Simone Weil: An Anthology compiled by Siân Miles

We were delighted to be joined by Dr Susan Notess to open our conversation on the writings of Simone Weil.

Susan completed her PhD in Philosophy at Durham University, writing about conversational ethics and what it means to listen to someone. As a fellow of the Durham Institute for Medical Humanities, she is currently working on adapting her PhD work for application in the medical context, in clinical encounters, and in educational contexts. She previously trained as a linguist at Indiana University. Being originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, she particularly enjoys the novelty of living right by the Tynemouth seaside!

Personal website: https://susannotess.wordpress.com/

The questions she posed to start our discussion are below. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Question 1:

What do you make of Weil’s zealous belief that ideology was not enough; that she had to live the experience of the causes she cared about? Does genuine activism require that we commit to abstract objectivity and remove, or to participation ‘in the trenches’, or both? Consider this: suppose you are a passionate proponent of revolution in some sphere, desiring to see an oppressed class revolt and find freedom, although you yourself tend towards pacifism and would prefer a nonviolent revolution. A genie who reads Simone Weil appears, and tells you they will ensure the revolution and its success, on the condition that you agree to participate and carry arms. How would you respond to the genie? Is it a mistake to think that our theoretical commitments require us to be committed to involvement also? Was Weil going too far by joining the Spanish Civil War, or was she setting a daunting precedent that we ought to follow?

Question 2:

To what extent can, or should, Weil’s notion of attention function to disrupt our philosophical praxis? In pedagogy broadly construed, what role can this ungrabbing, unboxed attention play? In philosophical pedagogy, how do we strike a balance between the need to equip students for technical knowledge/skill, and the need to teach people to find the open attunement of apophatic attention?

Question 3:

Take for granted Weil’s notion of roots and the human need for rootedness. How do the possibilities for rootedness change or modulate in the context of the following: immigration in a globalised age (uprooting and replanting); the internet, as a field in which communities of belonging can be established, an alternative or queered space of rootedness, a source of affordances for the displaced, the dispossessed, the divergent, and the estranged; cross-cultural living, and those who live with a dual identity, rooted in two places.