin wraps all this into 269 tightly constructed pages. Not a wasted word or thought. In other words, an excellent and entertaining introduction into a world of thought not usually considered. Highly recommended.