Simone Weil

Although trained as a philosopher, Simone Weil (1909–43) contributed to a wide range of subjects, resulting in a rich field of interdisciplinary Weil studies. Yet those coming to her work from such disciplines as sociology, history, political science, religious studies, French studies, and women's studies are often ignorant of or baffled by her philosophical investigations. In Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings, Eric O. Springsted presents a unique collection of Weil's writings, one concentrating on her explicitly philosophical thinking. The essays are drawn chiefly from the time Weil spent in Marseille in 1940-42, as well as one written from London; most have been out of print for some time; three appear for the first time; all are newly translated. Beyond making important texts available, this selection provides the context for understanding Weil's thought as a whole. This volume is important not only for those with a general interest in Weil; it also specifically presents Weil as a philosopher, chiefly one interested in questions of the nature of value, moral thought, and the relation of faith and reason. What also appears through this judicious selection is an important confirmation that on many issues respecting the nature of philosophy, Weil, Wittgenstein, and Kierkegaard shared a great deal.

Simone Weil (19091943) var en fransk tänkare, religiös mystiker och politisk a­kti­vist. Hon undervisade i filosofi, arbetade på fabriksgolvet och var aktiv i fackföreningsrörelsen. I spanska inbördeskriget anslöt hon sig till anarkisterna. När nazisterna ockuperade Frankrike flydde hon till USA för att kort därefter återvända. Hon avled i tuberkulos i London. Några få månader före sin död 1943 skrev filosofen och aktivisten Simone Weil sin svidande uppgörelse med det parlamen­tariska partisystemet. Medveten om att de tyska nationalsocialisterna tagit makten på demokratisk väg, sökte Weil totalitarismens rötter i det moderna partiväsendet. För Weil innebar varje politiskt parti en organisation som utövar ett kollektivt tryck på sina medlemmars sätt att tänka, och dess mål är att ohämmat växa. Detta visade enligt Weil att alla partier har totalitära rötter och målsättningar. Samhällets bästa vaccin mot den fascistiska smittan var därför det omedelbara avskaffandet av de politiska partierna. Här presenteras Simone Weils kontroversiella essä i svensk översättning tillsammans med ett efterord av Mårten Björk, doktorand i teologi och redaktionsmedlem i tidskriften Subaltern. Pressröst: Att Simone Weils Om de politiska partiernas allmänna avskaffande nu publiceras i svensk översättning (av Mårten Björk) på H:ström Text & Kultur samt i engelsk översättning på New York Review of Books kan ses som ett tecken i tiden. Denna essä från 1943 sällar sig dock inte till standardkritiken. Ofta beklagas postpolitiken med samma kombination av nostalgi och cynism som i sig utmärker den postpolitiska hopplösheten. Weil stannar inte vid kritiken utan har också en lösning. Hennes budskap är inte bara att politiken måste våga växa bortom partipolitikens snäva ramar. Partierna fördärvar politiken som sådan, hävdar hon, och måste därför förbjudas i lag. [...] I en tid när positioneringsstriderna börjar parodiera sig själva strålar Weils vision starkt som värderealistisk kontrast. Vad hon begär är summa summarum att vi vågar ta det subjektiva ansvar som det innebär att tänka själv. - ROLAND PAULSEN Svenska Dagbladet.

An NYRB Classics Original Simone Weil--philosopher, activist, mystic--is one of the most uncompromising of modern spiritual masters. In "On the Abolition of All Political Parties" she challenges the foundation of the modern liberal political order, making an argument that has particular resonance today, when the apathy and anger of the people and the self-serving partisanship of the political class present a threat to democracies all over the world. Dissecting the dynamic of power and propaganda caused by party spirit, the increasing disregard for truth in favor of opinion, and the consequent corruption of education, journalism, and art, Weil forcefully makes the case that a true politics can only begin where party spirit ends. This volume also includes an admiring portrait of Weil by the great poet Czeslaw Milosz and an essay about Weil's friendship with Albert Camus by the translator Simon Leys.

