The Composition of Politics: Creativity in the Political Thought of Simone Weil and Albert Camus
Louisiana State University, PhD
Weil & Other Thinkers
“Knowing Totality and Politics in Simone Weil and Albert Camus”
Southeastern Political Review, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 593-610
A Radical Cure: Hannah Arendt & Simone Weil on The Need for Roots
Excerpt:
Simone Weil, writing at the height of World War II in some of the darkest hours of the struggle against fascism, arrived at a similar conclusion in her oft-neglected but magnificent book, The Need for Roots (1943). The book was about the reconstruction of France and, by implication, all of Western civilization. In it she wrote that: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” (p.41)
Weil’s method for rerooting humanity is to identify fundamental human needs and devise ways of fulfilling each of them, detailing necessary social reforms. Arendt defined rootedness as having a “place in the world, recognized and guaranteed by others” (Origins, p.475). Weil defines rootedness similarly, albeit in more depth, saying that it is “real, active, and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future” (The Need for Roots, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1952 edition, p.41).
Religion, State & Society, vol. 26, nos 3-4, pp. 279-289.
“The Character of Don Giovanni in Mozart’s Opera”
in Dunaway, John M. & Springsted, Eric. O., The Beauty that Saves: Essays on Aesthetics and Language in Simone Weil, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, pp. 193-183
“Simone Weil and Wallace Stevens: The Notion of Decreation as Subtext in ‘An Ordinary Evening in New Haven’”
in Dunaway, John M. & Springsted, Eric. O., The Beauty that Saves: Essays on Aesthetics and Language in Simone Weil, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, pp. 151-171.
“George Grant on Simone Weil as Saint and Thinker”
in Arthur Davis, editor, George Grant and the Subversion of Modernity: Art, Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Education(Toronto: University of Toronto Press) pp.263-281
Modern Women Mystics: Etty Hillesum and Simone Weil
New Blackfriars, vol. 76, no. 892, pp. 175-187
Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy: Beyond Fideism and Language Games.
Mario Von der Ruhr and Timothy Tessin, eds., Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief, St. Martin’s Press, 1995, pp. 215-247.
Winch on Weil’s Supernaturalism
This book covers the main aspects of Simone Weil’s thought, drawing on her life where it is relevant for understanding her ideas. It is the fruit of many years engagement with scholars and scholarship on Weil in America, France, and the United Kingdom. The philosophical bases of her social and political thought, of her analysis of the natural world, and of her spiritual journey, as found in Plato, Epictetus, and Kant are uncovered.
The authors are especially concerned with controversial aspects of Weil’s life and thought: they offer an additional dimension to her understanding of the supernatural; they correct Rowan Williams’ misunderstanding of her account of preferential love; and argue against Thomas Nevin’s attempt to marginalize her as another example of Jewish self-hatred. The book also presents and assesses the new evidence for Weil’s baptism.
in Diogenes Allen and Eric Springsted, Spirit, Nature, and Community: Issues in the Thought of Simone Weil, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1994, chapter 5, pp. 77-93.
Divine Necessity: Weilian & Platonic Conceptions
in Diogenes Allen and Eric Springsted, Spirit, Nature, and Community: Issues in the Thought of Simone Weil, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1994, chapter 3, pp. 33-52.
