Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Self

Annelieke Damen has just produced a thesis entitled "Between Closure and opennness: The notion of the self in humanist counselling and in Simone Weil, examined against the background of Charles Taylor's analyses of modern culture"

http://repository.uvh.nl/uvh/bitstream/handle/11439/512/Masterthesis%20Annelieke%20Damen%20%20(1).pdf?sequence=1

Friday, June 10, 2016

Weil and Murdoch - updated list of works

There seems to be a great deal of interest in my previous post on Weil and Murdoch.  In the meantime I have collected a number of other references:


Andic, Martin. "The Love of Truth." Cahiers Simone Weil 18.4 (1995): 389-417. Print. Andic begins this article with a fairly lengthy discussion of the concept of truth and what it means ‘to love it’ in early Greek philosophy, focusing primarily on Plato and in the second section of the article, on Aristotle.  He turns to Weil in the third section where drawing largely on Simone Petrement’s biography, he traces Weil’s ‘love of truth’.  Andic then turns to Weil’s work in The Need for Roots, to briefly discusses what he describes as “Simone Weil’s most significant contribution to the topic, and the most important point in my essay”, the lack of the ‘spirit of truth’ in modern religion, science and thought (p. 408).  The essay concludes with a consideration of the role of truth in the work of Iris Murdoch, as Murdoch was, he says, one of “Weil’s first and best readers” (412).

Bigger, Charles P. Between Chora and the Good: Metaphor's Metaphysical Neighborhood. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. Print.  Brief mention of Simone in context of Iris Murdoch and Levinas.

Blum, Lawrence A. "Visual Metaphors in Murdoch’s Moral Philosophy." Iris Murdoch, Philosopher. Ed. Broackes, Justin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.   Note also brief references to Simone in other chapters of this edited book.

Bok, Sissela. "'No One to Receive It': Simone Weil's Unforeseen Legacy." Common Knowledge 12.2 (2006): 252-60.  This article begins with a brief overview of the last days of Simone Weil’s life, focusing on her self-effacement and abnegation.  Bok then offers a relatively brief discussion of Weil’s legacy, particularly the interest shown and value seen in her work by Albert Camus, Iris Murdoch, some of the leaders of the solidarity movement and finally, Susan Sontag.

---. "Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch: The Possibility of Dialogue." Gender Issues 22.4 (2005): 71-78.  After a brief comparative review of the lives of Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch, the author goes on to provide a general overview of the influence of Weil on Murdoch’s thought, particularly Weil’s notions of malheur or affliction.

Bowden, Peta. "Ethical Attention: Accumulating Understandings." European Journal of Philosophy 6.1 (1998): 59-77.  The concept of attention in the work of the philosophers, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum is presented and discussed.  Drawing on contemporary feminist ethical theory, the author sketches the possibilities for an ethical theory centred on attention that, while drawing on the work of these three theorists, goes beyond to address the shortcomings identified in their work, especially their ideas about the self and its relationship to others.

Forsberg, Niklas. Language Lost and Found: On Iris Murdoch and the Limits of Philosophical Discourse. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.   Brief mentions of Weil's influence on Murdoch.

Freeman, Mark. "Beholding and Being Beheld: Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and the Ethics of Attention." The Humanistic Psychologist 43.2 (2015): 160-72.

Fuster, Angela Lorena Peiró. "Demorarse En El Mirar. La Imaginación en Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch y Hannah Arendt." Daimon: Revista Internacional de Filosofia 60 (2013): 141-60.

Hämäläinen, Nora. "Reduce Ourselves to Zero?: Sabina Lovibond, Iris Murdoch and Feminism." Hypatia 30.4 (2015): 743-59.

larson, Kate. ""Allt Som Har Ett Värde Är Frukten av Ett Sammanträffande” : Värdebegreppet Hos Simone Weil Och Bos Iris Murdoch." På Spaning... Från Svenska Kyrkans Forskardagar 2009. Ed. Stenström, Hanna. Forskning for Kyrkan. Stockholm: Verbum, 2010. 343-51.

---. "“Everything Important Is to Do with Passion” : Iris Murdoch’s Concept of Love and Its Platonic Origin." Diss. Uppsala Universitet, 2009.