Hailed by Albert Camus as ‘the only great spirit of our times’, Simone Weil was one of great essayists and activists of the twentieth century. Her writings on the nature of religious faith and spirituality have inspired many subsequent thinkers. Wrestling with the moral dilemmas entailed by commitment to the Catholic Church, Letter to a Priest is a brilliant meditation on the perennial battle between faith and doubt and resonates today as much as when it was first written. This edition also includes one of her most inspiring and celebrated essays, ‘Human Personality’, where Weil offers a moving and unorthodox account of the preciousness of human beings. With a new foreword by Raimond Gaita.

Awaiting God (218 pages) combines a fresh translation (by Weil scholar, Brad Jersak) of Simone Weil's 'Waiting for God' and 'Letter to a Priest' (Attente de Dieu and Lettre un Religieux) in one volume. These works are considered Weil's primary essays and letters. In addition, Simone Weil's niece has contributed an introductory article entitled, 'Simone Weil and the Rabbi's: Compassion and Tsedekah, ' which puts Weil's relationship with Jewish thought into perspective. She includes source material from the Rabbis that put Weil (however reluctantly) in line with rabbinical thought throughout her major themes. The book is the ideal English introduction to the works and thought of Simone Weil, including important preface material (by Jersak) on how to read her work, as well as her relationship to Roman Catholicism and Judaism. The book includes: Part 1 - Essays1. Reflections on the Right Use of School Studiesin View of the Love of God2. The Love of God and Affliction3. Forms of the Implicit Love of Goda. Love of Neighbor b. Love of the Order of the World c. Love of Religious Practicesd. Friendship e. Implicit and Explicit Love / 994. Concerning the Our Father Part 2 - LettersPreface to her letters: Weil on Catholicism and Judaism5. Hesitations Prior to Baptism / Jan 1942 - Fr. Perrin 6. Hesitations Prior to Baptism / 1942 - Fr. Perrin7. Departure from France / Apl 1942 - Fr. Perrin 8. Spiritual Autobiography / May 1942 - Fr. Perrin 9. Intellectual Vocation / May 1942 - S. 10. Last Thoughts / May 1942 - Fr. Perrin 11. Letter to a Priest / Nov 1942 - Fr. Couturie

Fransyskan Simone Weil, död under andra världskriget vid endast några och trettio års ålder, är en modern helgongestalt, en självutplåningens och den andliga högspänningens hjältinna, som avtecknar sig med gripande kontur mot vår epoks flammande bakgrund. Hennes ovanligt dramatiska och handlingsfyllda liv åtföljdes av en oavbruten reflexion, vars resultat har framlagts i en rad postumt sammanställda böcker. Dessa har översatts till flera språk. Överallt har de tänt en brand i själarna, blivit lidelsefullt kommenterade och diskuterade. Väntan på Gud innehåller brev och essäer med nytolkningar och fördjupningar av flera aspekter inom religionens område. Här har många människors hemlösa religiositet funnit sitt uttryck. Artos bokförlag har givit ut fyra volymer med texter av Simone Weil, Tyngden och nåden, Att slå rot, Väntan på Gud och Personen och det heliga. Böckerna kom första gången ut i svensk översättning mellan 1954-61.

Tyngden och nåden är en bok för begrundan och meditation -den är genomträngd av vissheten om en transcendent verklighet, vilken ingenting här på jorden tycks lämna bevis för, men som ändå är verkligare än allt föreställbart, och dess tankar är nedtecknade i en form som är särpräglat enkel och naken, avklädd inte bara allt jagiskt-privat utan också allt onödigt, som kunde ha smugit sig in mellan ingivelse och uttryck. Artos bokförlag har givit ut fyra volymer med texter av Simone Weil, Tyngden och nåden, Att slå rot, Väntan på Gud och Personen och det heliga. Böckerna kom första gången ut i svensk översättning mellan 1954-61

This volume, first published in English in 1987 makes available an important part of Weil’s early writings. Although primarily known as a religious thinker, she devoted enormous energy in her formative years to her work as a political activist and as a philosopher/teacher. This book reveals these other sides of Weil and demonstrates the lines of continuity underlying her whole thought. Written between 1929 and 1941 the book covers a crucial and transitional period in Weil’s life. Taken together they represent invaluable primary source material on the evolution of Weil’s life and on her chosen method of abstracting elements from her personal experience and transmuting that experience into considered thought. Even when highly theoretical, her writing was always concerned with the application of her intelligence to concrete problems of human existence.

