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 Review

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Abstract
Can Hans Jonas’s heuristics of fear still ground a philosophy of artificial intelligence (AI), or does the digital artefact require its reformulation? Building on the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology and on a postphenomenological reading of human–technology relations, this article combines conceptual reconstruction with a PRISMA 2020-compliant bibliometric review (Scopus + Web of Science, 2010–2026; n = 2372 articles and reviews). The bibliometric map reveals an extreme productivity concentration, a stable journal core, and six thematic clusters that organise the field. Rather than treating these patterns as proof of a normative thesis, the article uses them to locate a lexical re-weighting of the field after 2021, in which applied AI-ethics and governance vocabularies expand faster than explicitly philosophical vocabularies. A targeted Jonasian sub-corpus (n = 124) indicates that Jonas remains conceptually relevant but circulates mainly in a smaller, database-visible niche of continental and environmental ethics. We argue that the heuristics of fear remains philosophically fertile provided that it is reconstructed as a threshold question of moral admissibility and expanded through phenomenological resources—lifeworld, embodiment, technological mediation—and through the cosmotechnical plurality emphasised by Yuk Hui. The convergence of bibliometric mapping and philosophical analysis suggests that robust AI governance requires not only procedural principles but also renewed attention to digital mediation, distributed agency, and the protection of the lifeworld under algorithmic uncertainty.
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  • Universidad Autónoma del Perú

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