philosophy oppression intimations declaration

books:

Letter to a Priest
Simone Weil

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2003

Simone Weil, the renowned French philosopher and political activist, originally wrote this letter to a priest in the autumn of 1942 while waiting in New York to join the Free French movement. The most accessable discussion that exists of her complicated ideas on religion and her lifelong spiritual struggle, Letter to a Priest outlines thirty-five key questions about Catholicism, its dogma and institutions, all of which had preoccupied Weil for ...

Simone Weil (Modern Spiritual Masters Series)

1 review
Simone Weil, Eric O. Springsted

Orbis Books, 1998

Excellent introduction
Simone Weil was, among other things,a mystic,philospher,worker,intellectual and, in an odd way, a martyr. Her philosophy is dense,often lending itself to repeated readings. Her concepts are difficult,though worthwhile to say the very least. Simone Weil writings in this volume,which are very well edited by Eric O. Springsted{the president of the simone weil society},are from the later period of ...

The Simone Weil Reader

1 review
Simone Weil

Moyer Bell, 1985

Oscar and the maiden
An amazing collection of essays by one of the most brilliant philosopher/social critic/spiritual writer's of all time. Weil's writing can be extremely dense, I occassionally had to read sentences three or four times to understand what was going on. The problem is not really that her sentences are complicated, but rather that the ideas she is putting forth are, at times, heinously difficult to ...

Simone Weil's the Iliad or the Poem of Force: A Critical Edition

2 reviews

Peter Lang Publishing, 2003

Far and Away the Best Translation/Edition of this Seminal Work
Simone Weil was one of the transcendent geniuses of our time. The archetypal intellectual/activist - the clarity of her insight and the depth and weight of her oeuvre is remarkable, incredible for anyone - no less someone in their twenties and early thirties. A brilliant comet of a being, coursing luminously through the profanity and darkness of the mid- twentieth century to an early end, ...

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics)
Simone Weil

Routledge, 2001

"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with ...

Simone Weil: An Anthology

1 review
Simone Weil

Grove Press, 2000

A synopsis of Weil's thought
First a clarification: I am neither Christian nor particularly religious. Thus my opinions on Weil's writings are from a secular viewpoint. Moreover, like any truly great religious writing, Weil's writings should be read by everybody regardless of their religious affiliations, even if they are atheists. This book contains a collection of essays by Weil and some excerpts from her book ...

Waiting for God (Perennial Classics)

9 reviews
Simone Weil

Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2001

by a modern saint
Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a remarkable saint of the modern era. After being raised in a Jewish middle class family and graduating from the finest schools, she went to work in the inner city as a blue-collar factory worker. She once complained to the supervisor about a coal drill: "This drill was designed to break rocks. It was not designed for human hands" while illustrating the vibrating ...

War and the Iliad

3 reviews
Simone Weil, Rachel Bespaloff

NYRB Classics, 2005

Historic Rescue from the Sands of Time
Besides being thankful to the New York Review of Books for publishing some of the most intelligent and expansive literary criticism around, we can now be grateful for one more gift from the series of New York Review Classics. This one, two essays ostensibly on the Iliad by Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff, attains the very special pantheon of a glorious literary event. Both pieces were written ...

Gravity and Grace (Routledge Classics)

5 reviews
Simone Weil

Routledge, 2002

They called her the Red Virgin
Simone Weil's writings were impenetrable for me in the fifties. Now I have most of her works and I am frequently amazed at how penetrating are her ideas and thoughts, and how contrary to most thinking today. That in itself recommends her. She understands people, life, and suffering, and sees its purpose. She sees through all falseness to the goodness. Simone Weil is the most honest person I ...

Oppression and Liberty (Routledge Classics)
Simone Weil

Routledge, 2001

The remarkable French thinker Simone Weil is one of the leading intellectual and spiritual figures of the twentieth century. A legendary essayist, political philosopher and member of the French resistance, her literary output belied her tragically short life. Most of her work was published posthumously, to widespread acclaim. Always concerned with the nature of individual freedom, Weil explores in Oppression and Liberty its political and ...

La Pesanteur et la Grâce
Simone Weil, François Laurent

Pocket, 1993

Lectures on Philosophy

1 review
Simone Weil

Cambridge University Press, 1978

A beautiful mind
Though it was a little awkward at first to get Weil's thoughts secondhand, the cumulative effect was impressive. I have a degree in philosophy, and I would have paid almost anything to have a lecturer like her! An illuminating insight into a great mind.

Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks

2 reviews
Simone Weil

Routledge, 1998

" . . . an intermediary between that which is mortal and that which is immortal . . ."
Simone Weil was one of the transcendent geniuses of our time. The archetypal intellectual/activist - the clarity of her insight and the depth and weight of her oeuvre is remarkable, incredible for anyone - no less someone in their twenties and early thirties. A brilliant comet of a being, coursing luminously through the profanity and darkness of the mid-twentieth century to an early end, ...

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

3 reviews
Simone Weil

Routledge, 1995

An outstanding critique of modernity by the late Simone Weil
Two major contributions to the analysis of the modern society can be found in Weil's works. In his "Essay on the causes of freedom and oppression" of the early 1930s she had given a vision of why we are left unsatisfied by progress, substituting social oppression for natural one. Here, while in London just before dying, she gets to such a deep understanding of contemporary social and spiritual ...

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