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Jim wrote: "I first encountered Simone Weil via The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, an introductory biography by Robert Zaretsky. I found some of her ideas to be remarkably fresh ..."Thank you for this introduction to Simone Weil's thought and work. It appears that she was too complex to be reduced to standard categories. That may be why I somehow missed her in my formal philosophical education as well as in my later autodidactic pursuits.
I might as well begin by addressing what I found to be one of Weil’s most challenging ideas, the matter of the ‘personal’ versus the ‘impersonal.’The opening essay titled “Human Personality” was written during the final year of Weil’s life; it probably represents some of her most advanced thinking If we can successfully decode this essay, we may be well on our way to absorbing the rest of the book.
The title immediately raises an issue that we must address from the outset: the matter of vocabulary. Weill thought and wrote in French; her use of the terms ‘personality’ ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ as used here do not readily translate into English.
I find it necessary here to quote from the text, to understand exactly what is being discussed. Early on, Weil writes that:
Something is amiss in the vocabulary of the modern trend of thought known as Personalism. And in this domain, where there is a grave error of vocabulary it is almost certainly the sign of a grave error of thought. There is something sacred in every man, but it is not his person. Nor yet is it the human personality. It is this man; no more and no less. It is neither his person, nor the human personality in him, which is sacred to me. It is he. The whole of him. The arms, the eyes, the thoughts, everything.
It is impossible to define what is meant by respect for human personality. It is not just that it cannot be defined in words. That can be said of many perfectly clear ideas. But this one cannot be conceived either; it cannot be defined nor isolated by the silent operation of the mind.
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
The notion of ‘rights’, which was launched into the world in 1789, has proved unable, because of its intrinsic inadequacy, to fulfil the role assigned to it.
At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.
Needless to say, I struggled with the foregoing, primarily because Weil’s notion of the ‘personal’ is so much at odds with our conventional “Western” thought, which has long been so deeply colored by the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” In a word, Weil views ‘rights’ as missing the point entirely.
Later, Weill goes further:
It is much worse still if the word ‘personal’ is added to the word ‘rights’, thus implying the rights of the personality to what is called full expression. In that case, the tone that colors the cry of the oppressed would be even meaner than bargaining. It would be the tone of envy. For the full expression of personality depends upon its being inflated by social prestige; it is a social privilege.
To the dimmed understanding of our age there seems nothing odd in claiming an equal share of privilege for everybody — an equal share in things whose essence is privilege. The claim is both absurd and base; absurd because privilege is, by definition, inequality; and base because it is not worth claiming.
Before I go any further, I would welcome the thoughts of others engaged in this discussion. Can we accept Weil’s way of looking at this matter? Does her notion of what is sacred in man make sense to us? Above all, is she overly idealized for practical application in the context of modern society?
re: msg #2 AEJ: "That may be why I somehow missed her in my formal philosophical education as well as in my later autodidactic pursuits."https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Myself as well. Same situation. I have only heard her name mentioned in passing; but never knew of her body of work.
Thus, I am very pleased Jim has introduced her to us. Sincere thanks to you Jim.
My familiarity with female philosophers in general --is never as deep or as wide as it should be. Simone deBeauvoir --the subjects she pursued never fell within the circle of what I was ever keen on.
I am most familiar instead, with Rosa Luxemburg. And economist Joan Robinson is the next woman thinker on my reading list.
But Simeone Weil is certainly intriguing.
In the remarks of hers reprinted above, I'm reminded initially of Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Each of these Thinkers held strong views on 'individual' vs 'mass'.
However, both of these names are rarely touched around here, (merely because their interests always seem to lie so much with matters 'inward' & 'internal'; rather than ethical or political).
In any case. Para #4 (from Weil) above, is my first stumbling block in what she describes.
"The notion of ‘rights’, which was launched into the world in 1789, has proved unable, because of its intrinsic inadequacy, to fulfil the role assigned to it."
My first question: was the idea of Rights really only broached as late in history as 1789?
This --her para #5 --is more lucid to my eyes:
"At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting (...), that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being."
Very well. Fine and good sentiments. But I still don't grasp what she is pleading for in practical terms.
If anyone ever quizzed me on this point, the 'right to expect' humane treatment? I would lightly reply that I follow Thomas Carlyle's idea:
"No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence."
This seems to me, an apt assessment of our world. We don't inhabit an ideal state, but one full of harm and grief.
