green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand these ideas
| 23825 | We seek truth only because it is good |
| Full Idea: Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Attention') | |||
| A reaction: A perfect instance of modern platonism. A few weird people seem to enjoy lying. Personally I cannot find enough content in the word 'good' in such claims. |
| 24189 | The criterion of the real is contradictions |
| Full Idea: The contradictions the mind comes up against - these are the only realities: they are the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Contradiction') | |||
| A reaction: This seems to presume that reality contains contradictions, which I find incomprehensible. It is contradiction in the denial of a proposition which shows its necessity. So the contradictions are not in the real, but in the denial of the real. |
| 24194 | Wanting new discoveries blocks good thinking about what has been discovered |
| Full Idea: The desire to discover something new prevents people from allowing their thoughts to dwell on the transcendent, undemonstrable meaning of what has already been discovered. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Intelligence') | |||
| A reaction: Struck a strong chord with me. The principal motivation for this collection of ideas. I am generally a pessimistic about future discoveries of anything other than new gadgets. We may be at the end of a two century golden age. Time to consolidate. |
| 24195 | Don't reject opinions; arrange them all in a hierarchy |
| Full Idea: We have not to choose between opinions. We have to welcome them all, but arrange them vertically, placing them on suitable levels. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Intelligence') | |||
| A reaction: What a brilliant thought. Relativists and non-relativists might even unite around that vision. |
| 24182 | We must be obedient, and love necessity |
| Full Idea: Obedience is the supreme virtue. We have to love necessity. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity') | |||
| A reaction: Nietzsche loved the slogan 'amor fati', love of fate. I'm not sure why I should love hideous things, just because they are unavoidable. But 'go with the flow' is quite a good slogan. |
| 24177 | Higher emotions have less energy, and actions may need the lower emotions |
| Full Idea: As a rule the energy supplied by the higher emotions is limited. If the situation requires us to go beyond this limit we have to fall back on lower feelings (fear, covetousness, desire to beat the record, love of honours) which are richer in energy. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Void') | |||
| A reaction: Presumably there is supposed to be a consensus about which emotions are 'higher'. If she means that most great achievements have rather dishonourable motives, then I don't think I agree. Sustained emotions do that. |
| 24184 | What matters about an action is not its aim, but the origin of its compulsion |
| Full Idea: Every act should be considered from the point of view not of its object but of its compulsion. The question is not 'What is the aim?' It is 'What is the origin?'. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity') | |||
| A reaction: Doubtful. It is notoriously difficult to know the origins of our motivations. What of the well meaning fool, who has nice origins for motives, but misjudges the aims? |
| 24198 | Perfect works of art seem to be essentially anonymous |
| Full Idea: A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beauty') | |||
| A reaction: It is certainly the case that when you feel a work is perfect, it seems to move into some separate class of existence, as if it were part of nature. |
| 23826 | Beauty, goodness and truth are only achieved by applying full attention |
| Full Idea: The authentic and pure values - truth, beauty and goodness - in the activity of a human being are the result of one and same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should only aim to train the attention for such an act. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Attention') | |||
| A reaction: A distinctive Weil idea, that absorbed 'attention' produces almost mystical results. I am not convinced that a great still life painter (than which there is no higher criterion of attention) achieves contact with goodness thereby. But attention is good! |
| 24191 | We want our values to be eternal |
| Full Idea: We want everything which has a value to be eternal. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Chance') | |||
| A reaction: This seems to be the motivation for platonism, of which Weil was a fan. Nietzsche is the strongest opponent of this aspiration. This dream explains the typical resentment of old people. |
| 24197 | Power and money are supreme means, thus blinding people to ends |
| Full Idea: Power (and money, power's master key) is means at its purest. For that very reason, it is the supreme end for those who have not understood. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Metaxu') | |||
| A reaction: A lovely observation about the sort of people addicted to power and money. Her thought seems to be that this means is so pure that they can't see anything beyond it. |
| 24181 | We need love to have a good death |
| Full Idea: The soul which is not full of love dies a bad death. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Decreation') | |||
| A reaction: Not sure I understand a 'good death', from the point of view of the deceased. Does spending your last ten minutes feeling angry count as a bad death? What matters is how the survivors remember the event. |
| 24179 | We should never desire the immortality of the people we love |
| Full Idea: Not to desire that what we love should be immortal. We should desire neither the immortality nor the death of any human being, whoever he may be, with whom we have to do. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Detachment') | |||
| A reaction: The reason why we should not desire their immortality seems a good insight into love. Personally I would certainly desire the death of the occasional hideous human being. |
| 24193 | If we focus on the good, our whole soul is drawn towards it |
| Full Idea: If we turn our minds towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Attention') | |||
