Meg > Recent Status Updates

Finished Chapter 14 Causation: Partly Emergent and Partly Metaphorical. Interesting little part about Piaget and babies learning about causation.

Final Chapter: Man and the Eternal. Final arguments regarding man as an individual, brilliant argument on the importance of confession and repentance.

Just finished Chapter 14 "What Then Must I Do? Occupation and Vocation: Means and End.
Another profound chapter which discusses means & end, spoiler alert, according to Kierkegaard they are one & the same. "There is only one end: the genuine Good; and only one means: this, to be willing only to use those means which genuinely are good." Also, excellent discourse on faith & faithfulness & the dangers of clannishness.

Just finished Chapter 13 "What Then Must I Do? Live as an 'Individual'". Profound chapter. Likely one I will come back to again (and again).

Finished chapter 13 Grounding of Structural Metaphors: examines the metaphors, "rational argument is war", "labor is a resource", and "time is a resource".

Turns out this book is far less engaging than I thought. Gonna keep track of my progress chapter by chapter, to motivate me to finish it.

(pg 288) This whole page briefly touches on Greek symbolism, e.g. God as a circle and the relationship between geometry, mathematics and theology. Pretty brilliant, but I feel like if I was better at mathematics, I'd appreciate it even more.

(pgs 284-286) More on Divine Providence and the affinity between Stoicism and Christianity. As a side note, it's funny how Weil despises the Romans as much as she loves the Greeks. This quote is a perfect example (pg 286): "Naturally, when the Romans felt obliged to dishonour Stoicism by adopting it, they substituted in place of love an insensibility based on pride."

On Divine Providence as the order of the world.

(Pgs 276-279) More on bad and dumb theology, illogical thoughts in re Providence and God. I think this is where Simone Weil really shines. She manages to articulate these sort of philosophical/theological misconceptions and ideas brilliantly.

(pg 275 cont...) ..."The devotion of a slave fro the man who looks upon him as his property is a base affair.The love which drives a free man to bring himself body and soul into servitude to what constitutes perfect good, that is the opposite of servile love."

(pgs 268-275) Expounding on the relationship between the Roman Emperors and subjects (as slaves) and the parallels brought into theological thought.
(pg 275)"To ascribe to God sovereign rights without obligations is to turn him into the infinite equivalent of a Roman slave-holder. This can only allow for a servile devotion. ....(cont..)

Interesting observations regarding God being turned into a counterpart of the Emperor (of Rome) or Pharaoh (as Jehovah).

On to August. Have nearly caught up.

(pgs 259-266) Interesting ideas about Divine Providence and the concept of a personal Providence and an impersonal Providence with special focus on an impersonal Providence "almost like a mechanism".
(pg 260) "All the parables about the seed are connected with this notion of an impersonal Providence. Grace descends from God upon all beings; what becomes of it depends on what they are;..."

(pg 259 continued) ..."But there is an answer. It is that that the object of human thought is itself thought. The savant's true aim is the union of his own mind with the mysterious wisdom eternally inscribed in the universe. That being so, how should there be any opposition or even separation between the spirit of science and that of religion? Scientific investigation is simply a form of religious contemplation."

(pg 258 continued) ..."What can we find to love about it, if it isn't its beauty? The true definition of science is this: the study of the beauty of the world."
(pg 259) "How should human thought ever have any other object but thought? That is so well-known a difficulty in the theory of knowledge that one gives up trying to fathom it, leaving it on one side as an accepted fact."...(continued in next update)

Pg 258 finally we have her remedy.
"The remedy is to bring back again among us the spirit of truth, and to start with in religion and science; which implies that the two of them should become reconciled.
The spirit of truth can dwell in science on condition that the motive prompting the savant is the love of the object which forms the stuff of his investigations. That object is the universe in which we live."...

(pgs257-258) Question to ask oneself from time to time "Am I in line with truth?" or before investing one's time into something "Am I going to find truth here?" Interesting thought experiment that reminded me of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" which I'm guessing Weil must have read.

(pgs 252- 256) On the problem with modern "savants" and scientists, (i.e., comparing their specialties to trying to win a chess game rather than as sculptor uncovering a sculpture; concern with one's own importance not good or evil effects; subservience to collective opinion and people pleasing as opposed to a search for truth, etc.).

pgs 250-251 on the difference between truth and knowledge... these two pages are pretty brilliant.

(pg 249-250) On applying this method to the analysis of science during the past three or four centuries, one is bound to recognize that the beautiful word truth stands infinitely above it. The savants, in the efforts they put forth day to day in the course of their lives, cannot be urged on by the desire to posses truth. For what they acquire is simply knowledge, and knowledge is not in itself and object of desire.

(pg 248 continued) "Science is not a fruit of the spirit of truth, and this is obvious as soon as one looks into the matter.
For the effort of scientific research, such as it has been understood since the sixteenth century, cannot possess as its motive the love of truth."

(pg 248-249) Finally realised that all of her ideas in this section are based on the concept of in Matthew 7:16-18 "Good tree = good fruit, corrupt tree = evil fruit. It felt a bit little like finding a key to unlock understanding. "The Savants insist that the public should regard science with that religious respect which is owed to truth, and the public accepts to do so. But it is being deceived." ...

(pg 247-248) On Pascal, Christianity and Pragmatism.

(pg 246) interesting quote on Dostoevsky; interesting comments on the elan vital being a thing of Pragmatism as opposed to true mystics and mysticism.

(pgs 239-241) On the contradictions between science and humanism and their effects on philosophies.
(pgs 241-243) On modern science vs. science of the Greeks.
(pgs 244-245) On the incompatibility of modern science and the spirit of religion, esp. Christians. Interesting observations on the middle class remaining Christian, it being more a socially fitting thing. "Whoever hasn't any religious faith cannot lose it"

(pgs 236-238) on the worship of Science as the new god/religion in France and elsewhere.

(pgs 230-235) On the relationship between art and politics and false greatness vs true greatness. Interesting list of whose work she deems to be truly great.