Why Study Simone Weil with Philip Goodchild
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2024
- Prof. Philip Goodchild introduces the thought of Simone Weil (1909-1943) who has been described as a philosopher, a religious thinker, a mystic, and linked with any number of philosophers from Plato to Marx. He argues that such labels miss a core element of her thought: we should not focus on abstractions but pay attention to the particular: the real person that is before us.
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Her approach to "attention" reminds me of Iris Murdoch's quote that "It is in the capacity to love, that is to see, that the liberation of the soul from fantasy consists. The freedom which is a proper human goal is the freedom from fantasy, that is the realism of compassion. What I have called fantasy, the proliferation of blinding self-centered aims and images, is itself a powerful system of energy, and most of what is often called ‘will’ or ‘willing’ belongs to this system. What counteracts the system is attention to reality inspired by, consisting of, love … Freedom is not strictly the exercise of the will, but rather the experience of accurate vision which, when this becomes appropriate, occasions action … By the time the moment of choice has arrived the quality of attention has probably determined the nature of the act."
Can you expand on this please
The philosophy of Weil is mystical in nature. I love it.
I really like the way Prof. Goodchild approaches the subject. He gets straight to the issue of why we should read Weil more. Thanks for this, UoN !
The emphasis on thinking is wrong. Where does this 'thinking as attention' come from? She writes about attention, not so much about thinking. Thinking is of course attention, but attention is much more than thinking. If you come across a man that is starving, you give him food. That's attention. You don't think about it. Hence her admiration of Tao and Stoa. Philosophy as action, not as thought. 'Not to think about a thing - supreme faculty' (Gravity and Grace)
'Attention consist of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, a d ready to be penetrated by the object; it means holding in our minds, within the reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of.'
I don’t think that by the supernatural Simone Weil meant the world of ideas. Have you a reference for this? The Love that possessed her when reading George Herbert was real and spiritual. She was not a Platonism. She stands at a point of intersection.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but she was very much a Platonist. And it was from Plato through Marx that she moved on to Christ. A very idiosyncratic path, for sure, but not particularly unusual or absurd.
Thank you Professor !! Very enriching video 💗🌬️
Her Soul is very old.
its quite sad how none of this can reflect in what attention is. which is quite similar to the state of consciousness Rudolf steiner and Buddhism talk about as 'living thinking' and 'no-mind' respectively.