The 46 new ideas included in the latest update (of 31st Aug), by Theme

idea number gives full details    |     unexpand these ideas
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
We call experience 'objective' when it seems necessary [Weil]
     Full Idea: Everything we call 'objective' in experience is what appears in it as necessary.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 2: Discovery of Mind [1933], p.112)
     A reaction: An interesting thought. The obvious problem is that what seems necessary to me may not seem so to you. Which comes first in experience, the objectivity or the necessity?
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
The criterion of the real is contradictions [Weil]
     Full Idea: The contradictions the mind comes up against - these are the only realities: they are the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Contradiction')
     A reaction: This seems to presume that reality contains contradictions, which I find incomprehensible. It is contradiction in the denial of a proposition which shows its necessity. So the contradictions are not in the real, but in the denial of the real.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation
Bodies classify things prior to thought (such as chicks knowing what hits of the egg to peck) [Weil]
     Full Idea: The body classifies things in the world before there is any thought. (Example: the chick leaving the egg distinguished what is to be pecked and what not).
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.31)
     A reaction: Good. It is an absurd mistake to think that classification could be exclusively human, or (even worse) exclusively verbal. How do animals cope with the world?
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 3. Value of Knowledge
Wanting new discoveries blocks good thinking about what has been discovered [Weil]
     Full Idea: The desire to discover something new prevents people from allowing their thoughts to dwell on the transcendent, undemonstrable meaning of what has already been discovered.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Intelligence')
     A reaction: Struck a strong chord with me. The principal motivation for this collection of ideas. I am generally a pessimistic about future discoveries of anything other than new gadgets. We may be at the end of a two century golden age. Time to consolidate.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
Don't reject opinions; arrange them all in a hierarchy [Weil]
     Full Idea: We have not to choose between opinions. We have to welcome them all, but arrange them vertically, placing them on suitable levels.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Intelligence')
     A reaction: What a brilliant thought. Relativists and non-relativists might even unite around that vision.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Senses are unaware of each other, and give isolated information [Weil]
     Full Idea: None of the senses tells us that there are other senses. None of the senses tells us how the sensations it gives are related to those that are given by the other senses.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.43)
     A reaction: That is quite striking, but it is obviously a mistake (even a category error) to think that the senses should in themselves be aware of anything. This helps to clarify their role. So we don't just know something by seeing it.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Associations are not lawlike, because we make arbitrary choice of which representation matters [Weil]
     Full Idea: The so called laws of association are not laws really because, if we follow them, every representation can bring in its train whatever representation we choose, the choice of one rather than the other remains unexplained.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.63)
     A reaction: I suppose if you saw several representations or contiguities simultaneously you would face this situation. It doesn't seem plausible that there are 'laws' of association, but something like it obviously occurs.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 3. Pragmatism
Pragmatists are right that science is action on nature - but it must be methodical [Weil]
     Full Idea: 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.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 2: Discovery of Mind [1933], p.111)
     A reaction: This seems to be a sort of hybrid pragmatism, where the required success is not achieved by mere blind trial-and-error - which sounds obvious. Theory is needed - but that too can be explained pragmatically.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Explanations always concern how one thing changes into another [Weil]
     Full Idea: Every intelligible explanation is a matter of understanding how one thing changes into another.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 2: Discovery of Mind [1933], p.111)
     A reaction: That seems tantamount to saying that all explanations are causal. But there also seem to be structural or situational explanations, and explanations of why a thing fails to change into another.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind
Abstraction is just the character of generalisation [Weil]
     Full Idea: The problem of abstraction is exactly the same as that of general ideas. We call what characterises general ideas abstract.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.59)
     A reaction: Note that is not general ideas which are abstract, but what 'characterises' them. Is resemblance an intermediate step between generalisation and abstraction? The concepts seem to develop in stages.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
We don't infer the straight from the twisted, because judging the twisted needs the straight [Weil]
     Full Idea: The materialist says: it is by means of a series of straight lines that one imagines the perfect straight line as an ideal limit. But the progression itself contains what is infinite. It is in relation to the straight that we say a line is less twisted.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.87)
     A reaction: This is the platonist response to my preferred view that the mind produces all the pure concepts such as idealisations. I prefer to refer to pulling a rope, where the straight emerges as an obvious observed limit.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
Observing oneself in the present is impossible, and oneself in the past may be wrong [Weil]
     Full Idea: If one tries to observe oneself in the present one finds in oneself only the state of observing oneself. Introspection, then, can only work in the case of past states of mind, …about which one can always be mistaken.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 1: Materialist Viewpoint [1933], p.28)
     A reaction: I don't think this is wholly correct. We can become self-aware for a moment while absorbed in something else, and have some insight into what the absorption was like. Some aspects of past experience can be known accurately.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / b. Fate
