Simone Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy: A Comment

These lectures were intended to provide the student with a sound understanding of the fundamental issues involved in philosophical materialism and the objections to it. These are identified as methodinpsychology, perception, intellectualoperations, language, reasoning, and insearchofmind. These are dealt with systematically, again through a series of sub-sections.

Method in psychology considers reflexes, instinct, the role of the body in actions, in feeling, in thought, the senses and sensations: sight, touch etc, the sense of movement, sensations and time. Perception considers the role of imagination and of memory. On intellectual operations considers general ideas, the problems of abstraction, comparison, association of ideas, scientific reasoning, associationism and its criticism. Language considers kinds of language, as a means of creating conditioned reflexes, language as having a reality of its own, as something easy to handle, as a means of coming to grips with the world, the two ways in which we come to grips with the world, as the only source of method, the influence which society has on the individual through language, language badly used. Reasoning considers the syllogism, mathematical reasoning, the natural sciences, experiment and hypotheses. In search of mind considers the duality of human nature, an active and a passive being, the distinction between thoughts which are conceived by the imagination and thoughts conceived by understanding and the fundamental difference between contingent thoughts and those compelled by necessity; the notion of necessity. It is concluded: `It is only those actions and thoughts which have a necessity about them that are truly human' [13. P. 89].

Two of Simone Weil's examples must suffice. On conditioned reflexes she refers to the well-known experiments of the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849--1936) an example which she develops through further instances. She says: `Everything that we see suggests some kind of movement, however imperceptible. (A chair suggests sitting down, stairs, climbing up, etc.) `[13. P. 31]. Again, she claims that: `The love of Phaedra, for example, can be completely explained by reflex action: she loves Hippolytus because he reminds her of Theseus, but she hates him because the very word adultery arouses in her a reflex of horror. The two reflexes are contradictory: the situation is one she cannot get out of, it can only be resolved by death' [13. P. 39]. This is an early indication of Weil's concern with the relationship between philosophy and morality.

After the discovery of mind

According to Anne Reynaud-Guerithault the epigraph `No one without geometry admitted' (Plato) was one adopted by the class. The lectures are again presented systematically and consider: Mind: its characteristics; the general importance of the question of mind; Freud and the subconscious; degrees of consciousness; unconsciousness; the subconscious; moral importance (the `choice'); personality; the self as existing in the present; identity in time; judgement; the distinctions which logicians make; different theories of judgement; reasoning; by hypothesis; by analogy; deduction; space and time; causality; the value of knowledge; order; mathematical invention; experiment; the value and application of deduction; what is missing in deduction; verification; induction; reasonings by analogy; two conceptions of the experimental sciences; quantum theory; and biology. This is a comprehensive range of relevant topics and a set of sophisticated issues and, as we have noted exceptionally ambitious and challenging for secondary-school students.

We shall consider some of Simone Weil's observations to illustrate her method of teaching philosophy. She points out that classical philosophy did not raise the question of degrees of consciousness because `...there was no idea of an unconscious psychological life. However: `Leibniz introduced this notion in the following way: he remarked that when one is occupied with something and a very faint noise occurs one does not hear it (a drip of water); nevertheless, one hears the sound of rain (a great number of drops). Leibniz came to the following conclusion: a conscious perception is made up of a number of unconscious perceptions. This is the theory of minute perceptions' [13. P. 91]. This theory might be used to explain what the Hungarian physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi described much later as the tacitdimension of knowledge [5].

On the value of knowledge Weil says: `All this is very important. One sees that all our knowledge is hypothetical (in the sense that the celestial sphere is an hypothesis Nevertheless, to explain nature is the only way we have of thinking of it as an obstacle to our acting in a methodical way. Science is inadequate, but it is only when we understand this that our science has a value... One might say, with the pragmatists, that all science reduces itself to a process of action on nature, but it is necessary to add the word methodical. Reality comes into view when we see that nature is not only an obstacle which allows us to act in an ordered way comes into view when we see that nature is not only an obstacle which allows us to act in an ordered way, but is also an obstacle which infinitely transcends us' [13. P. 111]. She goes on to say that: `Verification is not something which is straightforward. One might say that it is what is most difficult in science. It is what the Greeks failed at, and that for technical reasons, because apparatus has to be prepared in order to obtain data that can be measured... one must start with hypotheses. The hypothesis is in the end confirmed by the verification'. She concludes: `In verification, one is able to set aside the divinity of the world and assign everything to mind' [13. P. 120]. This is an early indication of Weil's concern with the relationship between science and religion.

