New Book (in French) of Notes of Weil’s Philosophy Class in Le Puy
ABSTRACT: This new book is a meticulous transcription of notes taken in Simone Weil’s philosophy class in Le Puy during the school year of 1931-32, immediately after she graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Simone Weil Philosophie is the result of intensive editorial work by Elinore Darzi, Aviad Heifetz and Gabriel Maes of typescript notebooks of two of Weil’s students, that Aviad Heifetz re-discovered in October 2022 uncatalogued within the Fonds Simone Weil at the French National Library in Paris, alongside Weil’s hitherto unpublished preparatory notes for teaching, now appended to this new volume. Another appendix brings the moving testimonial of four of Weil’s students from that year, including their accounts
photo credit: private collection of Denise Deshors, daughter-in-law of Julia Mingot, who was one of Weil’s pupils in Le Puy.
of how they successfully mobilized to retain Weil as their teacher when she was harassed by the police, denigrated by the conservative press, and threatened to be moved by the ministry of education after she helped the local unemployed workers to get better remuneration for the public works the town hall hired them for, and more. The original manuscript of one of the students’ notebooks, confided to Emmanuel Gabellieri at the Catholic University of Lyon who prefaces the volume, then served to ascertain and complete the typescript material.
Simone Weil, Philosophy: the Le Puy Courses 1931-1932. Based on notes taken by Yvette Argaud, completed by those of Elisabeth Chanel, established and annotated by Elinore Darzi, Aviad Heifetz and Gabriël Maes, preface by Emmanuel Gabellieri.
The editors added several hundred footnotes with quotation sources of editions available at that period (sometimes with corrected or fuller quotes), complementary quotes from Weil’s writings and letters from that year, and historical background for events mentioned by Simone Weil in class. Elinore Darzi wrote the afterword titled “A lesson in reading”. The year-long course has three main parts – Psychology (theory of mind), Logic (philosophy of science from mathematics to sociology) and Morale (social and political philosophy).
These lecture notes from Le Puy are more systematic and extensive than Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy from Roanne. Graced by Simone Weil’s crystal-clear style, this volume should appeal to a wide span of readers beyond Simone Weil experts.
Japanese and Spanish translations of this new volume are forthcoming, and Aviad Heifetz is currently translating it into English. Among other events, the publication is planned to be celebrated at an international conference on “Simone Weil and education” on May 23-24, 2025 at the Catholic University of Lyon and in Le Puy.
We know that Simone Weil entered the girls’ high school in Puy-en-Velay on October 2, 1931. She was 22 years old. It was her first position as a philosophy teacher, and at the reception of the establishment, this slender young girl was initially mistaken for a student. She wore a hat, which she would abandon the next day for a beret.
“Her negligence in dress did not shock us; she was neither delicate nor tomboyish; we paid more and more distracted attention to it, already sensing that Simone Weil’s time and thoughts were devoted to concerns of another order. The awkwardness of her gestures, especially of her hands, the particular expressions of her face as she concentrated her thoughts, her gaze penetrating through thick glasses, her smile, everything in her breathed total frankness, self- forgetfulness, and revealed a nobility of soul that was certainly at the origin of the feelings she inspired in us but of which we were not aware at first.”
The testimony of four of her students in Puy-en-Velay, published in May 1951 a few years after the death of their teacher in London in 1943 at the age of 34 from tuberculosis and malnutrition, can be found at the end of the book published by Éditions de l’Eclat. The “Cours du Puy” were unpublished until now (or only in very fragmentary form). They consist of notes taken by two of her students, Yvette Argaud and Elisabeth Chanel, from the funds of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLY) and the National Library of France.
The notes were sometimes even corrected by Simone Weil herself at the time. “The two sources combined produce a clear and brilliant text,” says Aviad Heifetz, who edited it with Elinore Darzi and Gabriël Maes, in the introduction.
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