Emerging from thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains her most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendant.An enlightening introduction by Leslie Fiedler examines Weil's extraordinary roles as a philosophy teacher turned mystic. "One of the most neglected resources of our century ", Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come.

"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with (...) the essential and the profound." -- Time Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Draft for a statement of human obligations -- Human personality.

Courses on ethics and technology have become compulsory for many students at the three Dutch technical universities during the past few years. During this time, teachers have faced a number of didactic problems, which are partly due to a growing number of students. In order to deal with these challenges, teachers in ethics at the three technical universities in the Netherlands — in Delft, Eindhoven and Twente — have developed a web-based computer program called Agora (see www.ethicsandtechnology.com). This program enables (...) students to exercise their ethical understanding and skills extensively. The program makes it possible for students to participate actively in moral reflection and reasoning, and to develop the moral competencies that are needed in their later professional practice. The developers of the program have tried to avoid two traps. Firstly, they rejected, from the outset, a cookbook style of dealing with ethical problems that applied ethics is often taken to be and, secondly, they wanted to design a flexible program that respects the student’s as well as the teacher’s creativity, and that tries to engage students in moral reflection. Agora meets these requirements. The program offers possibilities that extend beyond the requirements that are usually accepted for case-exercises in applied ethics, and that have been realised in several other computer models for teaching ethics. In this article, we describe the main considerations in the development of Agora and the features of the resulting program. (shrink)

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

_Oppression and Liberty_ is one of Simone Weil's most important books on political theory.Here she discusses political and social oppression, its permanent causes, the way it works and its contemporary forms. Simone Weil's writings on oppression and liberty continue to be as valid and thought-provoking today as they were in her lifetime.

This introduces a series of articles in a themed section entitled City of Potentialities: Race, Violence and Invention. The section concerns how we might think more specifically about how to act in domains where complexity is both a resource for the imagination and an impediment to action. What kinds of dilemmas do residents face and what kinds of practices do they engage in in order to continuously gather up the tools and possibilities to endure in volatile urban conditions, where volatility (...) seems a critical force in the simultaneous undoing and remaking of life, as well as in providing assets and opportunities to inhabitants? How does violence obscure the various manoeuvres and practices that keep things together or apart? (shrink)

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative democracy (on the decline) that attempt (...) to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

Through an analysis of the histrionic “man of acute consciousness”” in Notes from Underground, this text tries to highlight a sneaky question posed by Dostoevsky's novel: is it in the underground’s ground that literature is born?

Resumo Este artigo examina um período muito breve da juventude de Nietsche, de seu nascimento a 1862. Durante estes anos Nietzsche descobre progressivamente que o mundo encantado ao interno do qual ele nascera, protegido e seguro, não é imune ao mal e às doenças. Neste estudo examina-se todas as doenças que Nietzsche viu entrar em casa, através do pai, dos parentes e dos amigos. Antes mesmo que sua biografia registrasse patologias que ele carregará consigo até o fim, Nietzsche encontrará as (...) feições do mal nas formas históricas que a sua época registrou deixando marcas indeléveis no seu imaginário.This article examines a very short period of Nietzsche's youth, from his birth to 1862. During these years, Nietzsche gradually discovered that the enchanted world in which he was born, protected and safe, was not immune to evil and disease. This study examines all the diseases that Nietzsche has experienced inside the house, through his father, relatives and friends. Even before his biography recorded pathologies that he would remember ever after, Nietzsche met the face of evil in the historical knowledge that his time recorded leaving indelible traces in his imagination. (shrink)

According to one of the most influential definitions, formulated by Michel Foucault in his Les anormaux, the monster is, since the Middle Ages, a violation of a “bio-juridical” order. In critically discussing the historical plausibility of this claim this article explores medical and philosophical conceptions of monsters between medieval and early modern period, addressing in particular the matter of the relationships between first and second causes in nature's errors. The main authors dealt with are Thomas Aquinas, Ambroise Paré, Francisco Toledo (...) and Fortunio Liceti. What emerges is that up to the 17 th century monsters were always conceived as products – and not as real contradictions – of a nature ordered by God's will, goodness and perfection, without a real “bio-juridical” order (as Foucault thinks). (shrink)

