Philosophy Now Forum

Any thoughts on the life and philosophy of Simone Weil?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil

Well, she was an Idealist, so quite wrong about a good many things. That she was a modern-day Marcionite is interesting, though I think that approach takes the easy way out. I'm definitely impressed by how well she made a mark in a field that tends to be dominated by men. That alone makes up for her errors in other places.

ReliStuPhD wrote:Well, she was an Idealist, so quite wrong about a good many things. That she was a modern-day Marcionite is interesting, though I think that approach takes the easy way out. I'm definitely impressed by how well she made a mark in a field that tends to be dominated by men. That alone makes up for her errors in other places.

What impresses me is seeing someone actually live their philosophy in the most profound sense. Some philosophers have shown undeniable brilliance, and yet their personal lives contradict their philosophy (Schopenhauer), or their political/social idiocy taints their philosophy (Heidegger).

DesolationRow wrote:

ReliStuPhD wrote:Well, she was an Idealist, so quite wrong about a good many things. That she was a modern-day Marcionite is interesting, though I think that approach takes the easy way out. I'm definitely impressed by how well she made a mark in a field that tends to be dominated by men. That alone makes up for her errors in other places.

What impresses me is seeing someone actually live their philosophy in the most profound sense. Some philosophers have shown undeniable brilliance, and yet their personal lives contradict their philosophy (Schopenhauer), or their political/social idiocy taints their philosophy (Heidegger).

Agreed.

For Weil’s early-ish political theory, you should be able to find Oppression and Liberty in any university library. It is available used for about $10 in the US, including shipping. Her theory of liberty grew out of a hatred of bureaucratic oppression. She believed that any form of bureaucracy, including the bureaucracies of private corporations and their congenial states as well as any centralized socialism, will be oppressive.

Liberty is the chief good of a good society. The purpose of democracy and of socialism is to insure that individuals control, rather than be controlled by; society. The authentic left does not strive for collectivism but for individualism through community.

She held that a free decision is one made with full knowledge and deliberation (probably an influence from Hegel.) This led her to the conclusion that a free society must be decentralized and radically simplified. Here she is subject to the charge of utopianism. A more theory-based criticism is that her definitions would seem not to count as a restriction on liberty a forcible interference with our spur of the moment, undeliberated, actions. I expect most of us would disagree.

Weil had complex relation to Marx, endorsing his method, but not his doctrines. In this there is some similarity to Lukacs. She was hostile to Lenin and especially to oppressive regime of Stalin, which she analyzed as a form of capitalism.

Although the thread seemed more concerned with the later Weil, I thought there might be some carryover interest to this aspect of her thought. This post is mostly cribbed, and a couple of sentences directly and shamelessly plagiarized, from my review of Oppression and Liberty in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 84, No. 2. (Apr., 1975), pp. 300-303