D.K. Levy, Book Review: “A declaration of duties towards humankind”
D.K. Levy, Book Review, Philosophical Investigations (Aug. 2025)
Political-Social Philosophy
Book Review: Simone Weil’s anti-fascist blueprint
Mac Loftin, Simone Weil’s anti-fascist blueprint, The Christian Century (March 2025)
Inside Issue 13: New Blood, New Books, and New Articles
Simone Weil Society’s Annual Colloquy (2026): Roots, Exile, and Migration
The Routledge Companion to Simone Weil
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.
Rethinking Political Crisis and Collapse: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil
Related
Kathryn Lawson, ed., Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil: Unprecedented Conversations (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024)
Simone Weil: A Very Short Introduction
Simone Weil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, May 2024)
This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the intriguing and provocative life and ideas of twentieth-century French philosopher, mystic, and social activist Simone Weil. Weil was not a typical, systematic philosopher. Despite her short life, Weil’s philosophy has much to offer us in our times of personal, communal, political, and environmental crises, both in the breath and poignancy of her philosophy, and the topics it covers.
In keeping with Weil’s spirit to consider and address laypeople, Rozelle-Stone takes readers, including those who have had little or no previous exposure to Weil or philosophy, on an accessible journey of Weil’s major philosophical impacts. This exploration consists of seven chapters highlighting: her life and manner of death, both characterized by attention; the influence of ancient Greek ideas on her philosophy; her thoughts on labour and politics; her unique and ecumenical religious inspirations, stemming from Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism; her ethical philosophy centred on a specific notion of attentiveness; her understanding of beauty as connected to fragility but also eternity; and finally, her legacy and influence on contemporary writers and issues, particularly as she may help us navigate and critically assess the growing convergence between religious fervour, late capitalist and corporate values, and authoritarian politics.
Related
Weil: Basic Writings (Routledge, 2024) edited by D. K. Levy and Marina Barabas.
The Waves of Weil Books: 1951-2024 — New and Forthcoming Books
Inside Issue 10: New and Forthcoming
The Objectification of the Worker: Simone Weil and her Influence on Contemporary Thought
Abstract: “The French philosopher, Simone Weil (1909-1943) elaborated a thought on work, on its organization and its conditions. Having experienced the mechanization of companies, she was able to describe the process of the objectification of the worker. His reflection on the instrumentalization of the worker and that of work always nourishes great contemporary thinkers, such as Alain. This reflection is all the more current at the dawn of new realities, such as digitalization and the Internet revolution, which, supposed to liberate man, are factors of an even deeper objectification of the employee.
This article, therefore, aims to unveil the mechanisms of objectification as Simone Weil described them and to propose some ways to transcend them, faced with the risk of their persistence in an upset work environment.”
Excerpt: :The thirties in France were marked by the great economic depression and political instability: small entrepreneurs suffered, unemployment increased and workers’ strikes multiplied. Weil does not remain indifferent to the social and political events of her time. As a young teacher in the early thirties, she is already working as a trade unionist. She then apprehends the phenomenon of the alienation of the worker through the works of Karl Marx, but it is their objectification that she will confront for several months (from December 1934 to August 1935) while working in the Renault and Alsthom factories. From this period she leaves us her Factory Diary which highlights her own internal conflicts but which also describes the daily life of the workers of the 1930s, daily life often limited to the ‘working time’ factor. In it, she describes their situation, their uprooting and their alienation. . . .”
- Nelli Sołonko, “The Objectification of the Worker: Simone Weil and her Influence on Contemporary Thought,” French Studies Bulletin, vol. 44, no. 166 (Summer 2023), pp. 12–16 {L’Objectification du Travailleur: Simone Weil et son Influence Sur la Pensée Contemporaine} [Yandex Translate]
