Simone Weil is one of the greatest philosophical and spiritual writers of the 20th century and was hailed by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our times' This book is a classic - and controversial - for the way Weil argues that key themes that later defined Christian belief are first found in ancient Greek writers and philosophers Waiting for God, also by Weil and published in Routledge Classics in 2021, has sold almost 1,000 copies in just over a year Includes a new foreword by Christopher Hamilton
This book is a collection of Simone Weil's writings, which reflect her intellectual and spiritual concerns, on Greek thought. It discusses how precursors to Christian religious ideas can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy.
After an unexpected mystical experience, the philosopher Simone Weil (1909-43) read the Greek classics from a Christian perspective, as this original study shows. To the intellectual agnostics of her day she wanted to show that the classics they loved could only be fully understood in light of Christ. To the Catholics she wanted to demonstrate that Christianity is much more universal than they thought, since Greek culture already embodied the Christian spirit before the incarnation of Christ.
Although trained as a philosopher, Simone Weil (1909–43) contributed to a wide range of subjects, resulting in a rich field of interdisciplinary Weil studies. Yet those coming to her work from such disciplines as sociology, history, political science, religious studies, French studies, and women’s studies are often ignorant of or baffled by her philosophical investigations. In Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings, Eric O. Springsted presents a unique collection of Weil’s writings, one concentrating on her explicitly philosophical thinking. The essays are drawn chiefly from the time Weil spent in Marseille in 1940-42, as well as one written from London; most have been out of print for some time; three appear for the first time; all are newly translated. Beyond making important texts available, this selection provides the context for understanding Weil's thought as a whole. This volume is important not only for those with a general interest in Weil; it also specifically presents Weil as a philosopher, chiefly one interested in questions of the nature of value, moral thought, and the relation of faith and reason. What also appears through this judicious selection is an important confirmation that on many issues respecting the nature of philosophy, Weil, Wittgenstein, and Kierkegaard shared a great deal.
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.
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
This edition contains substantial excerpts from a range of self-writings by Quaker women, composed between the 1650s and circa 1710: letters, testimonies, memoirs, accounts of spiritual development, narratives of persecution and imprisonment. The texts are freshly edited from manuscripts or first printed editions.In his general introduction the editor, David Booy, sketches the history of the Quaker movement from the 1650s to the early 1700s, and considers the role of female Quakers during the first and second phases of the movement. The introduction also surveys the types and purposes of autobiographical writings produced by female Friends, and relates these writings to key Quaker ideas, concerns and practices regarding the inner light, scripture, testimony, plain speaking, friendship, gender and community.The volume includes a substantial bibliography of primary and secondary materials.
This autobiographical work is the story of several women. Deploying a variety of texts, documents and imagery, these women are united by suffering and the transcendance of suffering.
The new and revolutionizing ideas which the early Greek thinkers developed about the nature of the universe had a direct impact upon their conception of what they called, in a new sense, 'God' or 'the Divine.' The history of the philosophical theology of the Greeks is thus the history of their rational approach to the nature of reality itself in its successive phases. The late Professor Jaeger's classic book traces this development from the first intimations in Hesiod of the theology that was to come, through the heroic age of Greek cosmological thought, down to the time of the Sophists of the fifth century B.C.
Every day, millions of people fight about religion. Whether with friends, family, or on social media, we expend lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings. But very few know how to have a good religious argument a rational, respectful, and productive exchange of differing views. Bishop Robert Barron, one of the leading Catholic figures in the world and among the most active on social media, has enjoyed thousands of fruitful religious arguments. In this book based on talks delivered at Facebook and Google, he explains why religion at its best opens up the searching mind, and how we all believer and unbeliever alike can share better discussions about God.