This article deals with the concept of “mechanism” from a historical point of view, focusing on its relationship with the evolution of hylomorphism in the 17th century. I try to address the following questions: is mechanism structurally bound to materialism or does it rather represent a form of complete determinism, reconcilable with an “updated” version of hylomorphism? In the first part of the essay, I make the point that the very notion of “mechanism” must be clarified by means of a (...) distinction between Boylean experimental mechanism and what Daniel Garber has called the “pre-history of the Mechanical Philosophy”. My aim is to highlight how the deterministic (and nominalistic) hylomorphism developed in the 17th Century came quite close to mechanism. In this framework, I present the ‘strange case’ of Marin Cureau de La Chambre (1594-1669), which represents a characteristic compromise – based on the possibility of a not bodily extension – between a deterministic mechanization of the lower functions of the vegetative and sensitive soul and Campanella’s panpsychism. (shrink)

Perception, corps et mouvement. L’esthétique anthropologique del’expression dans l’inédit Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression de Maurice Merleau-PontyL’article se consacre à une analyse ponctuelle du manuscrit inédit de Merleau-Ponty sur Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, aujourd’hui conservé à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, et qui correspond au cours du philosophe au Collège de France durant l’année académique 1952-1953. L’analyse exclusive de l’inédit suit des perspectives bien précises : il s’agit de reconstruire, à partir d’une définition (...) merleau-pontienne originale de l’espace culturel comme espace anthropologique, ce qui pourrait ressembler à une nouvelle esthétique de l’expression d’origine anthropologique ; suivant le fil des analyses de La structure du comportement et de la Phénoménologie de la perception – non sans un remarquable sens critique vis-à-vis de ces textes des années quarante – cette analyse reconsidère la notion d’expression à la lumière de celle de mouvement. Les recherches merleau-pontiennes des années cinquante donc, – resquecontemporaines de La prose du monde et qui partagent avec celle-ci l’idée d’une origine saussurienne de la diacriticité des signes linguistiques – donnent naissance, selon nous, à une véritable esthétique du mouvement expressif, solidement fondée sur une philosophie de la biologie et sur une anthropologie philosophique. Au cours de l’article, de façon contextuelle et spontanée, on relie, de manière hypothétique, la pensée merleau-pontienne de ces années-là et celle de certains « auteurs fondamentaux » que Merleau-Ponty cite explicitement ou dont il reproduit la dynamique théorique : Helmuth Plessner, Aldolf Portmann, Jakob Von Uexküll, Friedrik J.J. Buytendijk, et en particulier – en raison de leur parenté philosophique évidente – Vicktor Von Weizsäcker, celui du Der Gestaltkreis et des écrits autobiographiques Anonyma.Perception, Body, and Movement. The Anthropological Aesthetics of Expression in Merleau-Ponty’s UnpublishedThe Sensible World and the World of ExpressionThe article is devoted to a point by point analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s unpublished manuscript on The Sensible World and the World of Expression, which is currently found in Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and which corresponds to the course he taught at the Collège de France in the academic year 1952-53. The analysis, exclusively of this unpublished course notes, follows some very precise directions. What is at issue is to reconstruct, on the basis of a definition, which is original with Merleau-Ponty, of cultural space as anthropological space; this definition could resemble a new aesthetic of expression which would have an anthropological origin. Then following the thread of analyses found in The Structure of Behavior and the Phenomenology of Perception – not without a noticeable critical stance in relation to these texts from the 1940s – my analysis considers the notion of expression in light of that movement. Merleau-Ponty investigations during the 1950s therefore – nearly contemporaneous with The Prose of the World and which share with it the idea of a Saussurean origin of the diacriticity of linguistic signs – give birth, in my view, to a genuine aesthetics of expressive movement, solidly grounded on a philosophy of biology and on a philosophical anthropology. Over the course of the article, in a way contextual and spontaneous, we reread, in a hypothetical way, Merleau-Ponty’s thought during this time period, and the thought of “fundamental writers” who Merleau-Ponty had cited explicitly or whose theoretical dynamism he had reproduced: Helmuth Plessner, Aldolf Portmann, Jakob Von Uexküll, Friedrik J.J. Buytendijk, and, in particular – because they are clearly related philosophically – Vicktor Von Weizsäcker, his Der Gestaltkreis and his autobiographical writings called Anonyma. (shrink)

