Hans Jonas - Humans and Nature

What is the relationship Hans Jonas states between humans and nature?

Jonas limits the notion of individuality to the specific manner of existence of beings that are alive by metabolism. Their identity is therefore synonymous with self-creation, with continuous accomplishment that supposes an opening to the “Other” (the environment, the world outside them). This metabolic process thus immediately and simultaneously implies a differentiation with respect to the other. This biological foundation of identity specific to the living realm integrates human beings into the organic whole, but highlights at the same time a duality opposing man and matter.

Jonas says that the organism is not a physical identity, as it is dependent on the passage of the matter that goes through it and keeps it alive. The identity of the organism should not beconfused with the presence of a “soul;” for, in that case, the soul would be alive and not the body. The identity of the organism is not associated with persistence of form, but with its own finalism. If we adopt a positive attitude about the organism's identity, we can use Jonas' expression that everything goes back to the “image of man.” This aspect leads Jonas (1974, 141) to write that, “Biological control of the human being, and particularly genetic control, calls forth ethical questions of a totally new kind, for which no earlier thought or practice had prepared us. Indeed, nothing less is at stake than the very nature and image of man.” In this context, the use of the term “image” is meaningful and sends us undeniably to Judeo- Christian spirituality. This continuum between image and God clearly appears in Philosophical Reflections on Experimenting with Human Subjects: “Socially, each can be sacrificed in a relative manner, that is, to different degrees; religiously, no one can be sacrificed absolutely.

The “image of God” is present in each human being.” On this point, Jonas thinks that the nature of man must absolutely be respected. For this, he uses two distinct procedures. First, he uses a metaphysico-religious approach, symbolized by the imago Dei man must not behave as nature's handyman. Secondly, he looks at the “negative” approach, emphasizing the inescapable utopian drift of technology. In the last part of “Homo pictor and the Differentia of Man”, Jonas compares the symbolic impact of “making images” and of “naming objects.” According to Genesis, the first task assigned to man is that of giving a name to every animated thing, which gives humanity superiority over nature and the possibility to dominate it. Humanity is therefore defined by its faculty to picture things, to make images, which reveals the capacity to artificially reproduce resemblance and meaning.

Yet, a name is in reality nothing more than an abbreviation, a shortened version of the image. “Making images reproduces the creative act which is hidden in the residual name: the symbolic, incessant re-fashioning of the world,” (Jonas, 219). Once the organic stage is passed, the human nature of man is defined by his ...