We must be obedient, and love necessity [Weil]
     Full Idea: Obedience is the supreme virtue. We have to love necessity.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity')
     A reaction: Nietzsche loved the slogan 'amor fati', love of fate. I'm not sure why I should love hideous things, just because they are unavoidable. But 'go with the flow' is quite a good slogan.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
Higher emotions have less energy, and actions may need the lower emotions [Weil]
     Full Idea: As a rule the energy supplied by the higher emotions is limited. If the situation requires us to go beyond this limit we have to fall back on lower feelings (fear, covetousness, desire to beat the record, love of honours) which are richer in energy.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Void')
     A reaction: Presumably there is supposed to be a consensus about which emotions are 'higher'. If she means that most great achievements have rather dishonourable motives, then I don't think I agree. Sustained emotions do that.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason
What matters about an action is not its aim, but the origin of its compulsion [Weil]
     Full Idea: Every act should be considered from the point of view not of its object but of its compulsion. The question is not 'What is the aim?' It is 'What is the origin?'.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity')
     A reaction: Doubtful. It is notoriously difficult to know the origins of our motivations. What of the well meaning fool, who has nice origins for motives, but misjudges the aims?
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 1. Artistic Intentions
Perfect works of art seem to be essentially anonymous [Weil]
     Full Idea: A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Beauty')
     A reaction: It is certainly the case that when you feel a work is perfect, it seems to move into some separate class of existence, as if it were part of nature.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
Everyone is devoted to morality, if they don't have to implement it [Weil]
     Full Idea: All men accept the most rigorous morality when there is no question of putting it into practice.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 3: Politics and Society [1933], p.129)
     A reaction: Presumably this ranges from deliberate hypocrisy to a failure to know ourselves. There is also the question of scope. The mafia seem to be devoted to morality, but only within their family.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
We want our values to be eternal [Weil]
     Full Idea: We want everything which has a value to be eternal.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Chance')
     A reaction: This seems to be the motivation for platonism, of which Weil was a fan. Nietzsche is the strongest opponent of this aspiration. This dream explains the typical resentment of old people.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / d. Subjective value
A person's activities have value when they receive full attention [Cochrane]
     Full Idea: It has been proposed (by Dorothea Debus 2015) that it is sufficient for a person's activity to have value that they give full attention to it.
     From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 4.6)
     A reaction: Rather narrow, but interesting. An expert might do something very valuable while being bored and inattentive. Cochrane observes that torturing someone needs full attention. But we think life is going well if we are fully absorbed in our activities.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
Power and money are supreme means, thus blinding people to ends [Weil]
     Full Idea: Power (and money, power's master key) is means at its purest. For that very reason, it is the supreme end for those who have not understood.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Metaxu')
     A reaction: A lovely observation about the sort of people addicted to power and money. Her thought seems to be that this means is so pure that they can't see anything beyond it.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
We need love to have a good death [Weil]
     Full Idea: The soul which is not full of love dies a bad death.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Decreation')
     A reaction: Not sure I understand a 'good death', from the point of view of the deceased. Does spending your last ten minutes feeling angry count as a bad death? What matters is how the survivors remember the event.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
We should never desire the immortality of the people we love [Weil]
     Full Idea: Not to desire that what we love should be immortal. We should desire neither the immortality nor the death of any human being, whoever he may be, with whom we have to do.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Detachment')
     A reaction: The reason why we should not desire their immortality seems a good insight into love. Personally I would certainly desire the death of the occasional hideous human being.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
If we focus on the good, our whole soul is drawn towards it [Weil]
     Full Idea: If we turn our minds towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Attention')
     A reaction: This is a better expression of Plato's basic metaethics than anything in Plato. What puzzles everyone is what you are supposed to be thinking of when you focus your mind this way.
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 2. Golden Rule
Loving others as ourselves implies varied love, and varied suffering [Weil]
     Full Idea: To love our neighbour as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all my the modes of existence. Nor does it mean that we should not make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Universe')
     A reaction: It is wonderful the way most people just accept the golden rule, but philosophers pick it apart in so many interesting ways.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / h. Right feelings
We should only perform the good actions which we can't help doing [Weil]
     Full Idea: We should only do those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing, …but, through well directed attention, we should always keep on increasing the number of those which we are unable not to do.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Necessity')
     A reaction: She disliked Aristotle, but this sounds like his concept of the highest level of virtue. Aristotle is better because what matters is what you do, and a controlled fine deed is desirable, even if inferior.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 4. External Goods / d. Friendship
Friendship is a virtue, not a state we should dream of [Weil]
     Full Idea: Learn to thrust friendship aside, or rather the dream of friendship. To desire friends is a great fault. Friendship should be a gratuitous joy like those afforded by art or life. …Friendship is to be exercised (it is a virtue).
