in Charlotte Alston, Amber Carpenter & Rachael Wiseman, eds., Portraits of Integrity: 26 Case Studies from History, Literature, and Philosophy, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, pp. 141-149.
D.K. Levy is a moral philosopher working in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
— Part 1 here
Dr. Andy Amato is an Associate Professor of Instruction – Philosophy at the University of Texas at Dallas
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books
University of Nottingham
This essay considers Simone Weil’s experiences in factories and her social–political reflections on work, time and energy, in conjunction with arguments from theorists Melissa Gregg, Theodor Adorno and Sara Ahmed, to raise questions about supposedly humane interventions, including the cultivation of resilience, in the contemporary workplace. The transition from time-sense in factory work at the turn of the century is examined, along with the growth of corporate time management ideologies and practices in the mid–late 20th century, and finally, the associated forms of disciplining resilience/elasticity in the worker that bring together certain notions of time, space and psychological investments.
Philosophical Investigations, vol. 43, nos. 1-2, pp. 177-196.
Los Angeles Review of Books (February 1, 2020).
NPR
Both the Anglo-Irish novelist Iris Murdoch and the French mystic Simone Weil had the idea of the ‘good’ at the centre of their philosophy – and both tried to resolve the tension between thinking and ‘doing’ in their own way.
The Tablet (June 23, 2021)
This in-depth study examines the social, religious, and philosophical thought of Simone Weil.
Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century presents a comprehensive analysis of Weil’s interdisciplinary thought, focusing especially on the depth of its challenge to contemporary philosophical and religious studies. In a world where little is seen to have real meaning, Eric O. Springsted presents a critique of the unfocused nature of postmodern philosophy and argues that Weil’s thought is more significant than ever in showing how the world in which we live is, in fact, a world of mysteries. Springsted brings into focus the challenges of Weil’s original (and sometimes surprising) starting points, such as an Augustinian priority of goodness and love over being and intellect, and the importance of the Crucifixion. Springsted demonstrates how the mystical and spiritual aspects of Weil’s writings influence her social thought. For Weil, social and political questions cannot be separated from the supernatural. For her, rather, the world has a sacramental quality, such that life in the world is always a matter of life in God―and life in God, necessarily a way of life in the world.
Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century is not simply a guide or introduction to Simone Weil. Rather, it is above all an argument for the importance of Weil’s thought in the contemporary world, showing how she helps us to understand the nature of our belonging to God (sometimes in very strange and unexpected ways), the importance of attention and love as the root of both the love of God and neighbor, the importance of being rooted in culture (and culture’s service to the soul in rooting it in the universe), and the need for human beings to understand themselves as communal beings, not as isolated thinkers or willers. It will be essential reading for scholars of Weil, and will also be of interest to philosophers and theologians.
Eric O. Springsted 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, NM. He is the author and editor of a dozen previous books, including Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015).
University of Notre Dame Press, 2021
