Weil, Simone (1909-1943)

Simone Weil

Simone Adolphine Weil

*February 3, 1909 (Paris, France)
†August 24, 1943 (Ashford, United Kingdom)

Relatives: André Weil (1906-1998), mathematician

Simone Weil was a French philosopher, teacher and political activist whose works had particular influence on French and English social thought. Simone Weil came from an educated, Jewish but agnostic family. Intellectually precocious, she also displayed an awareness for social matters at an early age. After studying mathematics and philosophy, she became a teacher, her chief employment during her life. Weil was a supporter of revolutionary socialism and committed herself to the fight for worker’s rights. Despite her unstable health, she worked in a factory and on a farm to study the psychological effects of hard physical labour. Although a pacifist, she took part in the Spanish Civil War and supported the resistance after the German invasion of France. Alongside her political activity, she pursued a second concern with the same vigour: the search for truth, for God, which finally led, after a visionary experience, to a mystical Catholicism. Severely ill with tuberculosis and physical exhaustion, she died at the age of 34 in the Grosvenor Sanatorium in Kent. Her restless life full of contradictions and intellectual struggles was reflected in numerous articles for magazines. Essays, diaries, letters and philosophical works appeared only after her death, such as L’enracinement (The Need for Roots), her political and spiritual testament.

Kristin Käuper

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