Epigenetic and transcriptional variability contribute to the vast diversity of cellular and organismal phenotypes and are key in human health and disease. In this review, we describe different types, sources, and determinants of epigenetic and transcriptional variability, enabling cells and organisms to adapt and evolve to a changing environment. We highlight the latest research and hypotheses on how chromatin structure and the epigenome influence gene expression variability. Further, we provide an overview of challenges in the analysis of biological variability. An (...) improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying epigenetic and transcriptional variability, at both the intra- and inter-individual level, provides great opportunity for disease prevention, better therapeutic approaches, and personalized medicine. Epigenetic and transcriptional variability mediate phenotypic plasticity, enabling adaptation to changing environments. In this review, we describe the sources of inter- and intra-individual variability and discuss epigenetic regulators of gene expression variability, including DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Understanding these molecular mechanisms will improve therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine. (shrink)

Die Forderungen nach naturgemäßem Leben, Einfachheit und Askese werden im antiken Denken oftmals in Verbindung gebracht. Vor dem Hintergrund der Frage, was naturgemäß leben im Rahmen verschiedener Ansätze bedeutet, wird untersucht, wie jeweils eine Verknüpfung mit Konzeptionen einfachen Lebens und damit verbundener Askese erfolgt. Ausgehend vom Naturbegriff der frühgriechischen Denker wird anhand von Textbeispielen dargestellt, wie die genannte Verbindung in der Ethik des 5./4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. begründet und in den hellenistischen Schulen fortentwickelt wird. Gezeigt wird, dass Einfachheit und Askese (...) nach antiker Vorstellung die Verwirklichung der menschlichen Natur zum Ziel haben und, anders als im heutigen Denken, nicht etwa den Schutz natürlicher Ressourcen. (shrink)

Although developmental dyslexia (DD) is frequently associate to a phonological deficit, the underlying neurobiological cause remain undetermined. One prominent hypothesis suggests a specific deficit in magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) pathway. Here we investigated the visual M-D and parvocellular-ventral (P-V) pathway in dyslexic and in chronological age and IQ-matched normally reading children by measuring dynamic (frequency doubling illusion) and static stimuli sensibility, respectively. A specific deficit in M-D task was found. Importantly, the M-D deficit was selectively shown in poor phonological decoders. M-D deficit (...) appears to be frequent because 75% of poor pseudo-word readers were at least 1 SD below the mean of the controls. Finally, a replication study by using a new group of poor phonological decoders and reading level controls suggests a possible role of M-D deficit in DD. These results showed that a M-D deficit might impair the sub-lexical mechanisms that are critical for reading development. The possible link between these findings and the oscillatory “temporal sampling” framework is discussed. (shrink)

According to non-reductive physicalism, mental properties of the phenomenal sort are essentially different from physical properties, and cannot be reduced to them. This being a quarrel about properties, I draw on the categorical / dispositional distinction to discuss this non-reductive claim. Typically, non-reductionism entails a categorical view of phenomenal properties. Contrary to this, I will argue that phenomenal properties, usually characterized by what it is like to have them, are mainly the manifestation of dispositional properties. This paper is thus divided (...) into two parts. In the first part, after tracing a working distinction between categorical and dispositional properties, I argue that there is a form of incoherence looming behind the idea of taking phenomenal properties as categorical. In the second part, I argue in favor of the view that phenomenal properties are dispositional properties with an essential manifestation. This interpretation allows us to broaden dispositionalism so as to include the sciences of mind, thus ultimately favoring a physicalist view on the mind. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays bringing together Deleuzian Philosophy and postcolonial theory. Bignall and Patton assemble some of the world's leading figures in these fields to explore rich linkages between two previously unrelated areas of study.

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney and more recently by Manfred Kets de Vries; we interpret their insights from a stakeholder theory perspective. Business ethics research seems to have overlooked how “neurotic management styles” could be the antecedents of unethical (...) behavior within organizations. After showing the connection between five managerial neuroses and the corresponding potential ethical failures within organizations that have been already identified within business ethics research, we suggest three organizational strategies to counteract these failures. First, we argue that managers should pay greater attention at the complexity of human motivation, avoiding the simplistic view of compliance‐based approaches. Second, we discuss the importance of developing a conversation around values within organizations, enabling healthy individual growth and limiting the emergence of neurotic processes. