The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, by Robert Zaretsky [Book Review]

Teaching Philosophy 45 (1):128-130 (2022)
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Abstract

Robert Zaretsky’s The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas offers a nuanced and engaging account of a thinker who to this date is mostly shunned by academic philosophy. As indicated by its subtitle, it explores five key concepts in Weil’s thought that according to Zaretsky “still reso-nate today. Or, I believe, should resonate”, given Weil’s obscurity. By linking each of these con-cepts to a particular episode or development in Weil’s more-than-eventful life, Zaretsky makes both his protagonist and the contemporary challenges she deals with in her writings palpable. Es-pecially the first is no easy task, in view of the many paradoxes that surround Weil’s life and per-sonality: A secular Jew in the search of a Christian God, a pacifist eager to fight in the Spanish Civil war, a rationalist with mystic leanings, “a communist with a small c” (68) mistrustful of par-ties on either side of the political spectrum. Zaretsky demonstrates that it is precisely this ambiva-lence of Weil which makes her such a “subversive” and fascinating author who defies expectations and unnerves her readers.

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Janelle Pötzsch
Ruhr-Universität Bochum (PhD)

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