The Heuristics of Fear in Hans Jonas: Connecting the Status of Nature and the Nature of the Digital Artefact in the Context of Artificial Intelligence as an Extension of Modern Technology—A Systematic Reviewâ€
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper tackles a truly important philosophical question for the Special Issue: can Jonas’s heuristics of fear still serve as the basis for an ethics of AI, or does the digital artefact demand its reformulation? The methodological combination of a PRISMA 2020 compliant bibliometric review (n = 2,372) with philosophical-conceptual analysis is original within the philosophy of technology, and the central thesis (that the heuristics of fear operate at the level of moral admissibility, one level above the procedural frameworks that currently dominate AI ethic) is philosophically sound and well argued. The cosmotechnical opening through Yuk Hui and the structural comparison with Daoist thought are not mere illustrations, but a substantial philosophical contribution. In principle, the manuscript is publishable after the following changes.
MANDATORY
Errors in reference list (pp. 26-30). There is a systematic mismatch between in-text citation numbers and the corresponding entries in the reference list, affecting at least positions [108]-[114]. [108] refers to Hagendorff, [109] to Jobin, Ienca & Vayena, and [110] to Floridi & Cowls, all of which we discuss in detail in Section 5.3. In the reference list, however, these positions are attributed to Schweitzer (1923), Hottois (1990), and Apel (1980), none of whom are present in the text. The correct entries for authors Hagendorff, Jobin et al. and Floridi & Cowls are at [112]–[114] in the list. Authors’ response letter: Please provide the corrected reference list and a correspondence table with the original and corrected numbering.
Stieglerian thesis of proletarianisation (Section 5.2). The claim that the post-2021 growth of cluster C1 reflects a "proletarianisation" of AI philosophical thinking relies on an undefended premise: that the procedural vocabulary of C1 necessarily implies a loss of critical capacity rather than a functional differentiation of the field. The authors must address the alternative hypothesis that the expansion of C1 is consistent with the continuation of deep philosophical work within C3, and that bibliometric growth ratios do not in themselves demonstrate intellectual impoverishment.
Cosmotechnical pluralisation of heuristics of fear (Section 5.4). The article rightly observes that the linear-projective temporality assumed by Jonasian responsibility itself is a cosmotechnical option. It then suggests that the heuristics of fear could serve as a “procedural threshold compatible with multiple cosmotechnics.” This resolution is underdeveloped: if the Daoist cosmological framework does dissolve the category of “future generations” as a structuring moral addressee, it remains unclear how the Jonasian asymmetry between catastrophic harm and incremental gain can be “articulated” in Daoist terms without a substantial transformation. A more detailed description of the pluralisation mechanism is required.
Inferential strength of the lexical segregation claim (Section 4.6). The claim of “rhetorical marginalisation” is borne out by the average number of citations in the Jonasian sub-corpus (2.89; median = 1). This inference is too strong: low citation counts in Scopus/WoS are structurally expected for continental philosophy (which circulates mostly through monographs and book chapters, neither of which is indexed by these databases). This is acknowledged by the authors in Section 5.5, but it is not reconciled with the stronger claim in Section 5.2. This inconsistency needs to be fixed.
RECOMMENDED
a) FIGURE 2. The research-journey figure uses generic iconography (Greek column, network nodes, shield) that does not align with the argument's specific logic. Authors should either delete it or replace it with a diagram mapping the actual conceptual architecture.
b) Abstract and Introduction Redundancy. The Abstract and the first three paragraphs of the Introduction present the same bibliometric figures (2,372 records, a 31.6% CAGR, sub-corpus n = 124) and the same central thesis statement. In the Introduction, the philosophical problem should be developed before the methodological apparatus is introduced.
c) Length of Section 2. The theoretical framework, which comprises nine subsections, accounts for about one-third of the article. Sections 2.3 and 2.4 overlap in part with material developed in Section 5. Authors might consider shortening these subsections or relocating some of the content elsewhere in the discussion.
d) Table 3. The 10 most cited contributions include a 2021 paper on chatbot adoption in travel and tourism (332 citations). It requires, at least, a short explanatory note, since it may be thought to be an artefact of the search equations, rather than a philosophically relevant contribution.
MINOR
Author Contributions and Funding sections are blank (p. 25) (presumably an anonymisation artefact). These must be completed before acceptance. There is a duplicated Supplementary Materials paragraph on the same page. One of these should be removed. Lexical displacement, lexical segregation, lexical translation, and lexical reorganisation are used interchangeably. Early on, terminology could be clarified for precision.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI would like to offer several comments regarding the manuscript under review.
- One may ask whether the bibliometric data presented by the Author actually demonstrate a form of the “persistence of a normative core,” or whether they merely demonstrate the persistence of references to Jonas.
a/ A quantitative characterization of the status or dominance of a particular discourse (e.g., Hans Jonas’s philosophy/ethics of responsibility and the heuristic of fear) does not in itself establish its validity or truth. To infer otherwise would amount to a contemporary version of a consensual theory of truth. The quantitative prominence of a given discourse may result from factors such as funding priorities, academic fashions, or institutional incentives.
b/ A related and potentially more serious concern is methodological. Bibliometric data (e.g., publication frequencies, citation networks, and dominant vocabularies) do not, without additional evaluative premises, lead directly to the adoption of specific philosophical or ethical positions. Otherwise, one would be confronted with a version of the classical naturalistic fallacy and the problematic transition from facts to values – in this case, from descriptive data concerning scholarly discourse to the endorsement of a particular philosophical or ethical framework.
