Simone Weil was a French philosopher, teacher, factory worker and political writer who died in wartime exile. A Simone Weil biography has to cover a short life that moved from the classroom to the factory floor to wartime exile.
The ideas that grew from that life are set out in the main guide to simone weil philosophy, while this page follows the outline of the life itself.
Early life and education
According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Simone Weil was born in Paris on February 3, 1909, to comfortably off agnostic and secular Jewish parents. Her father was a medical doctor, and her older brother André became one of the most renowned mathematicians of his century. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes an assimilated, secular, bourgeois French childhood, cultured and comfortable.
Her schooling led to the philosopher Émile Chartier, who wrote under the name Alain. The Stanford Encyclopedia says she studied at the Lycée Henri IV under him in preparation for the entrance examinations of the École Normale Supérieure, and that his classes stressed intellectual history, including Plato, Descartes, Spinoza and Kant, and Homer and the Greek tragedians in literature. In 1928, and at her second attempt, she gained admission to the École Normale, according to the IEP. The Stanford Encyclopedia adds that she was the only woman in her class.
Teaching, activism and the factory year
After her studies she took up teaching posts in provincial girls’ schools. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says she taught at Le Puy, with many breaks to pursue union activities, investigate Communist labour organizations in Germany, and fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy adds that outside her duties at each school she taught philosophy to workers’ groups, lobbied for them and wrote on their behalf, and at times joined in manual labor herself.
Her most important political text from this period is Reflections Concerning the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression, which the IEP calls her most important work in that genre, although it went unpublished until after her death. Its arguments are traced in the guide to simone weil oppression and liberty.
She then arranged a break from teaching to work in factories. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, she planned to spend a year working in Parisian factories as part of the most oppressed group, unskilled women laborers. There she began to see, firsthand, the normalization of brutality in modern industry, and the encyclopedia says her experience was less one of physical suffering than of humiliation. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the discovery of affliction, a suffering that she found in others and in herself, as the point at which her moral philosophy turned in a religious direction.
- Agnostic secular Jewish parents: parents
- Father a medical doctor: father
- Brother Andre mathematician: Andre
- Childhood: childhood
- Studied at Henri IV under Alain: Alain
Spain, mystical experiences and the turn to religion
The next stage was the Spanish Civil War. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports that she obtained journalist’s credentials and joined an international anarchist brigade, and was badly burned when she stepped into a pot of boiling oil. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy records that she then left Spain and spent time in Portugal and Italy, where she had her first mystical experiences.
The Stanford Encyclopedia lists several contacts with Christianity in these years: a religious procession in a Portuguese fishing village, a small chapel at Assisi where she later wrote that something stronger than herself compelled her to kneel, and the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes. At Solesmes, according to the same source, she found in Gregorian chant a joy pure enough that she gained an understanding of the possibility of living divine love in the midst of affliction. She later wrote of a poem by George Herbert, in the encyclopedia’s quotation, that “Christ himself came down and took possession of me,” from her “Spiritual Autobiography.”
How to read these experiences is a matter on which writers differ, and her own position toward the Church remains discussed in the scholarship. The encyclopedias describe what she reported, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that she was not a baptised Catholic. The thread that matters for her philosophy is attention, taken up in the page on simone weil attention, which the Stanford Encyclopedia calls her central ethical concept.
War years in Marseille, New York and London
After the German advance she left Paris with her family. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says they settled temporarily in Marseille, then the main gathering point for those trying to flee France, where she met the Dominican priest Joseph-Marie Perrin. Through Perrin she came to Gustave Thibon, a Catholic writer who owned a farm in the Ardèche region, and she worked in the grape harvest. The IEP adds that in Marseille she was publishing essays and doing what she could for people, often Jews like herself, seeking escape from Vichy France and the Nazi threat.
Her parents then left France, and she went with them to New York by way of Morocco. The Stanford Encyclopedia says that New York felt removed from the sufferings of her native France, and that London, with the Free French movement, felt one step closer to a return. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, her proposal to train and lead a corps of front-line nurses was rejected, and she was instead set to work analysing political documents sent to London from Resistance committees in France. Her writings from this period include The Need for Roots, which the IEP lists with a draft statement of human obligation.
Death and how it is described
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives the date of her death as Tuesday, 24 August 1943, and reports that the coroner pronounced her death a suicide. It also says that her biographers tell a more complex story: she was aware that fellow citizens in occupied territory lived on minimal food rations, and she insisted on the same for herself, which worsened her physical illness. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it differently, saying that, weakened by inadequate nutrition and anguish, she died of tuberculosis.
These accounts differ in emphasis, and readers should treat the cause and meaning of her death as described by each source and not as settled by this guide.
Writings and legacy
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes her as ascetic and mystic, teacher and factory worker, labour activist and political militant, social thinker and moral psychologist. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that none of her writings was published as a book in her lifetime, and that she was concerned near the end of her life that her person would be considered more than her thought.
The writings reached readers through editors and publishers after her death. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports that Albert Camus, while an editor at Gallimard, discovered her writings and called her “the only great mind of our time.” A reader who wants to see how these books are organised can turn to the guide to Simone Weil’s books, while the account above is the thread that connects them.
Frequently asked questions
Where and when was Simone Weil born?
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Paris was her birthplace, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives the date as February 3, 1909.
Did Simone Weil work in a factory?
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Yes. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says she planned to work in Parisian factories among unskilled women laborers and describes the experience as one of humiliation more than physical suffering.
How did Simone Weil die?
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The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that, weakened by inadequate nutrition and anguish, she died of tuberculosis, while the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports the coroner’s verdict and the more complex account given by her biographers.
Was Simone Weil a Christian?
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Accounts describe contacts with Christianity in Portugal, Assisi and Solesmes, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that she was not a baptised Catholic. Her own religious position is stated by each source in its own terms and is not settled here.