Politics and social theory

In these lectures Weil focused on political philosophy and the social world. The epigraph from Spinoza is illustrative of what it contains. It says: `Not to laugh at what human beings do, nor to be disgusted by it, but to understand it' [13. P. 129]. It adopts an historical and to some extent a descriptive perspective. The following topics are considered: Sociology: how one is to think of it; the great sociologists; Auguste Comte; Karl Marx; social oppression in history; serfdom in Egypt; slavery in Greece and Rome; feudalism; the theoretical problem of oppression; economic life and the way it works; history and science and again Comte and Marx; property; how can money yield interest;

economic power; collective work and method; big industry and the firm; bureaucracy; the helplessness of the individual; the present state of affairs; workers as `things' in big business'; palliatives; coercion: the `rights of men' are trampled underfoot; duties towards the state; different views of the state; Machiavelli and ThePrince; Rousseau; Marx and Lenin; enlightened despotism; a republic; a democratic state; a completely co-operative state; monarchy; A fascist state; Russia; the right practical attitude towards the state; international relations or the foreign policy of the state; diplomacy; colonisation; Conclusion: The relations of the individual with society.

It is again a comprehensive and challenging set of lectures. Weil doesn't follow a linear progression strictly but returns to certain topics when she thinks it appropriate, a further example of her flexible approach to teaching. It is worth noting that Emile Durkheim and Max Weber are not included on her list of `the great sociologists'. There is also no specific consideration of sociological experience in the capitalist democracy of the United States of America, such as Fordism or Taylorism. Again, feminism and the rights of women are, surprisingly given the occasion for the Lectures, considered only interalia and not specifically. Indeed, neither the United States nor feminism are mentioned in the index. These apart, these lectures focus on political and social issues with which Weil was herself most concerned; and provide greater scope for possible partisan persuasion than do the other sections.

Simone Weil deals with this possibility beginning: `Sociology is the last of the sciences in point of time. One might say that it doesn't yet exist. Generally, people always deal with social questions in such a way as to arouse passions. A scientific study of society should enable us to see what kind of society it is that would be the least oppressive in the given conditions' [13. P. 129]. This is an early indication of her concern for a fundamental problem that she considered in OppressionandLiberty (1958). She adds: `The whole problem of politics comes to this: to find in conditions as they are, a form of society which would conform to the demands of reason and which at the same time would take into account necessities of a less important kind...A method as materialist as this is absolutely necessary if good intentions are to be changed into actions. It is absurd to want to reform society by reforming individuals' [13. P. 130]. This is an early indication of a dilemma that arose for Weil in her later political and religious thinking.

Weil concludes with a brief consideration of the relations of the individual with society and an open commitment to social change. She argues: `The idea in accordance with which society should be ordered is co-operation, that is to say exchange of labour. This is the only kind of relationship which agrees with Kant's formulation of the moral law: to treat human beings always as ends' [13. P. 163]. This is a clear rejection of the Marxist-Leninist argument that the end justifies the means. Distinguishing an authentic education of the masses from state propaganda as a means of changing social conditions, she asks what then can one do? She concludes that: `If one stops oneself thinking of all this, one makes oneself an accomplice in what is happening. One has to do something quite different: take one's place in this system of things and do something about it' [13. P. 164]. Simone Weil was not, of course, a Marxist, but this is reminiscent of Marx's famous 11^th thesis on Feuerbach: `Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it'.

Ethics and aesthetics

In these lectures Simone Weil considers philosophical perspectives on ethics and aesthetics, returning to some issues and themes such as the mind-body problem that she considered earlier. The epigraph reads: `If the world is divine, all is well; if the world is given over to chance, don't allow yourself to go the same way. Thought, freed from passions, is a fortress' (Marcus Aurelius). The topics that Weil covered were: Morals founded on something other than conscience; morals based on interest; morality based on instinct; sociological moralities; theological morality. God (or the gods); The true foundations of morality; Kant and the categorical imperative; the rational moralists; Socrates; Plato; the Cynics; the Stoics; Descartes; Rousseau; Kant again; the psychology of the aesthetic sense; the role of the body and feeling; mind and understanding; harmony of body and mind in what is beautiful; conclusion: the moral value of art.