- Are Jonas’s views and the central ideas of postphenomenology genuinely compatible?
a/ The Author frequently employs the notion of “convergence.” One may therefore ask whether a sufficiently detailed analysis has been conducted regarding the compatibilities and incompatibilities between Jonas’s ethics of responsibility and his heuristic of fear, on the one hand, and the assumptions and conceptual categories of postphenomenology, on the other.
b/ Jonas’s philosophy is grounded in a number of metaphysical, indeed ontological, commitments (including an ontology of life and a metaphysics of the organism). By contrast, postphenomenology generally rejects metaphysical foundations, presupposes a form of anti-essentialism, and focuses on technological mediation.
c/ Furthermore, independently of contemporary sympathies for Jonas’s philosophy, it may be important to consider the historical context in which the heuristic of fear emerged, particularly during the 1970s. One may legitimately question the extent to which this concept remains applicable to contemporary relations between technology, human beings, and society. It should be recalled that Jonas was writing at a time marked by the nuclear arms race, the global energy crisis, and the growing awareness of worldwide ecological threats.
- The Author appears to use the expression “digital artefact” rather loosely. It remains unclear whether the term refers to generative AI, foundation models, recommendation systems, administrative algorithms, robotics, or some broader category. This lack of precision is significant, since different technologies raise substantially different ethical issues.
- It is reasonable to ask whether the Author has successfully demonstrated the superiority – whether heuristic, explanatory, universalizing, or otherwise – of Jonas’s philosophy over alternative philosophies of technology and AI.
a/ The Author briefly mentions significant contemporary philosophers of technology such as Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers in connection with the so-called empirical turn in the philosophy of technology. However, when discussing various philosophical approaches to technology, the manuscript subsequently overlooks one of the most influential ideas associated with these thinkers (and, more broadly, with the Dutch school of philosophy of technology), namely the theory of the dual nature of technical artefacts.
b/ Likewise, the Author does not discuss one of the central figures in contemporary philosophy of technology – particularly within its broad analytic tradition – namely Carl Mitcham. Why, then, are postphenomenology and Jonas’s ideas granted a privileged status?
In conclusion, the manuscript should be regarded as a valuable, interesting, and well-motivated research program. Nevertheless, it remains more of an interpretive and heuristic proposal than a fully demonstrated thesis that the philosophy of AI ought to be grounded specifically in a reconstructed Jonasian ethics interpreted through a postphenomenological perspective.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is a very well‑prepared paper that successfully reconnects Hans Jonas’s “heuristics of fear” with contemporary ethical issues in artificial intelligence. The paper builds a rare bridge between philosophical construction and empirical analysis. Furthermore, by introducing a dialogue with East Asian philosophical traditions, it significantly expands the Western‑centric boundaries of the philosophy of technology. However, there are still some issues that need to be addressed or responded to.
First, The paper attempts to do two things at once: Put forward a strong philosophical claim and Present a PRISMA‑standard systematic review.
The logical relationship between the two sometimes appears fragile. For example, the bibliometric results in Section 4 (such as the relative decline of cluster C3) are interpreted as a “procedural replacement of philosophical discourse”. However, this causal inference is not directly supported by the keyword co‑occurrence data alone (correlation ≠ replacement).
Second, The critique of Floridi’s framework needs finer distinctions.The paper criticises Floridi & Cowls’ five‑principle framework for being “unable to address the question of whether a technology should be developed at all”. This is valid at the logical level. However: In The Ethics of Information and The Logic of Information, Floridi actually discusses the intrinsic moral salience of informational entities, so he does not entirely ignore the threshold question; Reducing Floridi’s framework to mere “procedural compliance” may constitute a straw man fallacy.
Third, The philosophical interpretation of bibliometric data risks overextension. For example: The decline in cluster C3’s share (33.9% → 28.9% → 15.1%) in Table 5 is interpreted as a “procedural replacement of philosophical discourse”; However, the absolute number of documents in C3 has actually grown (39 → 165 → 254); it has simply grown more slowly than C1.
Fourth, The authors’ stance on the empirical turn may contain a contradiction. Jonas is often regarded as a classical philosopher of technology, and the proceduralisation of responsibility discourse is, to a certain extent, a consequence of the empirical turn. On the one hand, the authors endorse the empirical turn in both method and viewpoint; on the other hand, they oppose the proceduralisation of responsibility. This appears to be contradictory.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI was very pleased to see the detailed revisions introduced by the author(s) in the manuscript under review. I would like to emphasize that the author is fully entitled to choose the philosophical framework of technology within which the analysis is conducted. This applies in particular to the ideas of Hans Jonas and the postphenomenologists.
At the same time, such a choice requires a discussion of the arguments both for and against adopting this particular framework. In my view, following the revisions and additions made to the manuscript, the author has largely succeeded in providing such a discussion. The revised and more precise version of the text now addresses many of the potential logical, methodological, and substantive objections that could be raised against its central thesis.
I believe that the manuscript, in its current form, has been significantly strengthened and should also meet with the approval of the editors of Philosophies.
