“Beholding and Being beheld: Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, and the Ethics of Attention”
The Humanistic Psychologist, Vol. 43, Issue 2, 160–172.
Articles read more
Traces of Resurrection: The Pattern of Simone Weil’s Mysticism
Abstract: In her “Letter to a Priest,” Simone Weil makes the following, typically bold, assertion concerning belief in the Resurrection: “Hitler could die and return to life again fifty times, but I should still not look upon him as the Son of God. And if the gospel omitted all mention of Christ’s Resurrection, faith would be easier for me. The Cross by itself suffices me.”1 This statement has often served as an indication that Weil’s version of Christian mysticism has no place for the Resurrection. Throughout the collection of short essays, articles, and notebooks produced at the end of her life Weil reflects frequently, in profound and intriguing ways, on the significance of death, its effect on human thought, and its place in moral and spiritual life. Not only is death “the source of all untruth and of all truth for men,”2 the crucifixion of Christ becomes the center not only of her spirituality but also of her metaphysics; creation, for Weil, is the cross that crucifies God.3 In some of the more extreme formulations scattered through the notebooks, in particular, Weil gives that impression that she sees life as a cosmic mistake that it is the task of spiritual life to rectify, through acceptance of death: “Birth involves us in the original sin, death redeems us from it.”4 Death is the humiliating destiny of all finite creatures, but if one can refuse the various compulsive ways there are of evading the thought of this, and consent to, or even love this necessity, one thereby participates in the process of “decreation,” the eradication of the autonomous self.
Stuart Jesson, “Traces of Resurrection: The Pattern of Simone Weil’s Mysticism,” in T. Cattoi T. & C.M. Moreman, eds, Death, Dying, and Mysticism. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Mysticism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2015), pp. 49-64.
“Simone Weil and the Formation of Attention”
in Springsted, The Act of Faith: Christian Faith and the Moral Self(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock)
“Traces of Resurrection: The Pattern of Simone Weil’s Mysticism”
in Death, Dying and Mysticism, Christopher Moreman & Thomas Cattoi, eds. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan
The Art and Ethics of Attention
The Hedgehog Review, vol. 16, no. 2
André Abraham Weil
MacTutor, University of St Andrews, Scotland, (last update 2014).
Simone Weil: Suffering, Attention and Compassionate Thought
This article explores Simone Weil’s account of the relationship between human suffering and intellectual life, with reference to the issues raised by the allegation that as an enterprise theodicy evinces a failure to ‘take suffering seriously’. The article shows how Weil’s understanding of the relationship between suffering and attention gives a clear and powerful account of the way that compassion – which involves an uncompromising acceptance of suffering – can be discerned in patterns of thought. Nevertheless, it is less clear in her work how these convictions might serve as a guide for theological statements. Weil’s understanding of the Christian conception of life is centered on the experience of finding God present in and through suffering, and this leaves her with the problem of how to reconcile her commitment not to ‘sweeten what is bitter’ with consolations or compensations with her intuition that the truth of creaturely existence is made available through suffering. Through an analysis of the inner contours of this conflict, it is argued that Weil’s central problem is of how to articulate spiritual reality in such a way as to encourage undivided attention.
Studies in Christian Ethics, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 185-201
Simone Weil and her Critics
The I.B. Tauris blogThe I.B. Tauris blog
Some reflections on Simone Weil’s Mystical Response to Beckett’s Absurdism
International Journal of English and Literature, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 549-559
‘In the beginning was the deed’
Winch’s readings of Wittgenstein and Weil call for a significant rethinking of the relation between ‘metaphysics’ and ‘ethics’. But there are confusions, perhaps to be found in all three of these writers, that we may slip into here. These are linked with the tendency to see idealist tendencies in Wittgenstein, and with his remark that giving grounds comes to an end, not in a kind of seeing on our part, but in our acting. The sense that we think we see in this suggestion is dependent on a distorted conception of ‘justification’. Getting clear about this involves coming to appreciate just how much of our nature as ethical beings is engaged when we do philosophy.
— David Cockburn, Emeritus Professor, University of Wales.
