Simone Weil

Known as the “patron saint of all outsiders,” Simone Weil (1909–43) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable thinkers, a philosopher who truly lived by her political and ethical ideals. In a short life framed by the two world wars, Weil taught philosophy to lycée students and organized union workers, fought alongside anarchists during the Spanish Civil War and labored alongside workers on assembly lines, joined the Free French movement in London and died in despair because she was not sent to France to help the Resistance. Though Weil published little during her life, after her death, thanks largely to the efforts of Albert Camus, hundreds of pages of her manuscripts were published to critical and popular acclaim. While many seekers have been attracted to Weil’s religious thought, Robert Zaretsky gives us a different Weil, exploring her insights into politics and ethics, and showing us a new side of Weil that balances her contradictions—the rigorous rationalist who also had her own brand of Catholic mysticism; the revolutionary with a soft spot for anarchism yet who believed in the hierarchy of labor; and the humanitarian who emphasized human needs and obligations over human rights. Reflecting on the relationship between thought and action in Weil’s life, The Subversive Simone Weil honors the complexity of Weil’s thought and speaks to why it matters and continues to fascinate readers today.

Simone Weil is one of the major religious writers of the twentieth century. Hers is a unique blend of spiritual experience, social concern, and philosophical theory. She had marvelous command of the Western philosophical tradition, yet she also had profound insights into Oriental philosophies. Since its publication in France, Veto's book has been considered by most scholars as the standard work on Simone Weil. Now this important book is available in English. It is the only available reconstruction of the entire philosophy of Simone Weil. It operates out of the perspective of the spiritual concerns of her maturity, yet it never fails to return to the issues and the positions of the early texts. It carries out the reconstruction according to some major philosophical themes, but gives its due share to the French thinkers' social and political preoccupations as well. The book is erudite, yet simple, written in a clear, concise and yet often eloquent language.

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 (1909-1943) was a philosopher, theologian, political activist, and mystic whose work endures among the greatest spiritual thinking in human history. Born and educated in Paris, she was devoted to advocating for disenfranchised citizens around the world. Called the 'saint of all outsiders' by Andre Gide, Weil's compassion for the plight of the working class and the armed forces fueled her enlightened treatises and existential inquiries.

Translated from the French by Benjamin Ivry, Simone Weil was one of the twentieth century's most original philosopher-critics, and as a result her legacy has been claimed by many. This memoir by Weil's niece is strong-willed and incisive and as close as we are likely to get to the real Simone Weil. Born into a freethinking Jewish family, Weil contributed many articles to Socialist and Communist journals and was active in the Spanish Civil War until her health failed. In 1940 she became strongly attracted to Roman Catholicism and the Passion of Christ. Most of her works, published posthumously, continue to inform debates in ethics, philosophy, and spirituality surrounding questions of sacrifice, asceticism, and the virtues of manual labor. Massively influential, Weil's writings were widely praised by such readers as Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, Simone de Beauvoir, Pope John XXIII, Czeslaw Milosz, and Susan Sontag. Sylvie Weil recovers the deeply Jewish nature of Simone's thinking and details how her preoccupations with charity and justice were fully in the tradition of tzedakah, the Jewish religious obligation toward these actions. Using previously unpublished family correspondence and conversations, Sylvie Weil offers a more authentically personal portrait of her aunt than previous biographers have provided. At Home with Andr and Simone Weil illuminates Simone's relationship to her family, especially to her brother, the great Princeton mathematician Andr Weil. A clear-eyed and uncompromising memoir of her family, At Home with Andr and Simone Weil is a fresh look at the noted French philosopher, mystic, and social activist.

Biography of the French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist Simone Weil (1909-1943). Unrevised and unpublished proofs.

Over fifty years after her death, Simone Weil (1909-1943) remains one of the most searching religious inquirers and political thinkers of the twentieth century. Albert Camus said she had a "madness for truth." She rejected her Jewishness and developed a strong interest in Catholicism, although she never joined the Catholic church. Both an activist and a scholar, she constantly spoke out against injustice and aligned herself with workers, with the colonial poor in France, and with the opressed everywhere. She came to believe that suffering itself could be a way to unity with God, and her death at thirty-four has been recorded as suicide by starvation. This extraordinary study is primarily a topography of Weil's mind, but Thomas Nevin is persuaded that her thought is inextricably bound to her life and dramatic times. Thus, he not only addresses her thoughts and her prejudices but examines her reasons for entertaining them and gives them a historical focus. He claims that to Weil's generation the Spanish War, the Popular Front, the ascendance of Hitlerism, and the Vichy years were not mere backdrops but definitive events. Nevin explores in detail not only matters of continuing interest, such as Weil's leftist politics and her attempt to embrace Christianity, but also hitherto unexamined aspects of her life and work which permit a deeper understanding of her: her writings on science, her work as a poet and dramatist, and her selective friendships. The thread uniting these topics is her struggle to maintain her independence as a free thinker while resisting community such as Judaism could have offered her. Her intellectual struggles eloquently reveal the desperate isolation of Jews torn between the lure of assimilation and the tormented dignity of their communal history. Nevin's massive research draws on the full range of essays, notebooks, and fragments from the Simone Weil archives in Paris, many of which have never been translated or published. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Simone Weil, legendary French philosopher, political activist, and mystic, died in 1943 at a sanatorium in Kent, England, at the age of thirty-four. During her brief lifetime, Weil was a paradox of asceticism and reclusive introversion who also maintained a teaching career and an active participation in politics. In this concise biography, Palle Yourgrau outlines Weil’s influential life and work and demonstrates how she tried to apply philosophy to everyday life. Born in Paris to a cultivated Jewish-French family, Weil excelled at philosophy, and her empathetic political conscience channeled itself into political engagement and activism on behalf of the working class. Yourgrau assesses Weil’s controversial critique of Judaism as well as her radical re-imagination of Christianity—following a powerful religious experience in 1937—in light of Plato’s philosophy as a bridge between human suffering and divine perfection. In Simone Weil, Yourgrau provides careful, concise readings of Weil’s work while exploring how Weil has come to be seen as both a modern saint and a bête noir, a Jew accused of having abandoned her own people in their hour of greatest need.

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.

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.