Talk:Simone Weil

Need for citation

I was intrigued by the need for a citation on the statement regarding her reasons for rejecting the Catholic Church. I googled an article by Bauer http://www.cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm that seems to solidly root her objections to Catholicism to her political analysis of religions in a 1974 publication, "Lettre au un Religieux", that both Judaism and Christianity were "religions of slaves." I seem to remember that this was an analysis from Weil's earlier writings. I wonder if the Wiki article's assertion that her objection to Catholicism was it's exclusion of other religious thought was a later development. And further, I'm wondering if it was her later interest in religions of the east that paled her commitment to Catholicism alone, though it was where she experienced an awakening. Her thought, though she died young, did broaden over time. And there's the question, too, that if she rejected religions taking on characteristics of each other, and she was passionately awakened by an experience within the realm of Catholicism and still interested in Eastern religions, was she denying herself the possibility of ever worshiping with like-minded individuals such as herself? She was a radical individualist, but she would not have denied the importance of community, or would she have?

Or was it that though she had a spiritual awakening in the chapel of St. Francis of Assisi, she did not necessarily ascribe that as a "Catholic" experience.? What IS the work from which you got your impression? Perhaps I could read more.

Ftord1960 00:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk:

I just read the article on Simone Weil. I added a line saying that the claim that Weil committed suicide is countermanded by Simone Pretrement in her biography, Simone Weil, A Life [the definitive bio.]

But I think that there are a number of other errors in the article: It says that Simone Weil sought affliction by going to work in the factory while Weil says that she sought the job because anyone who was to write about economics/social philosophy should experience it before writing and because she sought to learn the special knowledge that workers possessed [epistemological priviledge].

The current article says that Weil's mehtod is like that of James. But James in a pragmatist. Weil is a Platonist -something that James criticized.

I do not know what to do about the article. I do not feel right just taking out someone else's work and yet, I think the article needs correction.

Katel

Well, hopefully you'll find your way here from the reference desk. I do want to second the responses you got there--you should feel absolutely free to edit the article, because that's how Wikipedia works.

That said, perhaps I can help clarify some of the stuff that's there. First off, I had qualms about the suicide thing, though it's definitely a common interpretation. A statement that Petrement rejected the hypothesis that Weil's death was suicidal would be sufficient.

Also, while I grant that the Petrement biography is canonical, I'm not sure I'd say it's definitive; some scholars feel Petrement was too close to Weil to get a proper feel for her.

As to the affliction bit, I think it's pretty clear that she was gunning for affliction when she went to the factory; I think that the experience of affliction in fact comprises the epistemological privilege you mention. However, I would not be averse to a change in wording; I'd be happy with "she found affliction in the life of a factory worker," or, "she encountered affliction," etc.

Now, as to the question of pragmatism and platonism...it's important to differentiate Weil's values and ends, which are utterly Platonic, from her methods, which are not necessarily so. Weil was a foundationalist by choice, belief, and identification, but her methods were not foundationalistic.

The comparison to pragmatism is actually Weil's, and not mine; she says, "One might say, with the pragmatists, that all science reduces itself to a process of action on nature, but it is necessary to add the word methodical.--LP, p. 111" Now, this shows that she does not identify as a pragmatism (obviously), but consider the differentiation she makes--she implies that she what stands between her and pragmatism is methodicity, and this is obviously a misconception of Weil's, since the pragmatists all place enormous emphasis on method. In any case, it is not at all out of line to say that Weil, at the very least at the stage of the LP, is, while not a pragmatist, in some sense going about a related project. And I stand by the actual content of my statement, which is that Weil's functional attitudes towards truth (her uses of it, rather than her beliefs about it) are, indeed, closely akin to James's concept of the function of truth.

(It's also simplistic to say that James's analysis of truth is a pragmatic one; he considered truth as it occurs in human life, whether pragmatic or no; he simply happens to have favored pragmatism on the basis of his own reflections.)

Perhaps these comments help somewhat to exonerate my statements; if not, please press your concerns, and help make the article more clear, concise, and informative. Also, if you can help contribute to aspects of Weil's life and thought that are not well-represented in the article (e.g., her politics, which were central, are something I don't feel comfortable elaborating without having The Need for Roots in front of me.), that would be marvelous.