Lipson, Michael, and Abigail Lipson. "Psychotherapy and the Ethics of Attention." The Hastings Center Report 26.1 (1996): 17-22.  Drawing on the theories of attention in the work of Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil, the authors argue the ethical development of individuals can be tied to their ability to attend to objects outside of themselves, in that the greater their ability to focus on something outside themselves and forget themselves in the process, the greater their ethical capacity.  The authors argue performance anxiety is tied to ethics as the more the individual is self-centred – i.e. concerned with their own performance and success, the more anxious they will be.  Conversely, the more they are able to focus on things outside of themselves, a central factor in ethical capacity, the less anxiety they will feel.

Lovibond, Sabina. "The Simone Weil Factor." Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2011. 28-46.

Mackenzie, Rod. "From Paranoia to Metanoia: Education and the Journey of the Soul." PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain) Annual Conference. 2006.

Morgan, Vance G. "Humility and the Transcendent." Faith and Philosophy 18.3 (2001): 306-22.  Morgan begins by critically reflecting on, and identifying problems with, some recent attempts to define humility in secular terms.  He then turns to the thought of Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil to develop an alternative notion of humility.  Ultimately, he argues, an understanding of true humility must incorporate some sense of the transcendent for it to be meaningful.

Muraro, Luisa. "Scrittura in-Infinita: Una Introduzione a Iris Murdoch." Concepire l'infinito. Ed. Buttarelli, Annarosa. Saggistica. Milano: La Tartaruga, 2005. 57-75.

Painter, Rebecca M. "Fiction and the Growth of Moral Consciousness: Attention and Evil." Analecta Husserliana 92.235-257 (2006).

Pingree, Aaron C. "Apathy and the Modern Self: The Afflictions of Modernity and Orientation toward the Good." Diss. Ryerson University
York University, 2013.

Purcell, Donald. "Iris Murdoch's the Green Knight and Simone Weil." Cahiers Simone Weil 19.2 (1996): 225-38.  Noting Iris Murdoch made reference to her debt to Simone Weil, Purcell attempts to link what he refers to as impressions derived from his reading of Murdoch’s The Green Knight, to some ‘concepts’ in Weil’s work.  The major portion of the essay is his exposition of Murdoch’s novel followed by a very brief reflection on Weil’s concepts of affliction and beauty.

Rabassó, Georgina. "Atención, Contemplación, Vacío. Iris Murdoch, Lectora de Simone Weil." Daimon: Revista Internacional de Filosofia 60 (2013): 127-29.

Ravensbergen, Karen. "Looking with a Just and Loving Gaze: The Concept of Attention in the Writings of Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch." M.A. Thesis. SFU, 2011.

Rowe, Anne, and Pamela Osborn. "The Saint and the Hero: Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil." Iris Murdoch, Philosopher Meets Novelist. Eds. Araújo, Sofia de Melo and Fátima Vieria. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. 103-13.

Smith, Richard. "Simone Weil 1909-43." Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education from Piaget to the Present Ed. Palmer, Joy. New York: Routledge, 2001. 69-73.  Smith offers a short description of Weil's life, followed by brief reflections on selected aspects of her thought.  He begins by describing Weil as "neo-Platonic, Christian mystic" (p. 69), before moving on to a consideration of Weil's notions of decreation , attention as well as her influence on the philosopher Iris Murdoch.

Springer, Silvia. "Eros, Gottesliebe, Amor Mundi: " Liebe" bei Iris Murdoch, Simone Weil und Hannah Arendt." MA Thesis. University of Vienna, 2011.

Update to Simone Weil bibliography

Just posted another 80 records to the bibliography.  You will now see some works published in 2016.  There are now 2921 works listed.  I currently have over 4,000 collected so still quite a few to verify and get added to the bibliography!!

http://www.ucalgary.ca/simoneweil

Friday, June 3, 2016

Weil's influence

Howard Doughty in a recent review of How to Be an Intellectual by Jeffrey Williams, comments on Weil's significant influence but notes that "she is not much in fashion today".  Based on the amount of  recent work  quoting, referencing and/ or discussing Weil, I would suggest that she continues to be very "in fashion"