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Love')
     A reaction: Presumably we won't have friends if we aren't friendly. Yearning for love is not love. She sounds a bit of a romantic here - that everything must come naturally, or not at all. Desiring friends may be a strategic error - but 'a great fault'?
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 3. Motivation for Altruism
My neighbour's pleasure can't be an end for me [Weil]
     Full Idea: Once [utilitarians make it] a question of my neighbour's pleasure, it is no longer an end for me. That is just a philosophical fraud.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.166)
     A reaction: The point seems to be the difficulty of motivation towards a 'universal good'. But then how are we to care about the 'general good' of our whole society? We don't clear up litter for the sake of individuals. 'Pleasure', or 'benefit'?
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
It is absurd to say that evil proves life is worthless. If it were, why would evil matter? [Weil]
     Full Idea: To say that the world is not worth anything, that this life is of no value and to give evil as the proof is absurd, for if these things are worthless what does evil take from us?
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Affliction')
     A reaction: It is certainly the case that a thoroughgoing nihilist must believe that evil and suffering are also of no importance - which is quite a tought thing to achieve.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom
Monotony is beautiful as a reflection of eternity, or atrocious as unvarying perpetuity [Weil]
     Full Idea: Monotony is the most beautiful or the most atrocious thing. The most beautiful if it is the reflection of eternity - the most atrocious if it is the sign of an unvarying perpetuity. It is time passed or time sterilised.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Work')
     A reaction: I'm afraid I can see not attraction at all in the contemplation of eternity (or the infinities of outer space). I think there are more positive accounts to be given of a localised monotony.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / a. Sovereignty
Obedience to an illegitimate ruler is a nightmare [Weil]
     Full Idea: Obedience to a man who is not illuminated by legitimacy - that is a nightmare.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony')
     A reaction: [Written in 1942] The worst situation is where one part of society sees the person as legitimate, and enforces the obedience, but another part doesn't.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 4. Citizenship
People can't be citizens in public life if they are oppressed in economic life [Weil]
     Full Idea: It is obviously quite impossible for men to be treated like things in the labour market and in production, and to be treated as citizens in public life.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 3: Politics and Society [1933], p.151)
     A reaction: Presumably this is because if people are oppressed in one area, they can never be fully free in another. Hard to prove, but sounds right.
A citizen is defined by their subjection to the laws [Weil]
     Full Idea: The difference between a slave and a citizen: a slave is subject to his master, and a citizen to the laws.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Imprint')
     A reaction: [She mentions Montesquieu and Rousseau] This is perhaps why threats to the rule of law (prominent in the years 2016-2024) are such a potential catastrophe for a society.
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power
Social order is equilibrium of forces, which must be corrected when imbalanced [Weil]
     Full Idea: Equilibrium is the submission of one order to another. …Equilibrium alone destroys and annuls force. Social order can be nothing but an equilibrium of forces.…If we know how society is unbalanced, we must do what we can to add weight to the lighter scale.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony')
     A reaction: Good. If only political parties would agree on this principle, and confine their haggling to the nature of the imbalance, and proposals to correct it. First we must identify the main forces.
There is no oppression, or oppressive class; there is only an oppressive society [Weil]
     Full Idea: The notion of oppression is a stupidity. And the notion of an oppressive class is even more stupid. We can only speak of an oppressive structure of society.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Imprint')
     A reaction: Good. The notion of hatred between the classes is a disastrous mistake. Most people are born into their class, and they barely understand any collusion they have in its bad behaviour.
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / c. Revolution
Atheistic materialism must be revolutionary, because its good is in the future [Weil]
     Full Idea: Atheistic materialism is necessarily revolutionary, for, if it is to be directed towards an absolute good here on earth, it has to place it in the future.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony')
     A reaction: Her alternative, of course, is a religious absolute good, which is presumably timeless. She must have Russia in mind. I'm not clear why atheistic materialists must believe in an absolute good. She says their great idea is 'progress'.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 2. Anarchism
Anarchists thought (hopelessly) that empowering the oppressed would end evil [Weil]
     Full Idea: Sincere anarchists, discerning, as through a mist, the principle of the union of opposites, thought that evil could be destroyed by giving power to the oppressed. An impossible dream
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Contradiction')
     A reaction: Weil joined the anarchists in Spain in 1936. Orwell did too, and wrote 'Animal Farm'. So who should we give power to? Showbiz celebrities and poisonous haters? Weil thinks 'destroying evil' is an absurd aim. Do anarchists want to 'empower' anyone?
