Volume 20, No.1, Spring 2025

Responsibility in Politics, Science, and Philosophy

Index and Editor's Introduction

Editorial: Approaches to the Concept of Global Responsibility in Politics, Science, and Philosophy
Mats Andrén | University of Gothenburg, Sweden

The special issue starts off from the conviction that the way to dissect the complexities and contradictions inherent in the concept of global responsibility is to unveil its historically defined contexts and meanings. The essays demonstrate how political thinkers, philosophers, and scientists have struggled to define global responsibility since the postwar period and examine the specific possibilities and shortcomings of different philosophies and political ideas in this regard. First, the editorial sets out the rationale behind the approach and relates it to previous research. An exploration of various aspects of the concept follows, as well as reflection on its uses in the present. Finally, the five included essays are presented.

The author presents a version of this paper on YouTube.

Keywords: Anders, Günther; Jaspers, Karl; Jonas, Hans; historical contexts; history of concepts; the atomic bomb; environmentalism; global threats.

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Fermi's Children: The Global Responsibilities of Italian Scientists after the Nuclear Bomb
Ettore Costa | Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples, Italy

This essay examines the role of Italian scientists in shaping the concept of global responsibility during the Cold War, focusing on Edoardo Amaldi and Adriano Buzzati-Traverso. Global responsibility emerged in response to the development and use of atomic bombs, which forced humanity to evaluate actions in terms of their consequences for all people across space and time. It was later extended to environmental risks and even drawn on in the context of overpopulation. Being rooted in the rationalist and internationalist ethos of science, many scientists felt a special obligation regarding both for their role in developing nuclear weapons and in warning the public regarding the dangerous capacity of these weapons. They organized themselves through Pugwash and other transnational networks, which have also taken root in Italy. While Amaldi, who was the leader of postwar Italian science and a disciple of Enrico Fermi, mobilized scientific networks for peace and disarmament, Buzzati regularly informed the wider public about global threats. The Italian case highlights the contested meanings of global responsibility in the nuclear age.

The author presents a version of this paper on YouTube.

Keywords: Amaldi, Edoardo; Buzzati-Traverso, Adriano; global responsibility; Pugwash; science and activism; anti-scientism; environmentalism; overpopulation; anti-nuclear movement; nuclear dissemination.

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Colleagues with Conflicting Perspectives: Karl Barth and Karl Jaspers on Responsibility
Ola Sigurdson | University of Oslo, Norway

What does it mean to be a responsible subject, and what kind of subject would such a responsible subject be? These are philosophical questions highly pertinent to such global and planetary challenges of our time as the climate crisis, but they were also important for the philosophical and theological discussion on the reconstruction after the Second World War and the threat of the nuclear bomb. In this essay, I approach these philosophical questions through a historical exchange between two of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century who were between 1948 and 1961 colleagues at the University of Basel: the philosopher Karl Jaspers and the theologian Karl Barth. Both were highly involved in the discussion of social and political issues of their time. Their starting points for their intellectual endeavors diverge, however: Jaspers departed from human experience, and Barth from the interruption of human experience through divine revelation. While Jaspers emphasized the universal dimension of this experience, Barth, for his part, accentuated the particular and concrete. The critical and crosswise comparison of their understanding of responsibility is constructive—precisely because of their conflicting perspectives—in the search for a more complex understanding of who and what a responsible subject might be that could take on challenges that are both particular and universal in scope.

The author presents a version of this paper on YouTube.

Keywords: Guilt and responsibility; philosophy and theology; configuration of a responsible subject; global responsibility; loving struggle; exclusivism and relativism.

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Editor's Note on Translating Umkehr
Helmut Wautischer | Sonoma State University

This present editorial concern addresses a critical distinction in translating Jaspers' use of the German word Umkehr in the context of his book Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen: Politisches Bewußtsein in unserer Zeit, published in 1960. In the essay by Ola Sigurdson that is included in this issue of Existenz, Umkehr is being translated as "conversion." Reasons are provided why choosing "conversion" is, at best, an infelicitous translation of Umkehr.

