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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.
Gist of Idea
Beauty, goodness and truth are only achieved by applying full attention
Source
Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace (9 extracts) [1943], p.234)
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'An Anthology' [Penguin 1986], p.234
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!
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| 13558 | The supreme good is harmony of spirit [Seneca] |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| 2860 | The most boring and dangerous of all errors is Plato's invention of pure spirit and goodness [Nietzsche] |
| 22151 | The Open Question argument leads to anti-realism and the fact-value distinction [Boulter on Moore,GE] |
| 8033 | Moore cannot show why something being good gives us a reason for action [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 8032 | Can learning to recognise a good friend help us to recognise a good watch? [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 11056 | The naturalistic fallacy claims that natural qualties can define 'good' [Moore,GE] |
| 23814 | Every human yearns for an unattainable transcendent good [Weil] |
| 23826 | Beauty, goodness and truth are only achieved by applying full attention [Weil] |
| 23854 | Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil] |