Simone Weil Add a review

Simone Adolphine Weil ( VAY; French: [simɔn adɔlfin vɛj]; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic and political activist. Despite her short life, her ideas concerning religion, spirituality, and politics have remained widely influential in contemporary philosophy.

She was born in Paris to an Alsatian Jewish family. Her elder brother, André, would later become a renowned mathematician. After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks because of poor health and in order to devote herself to political activism. She assisted in the trade union movement, taking the side of the anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War. She worked for more than a year as a labourer, mostly in car factories, so that she could better understand the working class.

Weil became increasingly religious and inclined towards mysticism as her life progressed. She wrote throughout her life, although most of her writings did not attract much attention until after her death. In the 1950s and '60s, her work became famous in continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her philosophy and theological thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship across a wide range of fields, covering politics, society, feminism, science, education, and classics.