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 1. Grounds of equality
Equality is the result of unlimited freedom [Weil]
     Full Idea: Equality has its origin in freedom: once one has power over the unlimited faculty of freedom, everyone is equal.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.182)
     A reaction: Equality seems to result from unconditional respect - so what is the basis of that? We respect rationality, or pain, or mere humanity. If she is implying anarchism, equality seems an unlikely consequence of that.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
History is scientific when it relies on accurate documents [Weil]
     Full Idea: Generally speaking, history is scientific when it depends on documents whose accuracy is not questioned.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 3: Politics and Society [1933], p.140)
     A reaction: This seems to miss the obvious hermeneutic point, that even reliable documents need deconstructing, and to be seen against a background. I think she still makes an important distinction.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / a. Experience of time
The past is known to us but unreachable - a perfect image of eternal, supernatural reality [Weil]
     Full Idea: The past: Something real, but absolutely beyond our reach, towards which we cannot take one step, towards which we can but turn ourselves, so that an emanation from it may come to us. Thus it is the most perfect image of eternal, supernatural reality.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Harmony')
     A reaction: For Weil that is a transcendent religious insight, but for the non-religious it is still a wonderful observation. There is nothing else in our experience like the eternal unchanging reality of the past.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
If we ignore all our thoughts of the past and the future, there is nothing left of the present [Weil]
     Full Idea: What would be left of our thought if we were to leave out of the account all the thoughts which have to do with the future and the past? Nothing would be left. So what we do possess, the present, is something non-existent.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.198)
     A reaction: Yet another paradox of the weirdness of the present moment. For idealists that means the present doesn't exist, so either time is eternal, or non-existent. Or fragmentary, if it only consists of our thoughts.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
As the highest value, God cannot be proved [Weil]
     Full Idea: By definition, in so far as he is the highest value, God is indemonstrable.
     From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.171)
     A reaction: An extremely platonist (or neo-platonist) view of God. I'm not sure I grasp how God could be both a being and a value. Presumably a proof must rely on a highest value.
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
My love makes me believe in God; the inconceivability of this God makes me disbelieve [Weil]
     Full Idea: True contradictories. I am sure there is a God in the sense that I am quite sure that my love is not illusory. I am sure there is not a God in the sense that I am quite sure nothing real can be anything like what I conceive when I pronounce this word.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Atheism')
     A reaction: [She adds that inconceivability doesn't mean illusory] I can't see a feeling of love as a reason for theism. But the inconceivability of God isn't a good reason for atheism.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
We must leave on one side the ordinary 'consolations' of religion [Weil]
     Full Idea: We must leave on one side the beliefs which fill up voids and sweeten what is bitter. The belief in immortality, in the utility of sin, in the providential ordering of events - in short the 'consolations' which are ordinarily sought in religion.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Detachment')
     A reaction: Her positive views of religion seem rather daunting, and may only be for the few.
Revolution (not religion) is the opium of the people [Weil]
     Full Idea: It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Work')
     A reaction: Right now in Europe hatred of migrants is the opium of the people. Maybe football, or television light entertainment. Or nationalism. Or fast food… Vodka?
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
We just see immortality as prolongation of life, making death meaningless [Weil]
     Full Idea: Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Decreation')
     A reaction: I can possibly see a cosmic purpose in death, but hardly matters to individuals. Interesting that a mystic can't shake off the need for the body.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / b. Human Evil
If the world lacked evil, then the evil would be in our desires, which would be worse [Weil]
     Full Idea: How could there be no evil in the world? The world has to be foreign to our desires. If this were so without it containing evil, our desires would be entirely bad. That must not happen. God's world is not the best possible, but contains all good and evil.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Evil')
     A reaction: What an original mind she had! Doesn't seem to answer the standard problem, of why a benevolent God gave us evil desires.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil
Without worldly affliction, we'd think this is paradise [Weil]
     Full Idea: If there were no affliction in this world, we might think we were in paradise.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace [1942], 'Affliction')
     A reaction: Peersonally I wouldn't object to living in paradise, even it is temporary. Interesting, though.