As a thinker, mystic and social critic, Simone Weil is one of the most extraordinary figures of the 20th century. She was a Marxist who experienced the relations of power between producing and ruling classes first hand as a field and factory worker. She was an internationalist who felt that the fall of Paris was a 'great day for Indo-China', and yet she wanted to fight for France. Camus called her social writings 'more penetrating and more prophetic than anything since Marx.' What comes through strongly in this book are Weil's power of analysis and criticism, her love of truth and hunger for justice, her commitment to non-violence, and, most of all, her regard for everyone and everything marginalized or excluded by orthodoxies and establishments, whether colonized people or heresy.
As a thinker, mystic and social critic, Simone Weil is one of the most extraordinary figures of the 20th century. She was a Marxist who experienced the relations of power between producing and ruling classes first hand as a field and factory worker. She was an internationalist who felt that the fall of Paris was a 'great day for Indo-China', and yet she wanted to fight for France. Camus called her social writings 'more penetrating and more prophetic than anything since Marx.' What comes through strongly in this book are Weil's power of analysis and criticism, her love of truth and hunger for justice, her commitment to non-violence, and, most of all, her regard for everyone and everything marginalized or excluded by orthodoxies and establishments, whether colonized people or heresy.
Henry Leroy Finch taught philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College for twenty years and at Hunter College for sixteen years. He was the author of three books on Ludwig Wittgenstein and edited the papers of Eric Gutkind. He was one of the founders of the American Weil Society in 1970. He died in 1998. Martin Andic is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
"An exceptionally good addition to the growing scholarship
concerned with the life and contribution of Weil. Finch's attention
to Weil's religious thought proves to be thoroughgoing, perhaps
because his academic commitments included in the teaching of
courses in the history of religions as well as philosophy. His
erudition in these religious traditions assures a close and
convincing presentation of Weil as a religious thinker of and for
the world." Clare B. Fischer, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion, March 2002
"For the astute student of Weil's understandings and writings, this
text will be most helpful. For the person who has never been
introduced to the thoughts, works, and beliefs of Weil it would
serve well as a reference resource."
Anna Marie Kane, S.SJ, Catholic Library World, December 2001
"Understands Simone Weil more perfectly than most among the scores
of writers in English who have tried to interpret her thought in
the past thirty years. Finch...masterfully recounts with
transparency what he sees in her work. The reader experiences one
important philosopher, Finch, reading another, Simone Weil. The
reader is rewarded by this over and over." Richard H. Bell, The
Journal of Religion, November 2001
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