Simone Weil and Alain are linked by a classroom: Alain, the pen name of the philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartier, taught the preparatory classes at the Lycée Henri-IV where she studied. This page sets out who he was and what sources say about their connection.
The classroom belongs to her wider French story, told in the guide to simone weil in france.
Who Alain was
According to the Wikipedia article on Alain, he was born in 1868 in the rural town of Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy, the son of a veterinary surgeon. He became a philosopher, journalist, essayist, pacifist and teacher of philosophy, and the article says he adopted the pen name Alain as the most banal he could find. It places him at the Lycée Henri IV from 1909, where he taught the prestigious preparatory classes for the École Normale, and it says he taught there until his retirement in 1933, apart from an interruption for the First World War.
The article says that he chose not to pursue a doctorate or teach in the university system, and it says that in those years he became known as an inspiring teacher, and his students included Simone Weil and Georges Canguilhem as well as writers and political leaders. It adds that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir attended his public lectures.
The article also says that when the First World War came, Alain, who had campaigned for peace in Europe, volunteered immediately and served in the artillery, and that he later wrote Mars ou la guerre jugée, translated as Mars, or the truth about war. His pacifism in the following decade is described below.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls him the greatest philosophy teacher of the period, and gives his name as Émile Chartier. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy likewise names the philosopher and essayist Émile-Auguste Chartier, known pseudonymously as Alain, among Weil’s teachers.
The propos: philosophy for a general reader
Alain was known as much for journalism as for teaching. The Wikipedia article says that in 1903, as part of his political activity in support of the Radical Party in Rouen, he began contributing brief columns to a newspaper there. He called them propos, a French word that is hard to translate and implies a proposal, a proposition and, most simply, remarks.
The article describes the texts as short pieces written for a general readership in a concise, vivid style, inspired by topical and everyday events. It says that Alain found he had a taste for firing arrows at passers-by to make them look up from their path in life. A bestselling collection, which has always remained in print in France, is Propos sur le bonheur, translated as Alain on Happiness.
For readers meeting Weil for the first time, the propos show the kind of public, essayistic philosophy practised in her teacher’s world. The Stanford entry notes separately that Weil herself worked through the essay form, and it does not claim that she copied his style.
- 1930s pacifist: 1930s
- Adopted pseudonym: pen name
- To think is to say no: quote
- Obey and resist: paradox
- Propos translation: propos
His philosophy and his lineage
The Wikipedia article says that Alain did not develop a system and that, like most French philosophers of his generation, he distrusted systems, even though he took a deep interest in studying systematic philosophers. It describes his political thought as a radical liberalism concerned with the role of the citizen in a democracy, summed up in a paradox: to obey the laws but resist power by all legitimate means. It also quotes a line from his Propos sur la religion: “To think is to say no.”
The Stanford Encyclopedia places him in a lineage by noting that his own teacher was Jules Lagneau, and it says that Alain, like Weil at that time, was agnostic. It adds that Weil is arguably part of the Alain and Lagneau line of voluntarist, spiritualiste philosophy in France. The word spiritualiste here refers to a French philosophical tradition that stresses mind and spirit, and the Stanford entry presents the placement as an interpretation, not a settled fact.
In the classroom with Weil
The Stanford entry says that Weil studied at Henri IV Lycée from October 1925 in preparation for the École Normale entrance exams, and that there she studied under Alain. It says that his classes emphasised intellectual history, including Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes, Spinoza and Kant in philosophy and Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in literature. It adds that, already sympathetic with the downtrodden and critical of French society, she gained in his class the theoretical tools to criticise her country and philosophical tradition.
The same entry says that in his class she began intentionally developing what would become her distinct way of philosophising, using paradox and attention in the form of the essay. It notes that none of her writings was published as a book in her lifetime. Her early years at the school are described in the page on simone weil early life.
A more colourful picture comes from the Wikipedia article on Weil, which says that she attracted attention at the lycée for her radical opinions and that she was called the “Red Virgin” and even “The Martian” by her mentor. These details come from biographical anecdote and are best treated as colour rather than as evidence about the substance of the teaching.
After the classroom
The Stanford entry reports that Weil began studies at the École Normale in 1928, which means her time in Alain’s preparatory class came before that. By the time he retired in 1933, according to the Wikipedia article on Alain, she was already working as a lycée teacher, and the page on a simone weil teacher looks at that part of her life.
Alain remained a public figure. The Wikipedia article says that throughout the 1930s he was politically active as a prominent pacifist, and that he died in 1951. It also reports that the 2018 publication of his Journal inédit drew renewed attention to several private remarks about antisemitism, that some commentators accused him of expressing antisemitic views and that the article quotes entries cited in that debate. Readers who want his legacy assessed fairly should consult that discussion directly.
The record on the two of them is thinner than the legend. The encyclopedias confirm that Weil studied under him, name him among her formative teachers and describe a shared line of French thought, but they do not reconstruct their conversations. Claims beyond that deserve caution.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Alain, the teacher of Simone Weil?
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Alain was the pen name of Émile-Auguste Chartier, a French philosopher, journalist and teacher who taught the preparatory classes for the École Normale at the Lycée Henri-IV.
Did Simone Weil study with Alain?
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Yes. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that she studied under him at the Lycée Henri IV while preparing for the entrance exams of the École Normale Supérieure.
What are the propos?
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They were brief newspaper columns on politics and everyday life that Alain wrote for a general readership. The word is hard to translate, and it implies remarks, proposals or propositions.
Were Weil and Alain religious?
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The Stanford entry says that Alain was agnostic, as Weil was at that time in her life. Her later religious thought is a separate subject covered elsewhere on this site.