Happy wiki-ing, कुक्कुरोवाच 22:49, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Um, oops! I just hacked into your section on Weil's life, and only thought to read these comments after the crime. Sorry! :o(

I threw in an anecdote about her early education to liven things up, and also mentioned the ill fate of her Spanish expedition. I added some detail about Weil's mystical experiences, and expanded her byline to read "French philosopher and mystic" because I think it is an integral part of who she is.

Finally, I unwittingly weighed into the already waging "suicide" debate. I've read a few biographies, none of which seriously contend that her final actions amounted to suicide. I don't personally believe Weil can be described as a martyr, but it certainly highlights the controversy of her official cause of death.

I restrained myself by not editing the other sections. I should really be working on my honours thesis, which is on Weil's political philsophy. :op

Hythloday.

Your changes look very good. Thanks. Good luck with the thesis.कुक्कुरोवाच

Katel here again. Thanks for your comments and explanations.

I want to go back to the suicide thing here...not in the article. When Weil was still nursing her mother had some bouts with appendix...you know they used to "ice" them and hope for the best since there were no antibiotics and surgery was really dangerous. Anyhow Simone became deathly ill...apparently was beign poisoned by her mother's milk. They thought she would die, but she recovered but ever after had difficulty with food/digestion....and the war time diet in England was tough.

I assume we all agree that she was a most independent woman...a forminable discussant [she scared Simone de Beauvoir by unmasking bourgeois tendencies according to Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter].

So, how does this fit the end of her life. She was really sick - TB. They had collapsed the lung and it did not good at all. The dr. wanted to do it again. She refused [what today would be call the 'right to refuse treatment' - especially frutiless treatment. He got mad that she would not just acquiese [like any patient, especially woman was expected to do] and so when she died he signed the death certificate that she died as a result of self starvation.

Here is where Pretrement comes in...documents the testimony of her nurse, some friends who would bring food in etc. Even goes to her confessor, 2nd doctor etc. Now, I have had some friends who have died and almost none of them wanted to each anything near the end...cancer, TB etc. there is a natural loss of appetite. So, I do not want to include all that in the encyclopedia article but want to put it out here for consideration.

Why did she go into the factory? Well, there were two motivations. part of her inheritance from Alain was that you should go and experience anything if you want to understand it. [eg. When she heard stories of things going bad in Germany..she [a Jew] traveled to Berlin to find out...same thing when Italy started to persecute the Jews...

She had always been close to working class people. When she was a kid and the family was in hotels, the family was especially well treated by staff because Simone spent much of her time in the kitchen etc, with them and they loved her for it. She got bounced from her first job because she was helping factory workers get organized etc. She had been in dialogue with factory owner, trying to get him to institute "social justice reforms" - there are letters between them. Also, she had this 19th centruy notion that there is a special knowlege that working people have that no one else can have [you find this idea in some Catholic circles too]. She got the factory job through "pull" - her knoweldge of owners and managers. She went - well, I am tempted to say quixotically - but maybe that is a bit harsh since then her whole life would be "quixotic" and I think she was more area of the reality of oppressions....

She was stunned in some ways by what the experience actually was. She was a klutz...and had some coordination problems so found working the presses really hard....and her factory journal is to me, the evidence that a brilliant mind can be reduced to mere economic calculations [she was never making the piece rate and so would not get paid etc.] In the end she had to leave the great experiment in learning....yes, it filled her with horror...like Dickens and the boot blacking factory...she said ever afterwards that when every anyone spoke to her with respect, she was surprised. And what is interesting, is that she realized that the mechanism of modern production [which she had thought could be made more humane...and she had gone there as an experiment to find out exactly how] was simply oppressive [her piece about Charlie Chaplin as offering a more apt analysis of factory work and its mechanism of necessity] and she stopped trying to get owners to reform.

Her work in the vineyard... "migrant worker" style was another one of these joing the workers [ you find this in FRance...it led to the worker priest movement and cathoic social doctrine later] but that was also because the anti-jewish laws meant she could not teach...so someone arranged for her to go to Thibeau's farm. Again, she had not the endurance so instead he and she argued half the nite about social justice etc.

