Simone Weil
See those whom force crushes.
Born in Paris in 1909 to an agnostic Jewish family, Simone Weil entered the École normale supérieure and passed the philosophy agrégation in 1931. Teaching in several towns, she joined trade-union struggles and supported unemployed workers. Her inquiry into labor was inseparable from intellectual life: she asked why institutions designed to liberate could generate new forms of oppression.
How can we attend to another person’s vulnerability?
Biography
Born in Paris in 1909 to an agnostic Jewish family, Simone Weil entered the École normale supérieure and passed the philosophy agrégation in 1931. Teaching in several towns, she joined trade-union struggles and supported unemployed workers. Her inquiry into labor was inseparable from intellectual life: she asked why institutions designed to liberate could generate new forms of oppression.
02 /Philosophy
An activity is free when its agent can grasp the relation between gestures and results.
03 /Reading guides
Original introductions to enter the works, discover their central questions and take the reflection further.
04 /Bibliography
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
A first reading.
Work and freedom
Weil investigates how division of labor, machinery and collective organization can impose an opaque necessity on workers. Freedom requires understanding and directing the conditions of action.
Reflections on the Causes of Liberty and Social OppressionAttention and grace
This collection of fragments explores the gravity of psychological and social mechanisms, attention and grace. Its brief formulations demand a reading that preserves their tensions.
Gravity and GraceRoots and obligations
Written for Free France, this work asks how to rebuild collective life after war through needs of the soul, obligations and rootedness. Weil also criticizes the idolatry of national force.
The Need for Roots