Can society ever be regulated so completely that no man ever jostles another? If so, what tools other than law or government, do we have at hand, to effect such a transformation?
James Madison stated it this way:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Federalist No. 51 (1788)
Another apt assessment; though one which points us back to government & law, rather than religion. But, where else ought we turn?
Man is arguably closer to animal than angel; and animals certainly receive no mercy from nature. We inhabit a world of finite resources rather than any Arcadia or Eden, so one might well counsel gratitude for what we've done for ourselves so far. I'm thankful to escape the harsh facts of jungle law, at least.
regards,
Feliks
p.s. Routledge Press is one of my favorite publishing houses. Phenomenal lineup of titles from that firm.
Re the two preceding posts:I must admit that I find Simone Weil’s discussion excessively abstract, convoluted, and verbose. This is the kind of thing that I dislike in twentieth-century philosophy. I cannot stand Heidegger for the same reason (in addition to the fact that I cannot avoid committing the ad hominem fallacy with regard to Heidegger’s association with Nazism). I tolerate Kant (who is a textbook case of verbosity) but only because he has a few good ideas and because I spent several months studying Kant a few years ago and finally figured out, for the most part, what the heck he was trying to say; also, Robert Hanna of this group is an expert on Kant and has pointed out how Kant’s final views were somewhat different from his earlier ones.
I discuss the subject of individual rights at length in chapter 2 (“Governmental Recognition and Protection of Individual Rights”) of my forthcoming book Reason and Human Government. A June 1, 2025 draft of this chapter is at https://www.academia.edu/129438142/Ch.... I finished the final draft of this chapter yesterday, and I should finish my final proofreading of the entire book (as well as the bibliography and index) within the next week or two. The book itself will be published in PDF, paperback, and Kindle sometime this month. The above-referenced draft of chapter 2 is not identical with the final draft of that chapter, but the changes in the final draft are mostly stylistic. This chapter is the culmination of my study and reflection on the subject of individual rights over the last sixty-five years.
By the way, the fuller version of Madison’s “if men were angels” quote (stated in Feliks’s preceding post) is one of the two epigraphs to the entire book Reason and Human Government. The other epigraph is from Lincoln.
It’s now past 1:30 a.m. here in the Pittsburgh area, and it’s time for me to retire for the night.
Before leaving the first essay in this Anthology and moving along, I wanted to respond to a couple of the points raised thus far:It has, of course never been my intention to defend Weil’s ideas, but rather just to make some sense out of her arguments, whether I agree with them or not. While I agree that she seems convoluted at times, in other places she is remarkably lucid. That is especially the case where she identifies the fundamental antipathy of political parties to the promotion of individual freedom of thought; namely, the fact that every organization becomes captive to its own propaganda, its consuming need to promote its own agenda.
I guess my primary complaint about Weil would be that she aspires to a utopian society, probably led by saints, where justice is universally available to everyone. For example, she writes that:
Much could be done by those whose function it is to advise the public what to praise, what to admire, what to hope and what to strive for. It would be a great advance if even a few of these makers of opinion were to resolve in their hearts to eschew absolutely and without exception everything that is not good, perfection, truth, justice, love.
Which aligns with her idea that:
Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done to men.
To which I respond that I entirely agree with Thomas Carlyle’s idea, as submitted above by Feliks.
Jim wrote: "I guess my primary complaint about Weil would be that she aspires to a utopian society, probably led by saints, where justice is universally available to everyone."Exactly. I call this the improper conflation of ethics and politics. In my 2022 book Reason and Human Ethics (https://www.academia.edu/107899091/Re...), I elaborate four kinds of ethics: individual, social, citizen (and media), and political ethics. Individual and social ethics may approximate the absolute. Citizen and political ethics must account for the facts of the human condition as we know them. Human history is replete with the disastrous consequences of political utopianism gone wrong. See, for example, the French and Bolshevik revolutions.
I have just finished the final draft of the text and endnotes of my final book, Reason and Human Government, which will be published sometime this month (I’m still working on the bibliography and index). Therein, I address, among many other things, the problematics of utopianism in political life. Perhaps my best concise statement of that is in my epilogue, which you can access and read at https://www.academia.edu/129405035/_E.... See especially pages 2-3 and endnote 2 on page 8. But I also discuss this issue, directly or indirectly, in the other parts of this book.
