Hans Jonas: dall’eros cosmogonico all’amore personale

Hans Jonas : from Cosmogonic Eros to Personal Love · While Jonas is not strictly speaking
a ‘philosopher of love’, this essay attempts to trace the different roles played by this feeling in the
different phases of his thought. While in the period of Gnostic studies, love appears in its ‘cos-
mic absence’ and as an error that binds humanity to a malevolent world, in his works dedicated
to philosophical biology and organic freedom, love emerges as a force capable of shedding new
light on cosmogonic dynamics. With the emergence of life
–
an integral part of the cosmic pro-
cess
–
even inert matter appears from the beginning to be anything but indifferent and ready to
take risks and pursue goals. This unconscious yearning that seems to move primordial matter is
love, which, far more than logos, seems to be the driving force of the cosmogonic process. Love,
however, which acts unconsciously in matter, becomes a deliberate choice in humanity during
the technological phase, subjecting it to the risk of failure, both personally and historically.