Recalling the Apostle of Nonpartisanship
New York Times
New York Times
From ScienceDirect by Elsevier, Acta Poética, Vol. 34, no.1, January–June 2013, pps.127-154.
This essay appears in Gianni Vattimo, ed., Weak Thought, State University of New York Press, 2013, pp. 111-137.
in William Sweet, ed.,Ideas Under Fire: Historical Studies of Philosophy and Science in Adversity, Madison, UK: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, pp. 217-230
With Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) and Simone Weil (1909-1943), we are confronted with two philosophers who examine events, understand their present, and consider the “disorder” of their time caused by Marxism, Fascism, and National Socialism. Their respective works constitute acts of resistance against ideology. Wondering about the “dark times” (Bertolt Brecht), they diagnose a Europe that suffers from a disease that is not without precedent, a disease that affects the spirit, the soul, and a disease that can be grasped by its several symptoms. In order to cure this disease, it is necessary to find remedies, and they both believe two countries in particular offer some hope.
VoegelinView.com, The Eric Voegelin Society publishes VoegelinView in partnership with Louisiana State University’s Eric Voegelin Institute, the University of Wisconsin’s Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy, and Nichollas State University’s Nicholls Foundation.
Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol. 4, # 2
Simone Weil had an ambivalent attitude toward Marx. While she thought that the young Marx’s celebration of labor had “lyrical accents,” she ultimately believed that Marx had neglected his own insights, embracing a blind worship of mechanization and a theory of history and revolution that was insufficiently attentive to the material conditions of workers. Marx, in her view, was insufficiently materialist and excessively wedded to a hierarchical model of science that maintained the domination of management. Weil and Marx’s attitudes toward the dignity of labor and the necessary conditions for socialism are analyzed. The most significant cleavage between them is ultimately due to the differing manner in which they conceive of the relationship between thought and action. Through this comparison, the philosophical underpinnings of the two radically different conceptions of labor and its dignity as a human activity are explained.
The Review of Politics, vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 87-107
in Emmanuelle Anne Vanborre, ed., The Originality and Complexity of Albert Camus’s Writings. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125-142
Religious Studies in Japan, Vol.1, no. 1, pp. 1-14
Esprit, issues 8-9, pp. 30-51