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; translation; conversion; reversion; German; English.

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Letter to Karl Barth; Basel, 18 September 1949
Karl Jaspers | transl. Ruth A. Burch

This unpublished letter by Karl Jaspers is preserved at the Karl Barth Archive, Switzerland (KBA 9125.354). It provides contextual insight into the communication style between Jaspers and Barth and shows Jaspers' differentiated argumentation in letter form as he replies to a strongly worded letter by Barth. The broader circumstances of this correspondence are briefly outlined in Ola Sigurdson's essay, which is included in this present volume of Existenz.

Keywords: Karl Barth Archive; Karl Jaspers Stiftung; communication; truth; epistemology; absolutist relativism; difference philosophy theology, Christian.

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Are We Creating a "World Without Us"? Global Responsibility and Annihilism in the Works of Günther Anders, Karl Jaspers, and Hans Jonas
Astrid Grelz | Lund University, Sweden

This essay argues that the concept of global responsibility, as articulated in the works of Karl Jaspers and Hans Jonas, was anticipated in Günther Anders' 1956 opus, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. By tracing the phases of Anders' negative anthropology—from his pathology of freedom to the Promethean differential and his critique of what he considers to be an annihilistic Western stance—I examine the development of his ethical imperative and its possible influence on Jaspers' 1956 radio lecture on the atomic bomb and on Jonas' 1974 book, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man. I conclude with remarks on the philosophical relevance of sketching this complex genealogy.

The author presents a version of this paper on YouTube.

Keywords: Promethean shame; responsibility; negative anthropology; nuclear ethics; imagination; moral phantasy; anxiety.

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Subjects, Worlds, and Ethics. A Phenomenology of Responsibility
Eddo Evink | Open University, Netherlands

The most well-known phenomenologist who has written extensively on the concept of responsibility is undoubtedly Emmanuel Levinas. He posits ethics and responsibility at the heart of phenomenology, claiming that they are the main characteristics of human existence. His far-reaching views on responsibility also extend beyond phenomenology. Levinas' approach is further radicalized by Jacques Derrida, who emphasizes the aporias that render responsibility infinite, even impossible, yet simultaneously inescapable. This essay critiques both conceptualizations and proposes an alternative phenomenology of responsibility found in the work of Jan Patočka. His ideas on responsibility are more realistic, more practical, and can be better substantiated phenomenologically.

Keywords: Levinas, Emmanuel; Derrida, Jacques; Patočka, Jan; deconstruction; metaphysics; asubjective phenomenology; care for the soul; subjectivity.

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Psychopathology at the Crossroads of Freedom and Responsibility
Alina Marin | Queen's University, Ontario, Canada

This essay examines the role of psychopathology as a method for preserving the existential freedom of individuals with mental illness while enabling clinicians to protect patient vulnerability responsibly. Drawing on Karl Jaspers' concepts of the encompassing, existential freedom, responsibility, and metaphysical guilt, the paper argues that psychopathology provides an indispensable philosophical and clinical framework for understanding the patient's lived experience beyond diagnostic categories. Through phenomenological and dialectical analysis, psychopathology offers a way to integrate descriptive detail, existential meaning, and the therapeutic relationship into a coherent whole. It situates clinical decision-making within an intersubjective, ethically grounded process that acknowledges both the patient's autonomy and the clinician's responsibility. The essay ultimately proposes that the dialectical interplay between the psychiatrists' understanding of the vulnerability of their patients and their responsibility to protect patients and communities must rely upon a guiding framework that considers the individual's freedom of becoming.

The author presents a version of this paper on YouTube.

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; phenomenology; encompassing; existential psychiatry; metaphysical guilt; vulnerability; ethical decision-making; mental health.

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