| A reaction: This is a better expression of Plato's basic metaethics than anything in Plato. What puzzles everyone is what you are supposed to be thinking of when you focus your mind this way. |
| 23833 | The good is a nothingness, and yet real |
| Full Idea: The good seems to us a nothingness, since there is no thing that is good. But this nothingness is not unreal. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Detachment') | |||
| A reaction: A neat move in the notoriously difficult platonic problem of specifying the actual nature of the good. |
| 23808 | There are two goods - the absolute good we want, and the reachable opposite of evil |
| Full Idea: There are two goods - one which is the opposite of evil, and one which is the absolute. …That which we want is the absolute good. That which is within our reach is the good which is correlated with evil. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beast') | |||
| A reaction: Elsewhere she seems in tune with the thought of Nietzsche (whom she despised) that good and evil are false social constructs which are quite different from healthy values. Weil, of course, sees the absolute as transcendent. |
| 24196 | Loving others as ourselves implies varied love, and varied suffering |
| Full Idea: To love our neighbour as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all my the modes of existence. Nor does it mean that we should not make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Universe') | |||
| A reaction: It is wonderful the way most people just accept the golden rule, but philosophers pick it apart in so many interesting ways. |
| 24183 | We should only perform the good actions which we can't help doing |
| Full Idea: We should only do those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing, …but, through well directed attention, we should always keep on increasing the number of those which we are unable not to do. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity') | |||
| A reaction: She disliked Aristotle, but this sounds like his concept of the highest level of virtue. Aristotle is better because what matters is what you do, and a controlled fine deed is desirable, even if inferior. |
| 24185 | Friendship is a virtue, not a state we should dream of |
| Full Idea: Learn to thrust friendship aside, or rather the dream of friendship. To desire friends is a great fault. Friendship should be a gratuitous joy like those afforded by art or life. …Friendship is to be exercised (it is a virtue). | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Love') | |||
| A reaction: Presumably we won't have friends if we aren't friendly. Yearning for love is not love. She sounds a bit of a romantic here - that everything must come naturally, or not at all. Desiring friends may be a strategic error - but 'a great fault'? |
| 24188 | It is absurd to say that evil proves life is worthless. If it were, why would evil matter? |
| Full Idea: To say that the world is not worth anything, that this life is of no value and to give evil as the proof is absurd, for if these things are worthless what does evil take from us? | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Affliction') | |||
| A reaction: It is certainly the case that a thoroughgoing nihilist must believe that evil and suffering are also of no importance - which is quite a tought thing to achieve. |
| 24205 | Monotony is beautiful as a reflection of eternity, or atrocious as unvarying perpetuity |
| Full Idea: Monotony is the most beautiful or the most atrocious thing. The most beautiful if it is the reflection of eternity - the most atrocious if it is the sign of an unvarying perpetuity. It is time passed or time sterilised. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Work') | |||
| A reaction: I'm afraid I can see not attraction at all in the contemplation of eternity (or the infinities of outer space). I think there are more positive accounts to be given of a localised monotony. |
| 24202 | Obedience to an illegitimate ruler is a nightmare |
| Full Idea: Obedience to a man who is not illuminated by legitimacy - that is a nightmare. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony') | |||
| A reaction: [Written in 1942] The worst situation is where one part of society sees the person as legitimate, and enforces the obedience, but another part doesn't. |
| 24200 | A citizen is defined by their subjection to the laws |
| Full Idea: The difference between a slave and a citizen: a slave is subject to his master, and a citizen to the laws. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Imprint') | |||
| A reaction: [She mentions Montesquieu and Rousseau] This is perhaps why threats to the rule of law (prominent in the years 2016-2024) are such a potential catastrophe for a society. |
| 24199 | There is no oppression, or oppressive class; there is only an oppressive society |
| Full Idea: The notion of oppression is a stupidity. And the notion of an oppressive class is even more stupid. We can only speak of an oppressive structure of society. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Imprint') | |||
| A reaction: Good. The notion of hatred between the classes is a disastrous mistake. Most people are born into their class, and they barely understand any collusion they have in its bad behaviour. |
| 24201 | Social order is equilibrium of forces, which must be corrected when imbalanced |
| Full Idea: Equilibrium is the submission of one order to another. …Equilibrium alone destroys and annuls force. Social order can be nothing but an equilibrium of forces.…If we know how society is unbalanced, we must do what we can to add weight to the lighter scale. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony') | |||
| A reaction: Good. If only political parties would agree on this principle, and confine their haggling to the nature of the imbalance, and proposals to correct it. First we must identify the main forces. |
| 24203 | Atheistic materialism must be revolutionary, because its good is in the future |
| Full Idea: Atheistic materialism is necessarily revolutionary, for, if it is to be directed towards an absolute good here on earth, it has to place it in the future. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony') | |||
| A reaction: Her alternative, of course, is a religious absolute good, which is presumably timeless. She must have Russia in mind. I'm not clear why atheistic materialists must believe in an absolute good. She says their great idea is 'progress'. |
