A Philosophical Anthropology Drawn from Simone Weil’s Life & Writings situates Weil’s thought in the time between the two world wars through which she lived, and traces Weil’s consistent conception of a mind-body dualism in the Cartesian sense to a dualism that places the mind within a carnal part of the soul and establishes an eternal part of the soul as the essence of human beings. Helen Cullen argues that in Weil’s early conception of human nature, her Cartesian conception of perception already shows a glimpse of the eternal. Weil’s dualistic conception also forms the basis of her political analysis of the left of her time, and through working in factories and in the fields, she develops a conception of labour as a theory of “action” and “work with a method.” Weil was influenced by leading thinkers of her time, prompting her to do an analysis of current scientific theories. Cullen argues that Weil’s analysis of Christianity, already present in Greek philosophy, shows us a theory of “identical thought” inherited from the East (India and China) and brought forth by peoples around Israel. This theory leads to Weil’s analysis, developed in The Need for Roots, of how we’ve been uprooted through colonization and how we can grow roots in a free local society (both rural and urban).

Simone Weil was an extraordinary French woman who, born in 1909, didn’t have the same freedoms women today enjoy. Despite that, she became a political activist, a teacher, and one of the world’s most well-respected philosophers. By the time she died at the age of thirty-three, Weil had made significant contributions to humanity. In Helen Cullen’s book, A Selection of Short Essays on Simone Weil's Life and Writings, Weil’s background and philosophies on life are laid out and examined. Though many believe that her political leanings had become more conservative over time—as she embraced a more mystical life—Cullen aims to demonstrate how she continued to have very progressive and leftist beliefs until her death. Weil wrote copiously during her short life, addressing many social, political, and religious issues, such as the rights of factory workers during the Second World War. She was an activist during the 1930’s, herself working in factories so she could live the experiences she wrote about. Weil's perspectives on life were heavily influenced by Plato and his philosophy, which Cullen analyzes in her essays. Cullen also spends time examining Weil’s theory of Identical Thought, which some believe is her greatest contribution to humanity. This book of essays offers new insight into one of this world’s greatest female minds, inspiring us to consider how we, too, may contribute to humanity.

At the time when existentialism was a dominant intellectual and cultural force, a number of commentators observed that some of the language of existential philosophy, not least its interpretation of human existence in terms of nothingness, evoked the language of so-called mystical writers. This book takes on this observation and explores the evidence for the influence of mysticism on the philosophy of existentialism. It begins by delving into definitions of mysticism and existentialism, and then traces the elements of mysticism present in German and French thought during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book goes on to make original contributions to the study of figures including Kierkegaard, Buber, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, Weil, Bataille, Berdyaev, and Tillich, linking their existentialist philosophy back to some of the key concerns of the mystical tradition. Providing a unique insight into how these two areas have overlapped and interacted, this study is vital reading for any academic with an interest in twentieth-century philosophy, theology and religious studies.

Hailed by Andre Gide as the patron saint of all outsiders, Simone Weil's short life was ample testimony to her beliefs. In 1942 she fled France along with her family, going firstly to America. She then moved back to London in order to work with de Gaulle. Published posthumously The Need for Roots was a direct result of this collaboration. Its purpose was to help rebuild France after the war. In this, her most famous book, Weil reflects on the importance of religious and political social structures in the life of the individual. She wrote that one of the basic obligations we have as human beings is to not let another suffer from hunger. Equally as important, however, is our duty towards our community: we may have declared various human rights, but we have overlooked the obligations and this has left us self-righteous and rootless. She could easily have been issuing a direct warning to us today, the citizens of Century 21.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a philosopher, theologian, political activist, and mystic whose work endures among the greatest spiritual thinking in human history. Born and educated in Paris, she was devoted to advocating for disenfranchised citizens around the world. Called the 'saint of all outsiders' by Andre Gide, Weil's compassion for the plight of the working class and the armed forces fueled her enlightened treatises and existential inquiries.

In the 1930s, Georges Bataille proclaimed a ferociously religioussensibility characterized by simultaneous ecstasy and horror. Ecce Monstrum investigates this religious sensibility by examining Bataille's insistent linking of monstrosity and the sacred.Bataille enacts a monstrousmode of reading and writing in his approaches to other thinkers and artists-a mode at once agonistic and intimate. Ecce Monstrum examines this mode through investigations of Bataille's sacrificialinterpretations of Kojve's Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche; his contentious relationship with Simone Weil and its implications for his mystical and writing practices; his fraught affiliation with surrealist Andr Breton and his attempt to displace surrealism with hyperchristianity; and his peculiar relations to artist Hans Bellmer, whose work evokes Bataille's religious sensibility

The commentary draws on recent interpretations of the Iliad and examines the parallels between Weil's version of Homer's warriors and the experiences of modern soldiers."--Jacket.