Simone Weil | |
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Weil in 1921
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Born | 3 February 1909 Paris, France |
Died | 24 August 1943 Ashford, Kent, England |
(aged 34)
Nationality | French |
Alma mater | École Normale Supérieure, University of Paris (BA/MA) |
Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Modern Platonism |
Main interests
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Political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science |
Notable ideas
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Decreation (renouncing the gift of free will as a form of acceptance of everything that is independent of one's particular desires), needs of the soul, uprooting (enracinement), patriotism of compassion, abolition of political parties, the unjust character of affliction (malheur) |
Influences
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Simone Weil (/veɪ/;French: [simɔn vɛj]; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist.
After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks due to poor health and to devote herself to political activism, work that would see her assisting in the trade union movement, taking the side of the Anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War, and spending more than a year working as a labourer, mostly in auto factories, so she could better understand the working class.
Taking a path that was unusual among twentieth-century left-leaning intellectuals, she became more religious and inclined towards mysticism as her life progressed. Weil wrote throughout her life, though most of her writings did not attract much attention until after her death. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work became famous on continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship across a wide range of fields. A meta study from the University of Calgary found that between 1995 and 2012 over 2,500 new scholarly works had been published about her.Albert Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times".
Weil was born in her parents' apartment in Paris on 3 February 1909. Her mother was Saolomea Weil and her father Bernard was a medical doctor. Both were Alsatian Jews who had moved to Paris after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany. Weil was a healthy baby for her first six months, until she had a severe attack of appendicitis—thereafter she struggled with poor health throughout her life. She was the second of her parents' two children; her older brother was mathematician André Weil, with whom she would always enjoy a close relationship. Their parents were agnostic and fairly affluent, raising their children in an attentive and supportive atmosphere.