| 23809 | Our only social duty is to try to limit evil |
| Full Idea: Our only duty with regard to the social is to try to limit the evil of it. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beast') | |||
| A reaction: This is one of Weil's occasional remarks that have an anarchist flavour. I increasingly sympathise with this less idealistic view as I get older. |
| 24190 | Anarchists thought (hopelessly) that empowering the oppressed would end evil |
| Full Idea: Sincere anarchists, discerning, as through a mist, the principle of the union of opposites, thought that evil could be destroyed by giving power to the oppressed. An impossible dream | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Contradiction') | |||
| A reaction: Weil joined the anarchists in Spain in 1936. Orwell did too, and wrote 'Animal Farm'. So who should we give power to? Showbiz celebrities and poisonous haters? Weil thinks 'destroying evil' is an absurd aim. Do anarchists want to 'empower' anyone? |
| 23807 | The collective is the one and only object of false idolatry |
| Full Idea: The Great Beast is the great object of idolatry, the only ersatz of God. …Only one thing can be taken as an end, for in relation to the human person it possesses a kind of transcendence: this is the collective. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beast') | |||
| A reaction: [Society as the Great Beast is in Republic Bk 6] She is referring to both fascist and communist states. Weil seems to be a left-wing liberal, with a tendency towards anarchism, because her priority is the individual, not the group. |
| 23810 | Charity is the only love, and you can feel that for a country (a place with traditions), but not a nation |
| Full Idea: We must not have any other love than charity. A nation cannot be an object of charity. But a country can be one - as an environment bearing traditions which are eternal. Every country can be that. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beast') | |||
| A reaction: This definitely strikes a chord with me. I am English and British to the core, but don't feel any love at all for the current central institutions of the state. But I love my island, and its history, and its culture, and its style. |
| 23811 | If effort is from necessity rather than for a good, it is slavery |
| Full Idea: To strive from necessity and not for some good - ...that is always slavery. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Work') | |||
| A reaction: It is usual to see the possibility of anarchism as the starting point for political thinking, but I think for Weil the state of slavery has that role. |
| 24204 | The past is known to us but unreachable - a perfect image of eternal, supernatural reality |
| Full Idea: The past: Something real, but absolutely beyond our reach, towards which we cannot take one step, towards which we can but turn ourselves, so that an emanation from it may come to us. Thus it is the most perfect image of eternal, supernatural reality. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony') | |||
| A reaction: For Weil that is a transcendent religious insight, but for the non-religious it is still a wonderful observation. There is nothing else in our experience like the eternal unchanging reality of the past. |
| 24192 | My love makes me believe in God; the inconceivability of this God makes me disbelieve |
| Full Idea: True contradictories. I am sure there is a God in the sense that I am quite sure that my love is not illusory. I am sure there is not a God in the sense that I am quite sure nothing real can be anything like what I conceive when I pronounce this word. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Atheism') | |||
| A reaction: [She adds that inconceivability doesn't mean illusory] I can't see a feeling of love as a reason for theism. But the inconceivability of God isn't a good reason for atheism. |
| 24206 | Revolution (not religion) is the opium of the people |
| Full Idea: It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Work') | |||
| A reaction: Right now in Europe hatred of migrants is the opium of the people. Maybe football, or television light entertainment. Or nationalism. Or fast food… Vodka? |
| 24178 | We must leave on one side the ordinary 'consolations' of religion |
| Full Idea: We must leave on one side the beliefs which fill up voids and sweeten what is bitter. The belief in immortality, in the utility of sin, in the providential ordering of events - in short the 'consolations' which are ordinarily sought in religion. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Detachment') | |||
| A reaction: Her positive views of religion seem rather daunting, and may only be for the few. |
| 24180 | We just see immortality as prolongation of life, making death meaningless |
| Full Idea: Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Decreation') | |||
| A reaction: I can possibly see a cosmic purpose in death, but hardly matters to individuals. Interesting that a mystic can't shake off the need for the body. |
| 23765 | The soul is the intrinsic value of a human |
| Full Idea: The soul is the human being considered as having a value in itself. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Love') | |||
| A reaction: [from 'Gravity and Grace'] A rather modern view, treating the soul as an abstraction, rather than as an entity. |
| 24186 | If the world lacked evil, then the evil would be in our desires, which would be worse |
| Full Idea: How could there be no evil in the world? The world has to be foreign to our desires. If this were so without it containing evil, our desires would be entirely bad. That must not happen. God's world is not the best possible, but contains all good and evil. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Evil') | |||
| A reaction: What an original mind she had! Doesn't seem to answer the standard problem, of why a benevolent God gave us evil desires. |
| 24187 | Without worldly affliction, we'd think this is paradise |
| Full Idea: If there were no affliction in this world, we might think we were in paradise. | |||
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Affliction') | |||
| A reaction: Peersonally I wouldn't object to living in paradise, even it is temporary. Interesting, though. |