The Routledge Companion to Simone Weil

The remarkable life and work of the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil has fascinated scholars from many disciplines, with no less than Albert Camus calling her the ‘only great spirit of our times’. Although contemporaneous with the rise of existentialism, and educated alongside contemporaries such as Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the creative and restless nature of Weil’s thought set her apart. Equally adept at thinking across politics, philosophy, theology, ethics, literature, and science, Weil stands distinct in the canon of twentieth-century Western thought as a highly unique and controversial figure.The Routledge Companion to Simone Weil is an outstanding survey of her thought. Thirty-seven chapters by an international team of expert contributors are divided into six clear parts:

• Contextualising Weil
• Philosophical 
• Sources
• Key Concepts
• Politics and 
• Society Interactions with Religion Conversations.

Within these sections key thinkers and topics central to Weil’s philosophy are addressed, including Plato, Kant, Marx, God, attention, love, beauty, labour and work, the body, slavery, rootedness, colonialism, fascism, Catholicism, Judaism, Indic thought, phenomenology, existentialism, feminism, literature, and many more.

The Routledge Companion to Simone Weil (July 2026) is an invaluable resource for anyone studying or researching Weil’s thought, whether in philosophy and religious studies or related disciplines such as political theory, French literature and Jewish studies.

About the Editors

Deborah Casewell is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Chester, UK, and Co-Director of the Simone Weil Research Network UK. She is the author of Existentialism and Monotheism and Eberhard Jüngel on Existence. She has published in the areas of philosophy and culture, in particular on existentialism and religion, questions of ethics and self-formation in relation to asceticism.

Christopher Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the co-founder of the AHRC funded UK Simone Weil Research Network and has published widely on both Simone Weil and Benedict Spinoza. He is currently working on a monograph on the aesthetic philosophy of Simone Weil.

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