This is again a complex and challenging set of lectures. Here are some examples that illustrate her teaching. On sociological moralities, referring briefly to Durkheim and to Lйvy-Bruhl, she says that the proofs offered are, first the resemblances between different moralities of the same period, whatever the foundations are e.g. the Stoics and the Epicureans and, secondly, the differences between the moralities of different periods. She says, for example, that: `Family morality changes with the structure of society. It is because of social attitude that adultery is considered to be more serious in a woman than a man' [13. P. 169]. However, changes may be seen within the same period. For example, in a reference to opinion during the French Revolution, she says: `The very feelings which it was necessary to tone down if one exhibited them in 1789, had to be exaggerated in 1792 to make any impression at all' [13. P. 170]. On theological morality she comments: `Every attempt to base morality on theology destroys both morality and theology. One shouldn't say “I have to do this because it is God's will”, but “God wills it because I have to do it”. In that case, God simply gives one the strength to do it' [13. P. 172].

This brings Weil to a consideration of Immanuel Kant and the categorical imperative. `Do what you should, come what may. This is a categorical imperative, not a hypothetical one'. She adds: `But what Kant said is quite negative: it eliminates some things, but it does not give us any end... For a reasonable being there can only be one end: reason itself. A reasonable being is an end in himself in so far as he is a being who thinks. To sacrifice oneself as a thinking being is the destruction of virtue' [13. P. 173].

Weil's discussion of aesthetics is encapsulated in an epigraph from her philosophical mentor Alain that she offered to her students. It says: `Beauty is the meeting place of the mind with nature, where mind recognisesits good. There the true miracles, which reconcile what is noble and base in man, take place' (Weil, 1978, 184). In these lectures Simone Weil continues her discussion of the relationship between mind and body, concluding with a comment on the moral value of art which is that: `It teaches us that mind can come down into nature. Morality itself tells us to act according to thoughts that are true. Beauty is a witness that the ideal can become a reality' [13. P. 189].

Miscellaneous topics and essay plans

The final part of the LecturesonPhilosophy identifies important issues from the previous lectures, useful for revision. Certainly, the topics are presented much more succinctly and with fewer examples than in the earlier lectures. The first is self-knowledge introduced by a pair of epigraphs: `Know thyself' (Socrates) and `We only know what we appear to be' (Kant). The topics and essay plans continue as: love of truth, sacrifice, philosophy and metaphysics, the relativity of knowledge, error, time, intuition and deduction, introspection and voluntary and involuntary actions; attention; will and the emotions; thought and the emotions; imagination in literary creation and in scientific thought; courage; suicide; justice and charity; abstract ideas; Roger Bacon: `Man can only gain control over nature by obeying it'; Plato and TheRepublic. This might itself be considered a philosophical syllabus and is representative of themes that recur in Simone Weil's writing subsequently. It was also of practical value in helping students clarify and take ownership of what they have learned.

Simone Weil's Philosophical Thought

This article has provided a comment on the life and work of Simone Weil. The focus has been on her early thought as discerned in the LecturesonPhilosophy [13] given at a girls' secondary school in 1933 to 1934 and published from notes prepared by one of her students. The record is a valuable one, although it does not give any idea of the nature of any discussion that may have taken place. Anne Reynaud-Guerithault, to whom we owe this published record of Simone Weil's teaching, was obviously an attentive and probably responsive student. This is not to say that her classmates each had the same qualities or at least not to the same extent. Simone Weil's students were not always successful in public examinations, something that contributed to official criticism of her. Nevertheless, as Peter Winch says: `The freshness and boldness of this book, along with its accessibility to anyone who is prepared to think for himself about the issues it raises, seem to me to make it in many ways ideal as an introduction to philosophy. It could very usefully be used alongside, say, that valuable old war-horse, Bertrand Russell's ProblemsofPhilosophy, treating as it does much the same sort of question from such a very different point of view' [16. P. 22].

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