Nihilism and technology

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between nihilism and technology based on the intuitions of the Jewish-German philosopher Hans Jonas. To do this, we start from a consideration of nihilism in its incomplete form as an attempt to deny worldly and human reality, an attitude that gives technology a role of removing the human from the world, either through an escape from the earth or through post- and transhumanist hypotheses, based on the obsolescence of the body. The theses that see technology both as a philosophical and an ethical problem are examined from the perspective that ethics must be a kind of comple- ment (a “power over power”) to technology. To this, it would take on a new role: through responsibility it will help to adequately design the prognosis of the future and at the same time promote ecologically appropriate lifestyles based on frugality and continence.

Keywords: nihilism, technology, responsibility, Hans Jonas.