Volume 19, No.1, Spring 2024

The Atomic Bomb

Index and Editor's Introduction

Bertrand Russell and Karl Jaspers on Nuclear Weapons
Stephen D. Leach | Keele University, United Kingdom

In Common Sense and Philosophy (1959) Bertrand Russell argues against nuclear weapons on the basis of common sense. One year earlier in 1958, Karl Jaspers had argued in his The Atom Bomb and the Future of Mankind against nuclear weapons explicitly not on the basis of common sense but on the basis of philosophy. They both arrive at the same conclusion, the encouragement of a popular demand for disarmament but, apparently, by entirely different means. In this paper, I argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, aside from their shared conclusion, it is possible to find common ground between these two philosophers.

Keywords: Nuclear disarmament; common sense; applied philosophy; practical reasoning; Ockham's razor; reason; metaphilosophy; Cold War.

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Nuclear Weapons Under Supranational Authority
Francis Cheneval | University of Zurich, Switzerland

In this contribution, I discuss the thesis that the storage, research, and testing of nuclear weapons ought to fall under the exclusive competence of a supranational authority. As difficult, unrealistic, and potentially dangerous as this proposal might seem to some, others will find it to be too modest and demand total elimination and abolition instead. Therefore, the argument in favor of supranationalization must also consist of an argument against the total elimination of nuclear weapons and their further development. Supranationalization also brings new risks with it. I evaluate these risks and argue that it is nevertheless the best long-term solution compared to its alternatives. I show that the net risk is reduced under supranationalization and that the risks created by it are arguably smaller than in the case of an enduring status quo, at least when considered long-term. My proposal consists of managing the risk of nuclear war more responsibly over time.

Keywords: Risk; nuclear war; mutually assured destruction; nuclear proliferation; supranationalization; moral philosophy of nuclear threat; nuclear defense against asteroids.

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Models of Nuclear Disarmament. Case-Study:
US Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe
Tom Sauer | University of Antwerpen, Belgium

This article attempts to explain (nuclear) disarmament by distinguishing between two types of models: the security model posits that disarmament occurs when the geostrategic tensions are low, and the domestic politics model builds upon the security model by adding the influence of domestic political actors such as the defense bureaucracy, the peace movement, public opinion, and political leaders. These theories are then applied to the current debate regarding the presence of United States tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

Keywords: United States; Soviet Union; peace; arms race; security; arms control; defense bureaucracy; peace movements.

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Giorgio Agamben on Kairos and Nuclear War
Jessica Ludescher Imanaka | Seattle University

Giorgio Agamben's critiques of Karl Jaspers' book The Atom Bomb and the Future of Man expose several key limitations regarding attempts in the Western world to build an ethic of peace by relating to Hiroshima as a representation of a possible apocalyptic end that reason must avert. Agamben's central contribution to a possible peace ethic lies in his deployment of Pauline concepts such as kairos (messianic time). For Agamben, kairological temporality holds a different relation to time than chronological temporality, so Jaspers' concerns about an end of humanity wrought by the nuclear age need to be reconsidered in terms of possibilities for choice that exist in the present. Kairological thinking invites one to regard each moment as affording a unique opportunity to renounce or transform unjust realities. Such thinking, for example, holds promises for furthering the peace culture that is being developed in Hiroshima, where prospects for an ethos of peace are present in the peace philosophy of the Hibakusha (the survivors of the atomic bomb).

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; St. Paul the Apostle; Hibakusha; Hiroshima; Nagasaki; ethic of peace; temporality; Messianic time; Apocalypse.

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Nuclear Echoes: The Issue of the Atomic Bomb in Jaspers and Heidegger
Francis F. Seeburger | University of Denver

This short essay consists of juxtapositions of lines from Karl Jaspers with lines from Martin Heidegger, sets of lines that establish, at least as I hear them, the underlying harmony between what the two distinctly different philosophers had to say on the issue raised by the atom bomb. Between each pairing of what I hear as such resoundingly echoing lines from the two thinkers, I will intersperse some comments of my own, to help guide our ears as we listen to each in turn.

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; Heidegger, Martin; uncanny change; calculation vs. meditation; understanding vs. reasoning; dangers of technology; conflict and genuine politics; the irrelevance of power.

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The Cloud of Technique:
From Existenz to the Denial of Existence
Sarah Louise MacMillen | Duquesne University

Using authors from Continental philosophy—including Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, and Hannah Arendt—this essay explores the opportunities for, and obstacles to, ethical existence in the Atomic Age. Highlighting the trajectory of the technological impulse, I argue that humanity is faced with the threat of annihilation that comes from nuclear capacity, efficiency, and automation. Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb illustrates this threat in an absurdist exposure of the ironies and contradictions of military technology's power over humanity, and does it convincingly in this current pre-war era of the last war.

Keywords: Jaspers, Karl; Ellul, Jacques; technology; Atomic Age; Dr. Strangelove; Continental philosophy; military-industrial complex; Latiff, Robert H.

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