Simone Weil was a philosopher, in love with ancient Greek thought, who fought for justice and for human dignity. She was also devout to an idea of God beyond religious boundaries.
Weil was born within a cultured, non-observant Jewish family. She was one of the first women to attend the lectures of famed philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartier (Alain). Simone De Beauvoir recollected their meeting at the Sorbonne: seventeen-year-old Weil stood out not only for her bright intelligence and eccentric apparel, but also for her philosophical qualities; De Beauvoir was also moved at the sight of her tears at the news of a social tragedy.
After finishing her studies at the École Normale Supérieure, Weil started teaching philosophy in provincial towns and took an interest in the education and social problems of factory workers, farmers and the unemployed. She joined strikes, became an active unionist, and even shared her salaries with the unemployed as a provocative act. Through her travels she became aware of the rise of national socialism and the miserable condition of the working class. In the sociopolitical pamphlets she published in this time, she criticised and condemned both right- and left-wing totalitarianisms and advocated for peace between nations.
The conditions of the working class troubled her to the point that, despite her frail physique and constant migraines, she decided to become a steelworker at various Parisian factories in order to experience it first-hand. In 1936 she joined the International Brigades in the Spanish civil war. Despite being a republican, she opposed the execution of a Francoist priest. At the same time, Maria Zambrano was participating in the Spanish civil war as well, and one can wonder if they ever met.
In the following years, after travelling to Assisi and staying at the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes, Weil came closer to Christianity. She became involved in the discussions of problems within the Church, although keeping her distance from ecclesiastical institutions in order to preserve her theoretical freedom and to stand in the uncomfortable yet necessary threshold position, together with all those who refuse or are unable to cross it. She thus brought about a «philosophical cleansing» of Catholicism. She developed a profound and spiritual reflection which she named «supernatural knowledge», through the practice of attention and detachment. She intuitively grasped the transformation of universal energy from the void of the self towards the fullness of reality, which is the divine. She sensed an intimate relation between Greek revelation and evangelical epiphany on the subversion of the law of destructive power.
Weil wished to deepen her knowledge about Islam as well, but did not have the time; in her works one can find a concept of enlightenment which weaves together the Iliad, the Greek tragedians, the Pre-Socratics, the Pythagoreans, and Plato with the Indo-Chinese and Christian traditions, acknowledging the existence of prior and more ancient civilisations. Together with her brother André, a renowned mathematician, she developed an idea of science as love for knowledge which unveils the intertwinement of harmony and beauty.
After moving with her family to Marseille, and then to New York, because of Nazi persecution, Weil soon returned to France to join the Resistance. Although not allowed to the front lines, she participated as an editor in De Gaulle’s «France Libre» national committee in London; because of her intransigence, she was forced to leave her post. At the time she was working on a post-war democratic constitution built on obligations towards humanity, whose most urgent need was that of healing from its uprootedness. Albert Camus, as the editor of Weil’s works, remarked that it would have been impossible to imagine Europe’s rebirth without Weil’s ideas.
Weil’s critique of colonialism — which entails a possible encounter between the West and the East — revealed the dangerous analogy between the harsh European imperial rule on its colonies and ideological barbarism invading Europe. She also critiqued Marxism and party politics. She believed in courage as a non-violent act and thus designed the establishment of frontline female nursing corps.
Weil’s health deteriorated during the war, as during occupation she had less access to food, even limiting herself to consuming war rations as an act of solidarity with her fellow citizens. She fell ill with tuberculosis and died in the Ashford Sanatorium on August 24th, 1943. Her theoretical and spiritual endeavours remained hidden up to her death, as most of Weil’s work was published posthumously.
Translated by Fabrizio Luca Giannuolo.