This penchant of going where the action is...it permenated her life...whenthe family came to the USA she could not stand it...went to London to work for the free french...asked to be sent as a spy etc. So I find no evidence in her letters or notebooks that she "sought affliction"....some might say that her headaches might have been afflicitons except she said that she learned to think around the pain [havign suffered from migrains for years, that always gave me hope and I tried to do the same so I could teach]...I am not sure that she was afflicted...in part because she had a sense of meaning and she says that true affliciton one has not sense of meaning.

Method...I am not sure how to edit the piece to include two aspects of her methodology - First, I agree with what is there that the aesthetic is central to her approach...more central than the ethical. I would like to find a way to talk of her method.... first, the part adopted from Alain of melding the literary AND the experience of the poor, the worker, the outcast in ones philosophizing....that one needs to experience anything that one is going to write about. second, her conviction that you get to truth by holding contradictions in your mind...the tension of opposites [Heraclitus put it that way] and in so holding the contradictions, ones mind suddenly peierces through to True.

It is found in some of the mystics too...as well as Heraclitus....

Hmmmm. A long post. I get wound up about her. I still find her On the Right Use of School Studies and Forms of the Implicit love of God and her notebooks astonishing. Her work on attention is clearer than anyone up til her day and not ever Murdoch [who was influenced by W's attention work] makes it any clearer. So, again, I do not want to erase what is there....but I would like to find a way to put some of this in about her methodology and have not figured out how and where you. Katel

Interesting stuff Katel. There was one biography I read which suggested that Weil was suffering from anorexia at the end. I forgot all about it until I read your post.

I fully agree with you that she was not "seeking" affliction. It's been a while since I read her essay on the subject, but I do remember that she denied anyone could WANT affliction.

Editorial Questions and Comments in the Text

There are editorial questions and comments in the text, either between brackets or at the end of paragraphs. I think they are good thinking points for further expansion but should be here not in the article. Rauh 15:41, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Examples extracted:

• What do you make of Weil’s distinction between corporations and individuals having opinions?*
• In Honor: Honoring policemen and firemen after 911?

Mixing the tenses

It seems very strange to me to mix tenses throughout the article, like "she became involved ... at this time she is a marxist" and in the next paragraph "she received her diploma and a becomes teacher". In my mother-tongue it would be a serious style error, but although I have not met such constructions in any english text before, I cannot be sure. --matusz 14:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Tags

I am not a professional philosopher nor a frequent Wikipedia contributor. That said, I find the article in fact a rather accurate and coherent summary of Weil's thought. It is indeed not in an encyclopedic style but the very nature of her writing and thinking do not lend themselves very well to a systematic account. As it stands it is quite readable and informative. I would propose removing the tags.--RB1:36, 20 February 2006

They're still here at time of writing, and I don't think they should be removed yet. I've so far looked only at the first section, and it's somewhat badly organized, so that alone justifies the tags. Also, we should be aiming for an encyclopedic style, even if it seems like it will be difficult to achieve. Further discussion about how to do that can happen on this page (and I hope it will). Cantara 21:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"Uprootedness"

This section is *way* too long and reads like a term paper. Needs a lot of work.69.86.157.199 15:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I wrote this section, as I did the section on Roots above, and will edit it. Grammatophile (talk) 05:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Organization

I have tried to reorganize the sections here. I've added the "Works" section, under which my description of The Need for Roots appears. I think the section on Gravity and Grace should also go here. The sections on Philosophy and Theology need to be expanded with more detail. I am thinking that we need an analysis along the lines of Peter Winch's book on Weil's philosophy. I'd even go so far as to suggest that we need sections on the traditional subdivisions of philosophy: metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, and so on. In Weil's case, sections on metaphysics, epistemology, and political science seem called for. In Theology, we are obviously dealing with mysticism, though her work with other religions might apply as well. Grammatophile (talk) 04:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Different picture?

Can we replace the picture? I don't think the current one really does justice to how she normally looked. How about this one: http://encyclopedie.bourges.net/weil5.jpg ?