I've moved on to Weil's essay titled "The Needs of the Soul" where she examines the obligations toward a human being that have nothing to do with the physical side of life, but are concerned with its moral side. ”Those obligations form, like our physical needs, a necessary condition for our life on this earth.”I thought it would be worthwhile to look briefly at several of the obligations she lists.
On liberty, she writes:One of the indispensable foods of the human soul is liberty.
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose. We must understand by that, of course, a real ability. Wherever men are living in community, rules imposed in the common interest must necessarily limit the possibilities of choice.
Rules should be sufficiently sensible and sufficiently straightforward so that anyone who so desires and is blessed with average powers of application may be able to understand, on the one hand the useful ends they serve, and on the other hand the actual necessities which have brought about their institution. They should emanate from a source of authority which is not looked upon as strange or hostile, but loved as something belonging to those placed under its direction.
I’ve previously accused Weil of aspiring to a utopian society. And we know that the laws, regulations and socially imposed, even in the most advanced and democratic jurisdictions, are far from being perfect; that indeed successive governments can and do impose restrictions that some view as oppressive or unfair. And yet, I find it difficult to argue against her stated objectives. As long as we view her statement as a desirable state to be sought in an admittedly imperfect society.
In order to judge whether the forgoing is pragmatic or utopian, I suggest we need to also look at what Weil says about obedience.Obedience is a vital need of the human soul. It is of two kinds: obedience to established rules and obedience to human beings looked upon as leaders. It presupposes consent, not in regard to every single order received, but the kind of consent that is given once and for all, with the sole reservation, in case of need, that the demands of conscience be satisfied.
It requires to be recognized, and above all by leaders themselves, that consent and not fear of punishment or hope of reward constitutes, in fact, the mainspring of obedience, so that submission may never be mistaken for servility.
My take on all of this remains that what she describes is entirely reasonable and desirable, but is rarely achieved. It’s unclear whether Cicero actually said that “Obedience is the palm of civic life.”
However, it’s probably true that Aeschylus did write that “Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety."
Conversely, Thoreau claimed that “Disobedience is the true function of liberty.”
Meanwhile, according to Gandhi
“Reasoned and willing obedience to the laws of the State is the first lesson in non-co-operation.”
I suspect that he was craftier than either Aeschylus or Thoreau.
Thanks, Jim, for your explication of Simone Weil's philosophy.For my own views about such matters, see my latest book, Reason and Human Government, which is now available in PDF at https://www.academia.edu/145862733/Re.... It will also soon be available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.
This is a work of political philosophy. Political philosophy is, in my view, the search for knowledge, as distinguished from opinion, regarding the nature of human government. Chapter 1 addresses the fundamental questions of what government is, its consistency with human ethics, and its necessity and desirability for human life as we know it. Chapter 2 proceeds with a discussion of governmental recognition and protection of individual rights. Chapter 3 considers the legitimate affirmative powers of government. Chapter 4 delineates and evaluates different forms of government, both philosophical and historical. Chapter 5 is a case study of political leadership in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. An epilogue states overall conclusions of this work. The appendix provides an account of the historical background of the Cuban Missile Crisis, including the Marxist roots of international Communism, the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the historical development of the Marxist-Leninist regime in the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro’s successful 1959 revolution in Cuba, and the US-instigated 1961 invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
A brief overview to set the scene:
Simone Weil was born in Pris in 1909 into an agnostic French-Jewish middle-class family. Her religious ideas were much more colored by Christian than by Jewish thought; her conception of God, however, was exceedingly complex. Weil was unquestionably a very strange person and an unconventional thinker, one who devoted much of her intellect and energy to challenging what she characterized as “collectivity”, the convergence of the political, social, cultural and economic forces that dictate our lives; institutions that reinforce thoughtlessness, comfortable beliefs, the acceptance of finding ourselves powerless.
Weil strongly opposed organizations of almost any kind, especially political parties. But it would be a mistake to think of her as an anarchist. Philosopher, sociologist, mystic, teacher and political activist, she was many things to many people. In fact, the existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel warned against attempting to place her within any formula or to enclose her within any category. Whatever is said about Simone Weil, he added, is liable to distort her; she must be allowed to speak for herself.
With that in mind, any attempt on my part to analyze her thoughts is likely to be presumptuous, so I may look to those taking part in these discussions to set me back on a correct path at times.