“Kaija Saariaho in conversation at the Royal Swedish Opera – ‘As a child, I always imagined music’,”
Operavision, (interview turns to Simone Weil at 22:07)
Recommended
“Gravity” in the Thought of Simone Weil
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 57, No. 1, Mar., 1997, pp. 73-93
Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Mathematics, and Love
Weaving the World uses Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics as an introduction to the thought of one of the most powerful philosophical and theological minds of the twentieth century. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence. Vance G. Morgan investigates Weil’s earliest texts on science, in which she lays the foundation for a conception of science rooted in basic human concerns and activities. He then tracks Weil’s analysis of the development of science, particularly of the mathematics and science of the ancient Greeks.
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005
Sylvie Weil talks about what it was like growing up as Simone Weil’s niece
Clip from the documentary written, directed & produced by Julia Haslett
Video Interview: Eric O. Springsted
Join Resistance Recovery founder Piers Kaniuka and author and scholar Eric O. Springsted as they discuss his new book Simone Weil for the 21st Century. Recorded on July 14, 2021. Eric O. Springsted is a long time scholar of the thought of Simone Weil. He is the co-founder of the American Weil Society and served as its president for thirty-three years. After a career as a teacher, scholar, and pastor, he is retired and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is the author and editor of over a dozen previous books.
Resistance Recovery, July 23, 2021
Related: “A Q&A Interview with Eric Springsted,” Attention.
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.
The Power of Words
UK: Penguin, 2020
“Simone Weil’s Religious Thought in the Light of Catholic Theology”
Theological Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 349—376
Miracles and Supernatural Physics: Simone Weil on the Relationship of Science and Religion
Excerpt:
Given the proliferation in the last several years of publications concerning the relationship of science and religion, it is hard to imagine that Simone Weil, writing sixty years ago, would have much to contribute to this important discussion. It is my aim in this essay to argue that Weil’s frequently expressed thoughts on the relationship between science and faith are not only important, but they also provide a timely contribution to the current debate by describing a metaphysical framework for the discussion entirely different than those generally preferred by current participants in the dialogue.
Writing during the last few months of her life, in the midst of World War II, Weil writes that “the modern conception of science is responsible, as is that of history and that of art, for the monstrous conditions under which we live, and will, in its turn, have to be transformed, before we can hope to see the dawn of a better civilization.” In our contemporary world science and religion have become almost entirely disconnected, producing not only a vacuum where values once existed but also an intense psychological and intellectual distress.
The absolute incompatibility between the spirit of religion and that of science . . . leaves the soul in a permanent state of secret, unacknowledged uneasiness. . . . The most fervent Christians express every hour of their lives judgments, opinions, which, unknown to them, are based on standards which go contrary to the spirit of Christianity. But the most disastrous consequence of this uneasiness is to make it impossible for the virtue of intellectual probity to be exercised to the fullest extent . . . The modern phenomenon of irreligion among the population can be explained almost entirely by the incompatibility between science and religion.
In Weil’s estimation, the response to many contemporary crises must be rooted in a reawakened understanding of the necessary connection between true science and religion. “The remedy is to bring back again among us the spirit of truth, and to start within religion and science; which implies that the two of them should become reconciled.”
Essay in Rozelle-Stone, A. Rebecca & Stone, Lucian, eds., The Relevance of the Radical: Simone Weil 100 Years Later, New York: Continuum, pp.107-122
Simone Weil: A Sense of God
There is one thread of thought no serious reader of Simone Weil can possibly miss from the variegated tapestry of her thinking. And that is her sense of God, which is almost naturally embedded therein. She unfailingly elevates her every insight to a level that is at once metaphysical or theological. Indeed, Weil considers all human concerns always “situated in the context of our relation to God.” She excludes nothing for she believes that even those practices not readily recognized as religious contribute to our spiritual development and prepare us for loving God. . . .
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, vol, 9, no. 1, Winter 2006, pp. 127-144