This volume, first published in English in 1987 makes available an important part of Weil’s early writings. Although primarily known as a religious thinker, she devoted enormous energy in her formative years to her work as a political activist and as a philosopher/teacher. This book reveals these other sides of Weil and demonstrates the lines of continuity underlying her whole thought. Written between 1929 and 1941 the book covers a crucial and transitional period in Weil’s life. Taken together they represent invaluable primary source material on the evolution of Weil’s life and on her chosen method of abstracting elements from her personal experience and transmuting that experience into considered thought. Even when highly theoretical, her writing was always concerned with the application of her intelligence to concrete problems of human existence.

Emerging from the thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains the renowned philosopher and social activist's most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendent. An enduring masterwork and "one of the most neglected resources of our century" (Adrienne Rich), Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come.

Simone Weil was one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century: a philosopher, theologian, critic, sociologist and political activist. This anthology spans the wide range of her thought, and includes an extract from her best-known work 'The Need for Roots', exploring the ways in which modern society fails the human soul; her thoughts on the misuse of language by those in power; and the essay 'Human Personality', a late, beautiful reflection on the rights and responsibilities of every individual. All are marked by the unique combination of literary eloquence and moral perspicacity that characterised Weil's ideas and inspired a generation of thinkers and writers both in and outside her native France.

War and the Iliad is a perfect introduction to the range of Homer's art as well as a provocative and rewarding demonstration of the links between literature, philosophy, and questions of life and death. Simone Weil's The Iliad, or the Poem of Force is one of her most celebrated works-an inspired analysis of Homer's epic that presents a nightmare vision of combat as a machine in which all humanity is lost. First published on the eve of war in 1939, the essay has often been read as a pacifist manifesto. Rachel Bespaloff was a French contemporary of Weil's whose work similarly explored the complex relations between literature, religion, and philosophy. She composed her own distinctive discussion of the Iliad in the midst of World War II-calling it "her method of facing the war"-and, as Christopher Benfey argues in his introduction, the essay was very probably written in response to Weil. Bespaloff's account of the Iliad brings out Homer's novelistic approach to character and the existential drama of his characters' choices; it is marked, too, by a tragic awareness of how the Iliad speaks to times and places where there is no hope apart from war. This edition brings together these two influential essays for the first time, accompanied by Benfey's scholarly introduction and an afterword by the great Austrian novelist Hermann Broch.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a defining figure of the twentieth century; a philosopher, Christian, resistance fighter, anarchist, feminist, Labour activist and teacher. She was described by T. S. Eliot as 'a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints', and by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our time'. Originally published posthumously in two volumes, these newly reissued notebooks, are among the very few unedited personal writings of Weil's that still survive today. Containing her thoughts on art, love, science, God and the meaning of life, they give context and meaning to Weil's famous works, revealing an unique philosophy in development and offering a rare private glimpse of her singular personality.

In 1931, Simone Weil read an article by Louis Roubaud in the Petit Parisien that exposed the Yen Bay massacre in Indochina. That article opened Weil's eyes, and from then until her death in exile in 1943, she cared most deeply about the French colonial situation. Weil refused to accept the contradiction between the image of France as champion of the rights of man and the reality of France's exploitation and oppression of the peoples in its territories. Weil wrote thirteen articles or letters about the situation, writings originally published in French journals or in French collections of her work. J. P. Little's fluid and clear translations finally introduce to English-speaking scholars and students this important element of Weil's political consciousness.

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the farmer to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals. On the fiftieth anniversary of the first English edition - by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1952 - this Routledge Classics edition offers English readers the complete text of this landmark work for the first time ever, by incorporating a specially commissioned translation of the controversial chapter on Israel. Also previously untranslated is Gustave Thibon's postscript of 1990, which reminds us how privileged we are to be able to read a work which offers each reader such 'light for the spirit and nourishment for the soul'. This is a book that no one with a serious interest in the spiritual life can afford to be without.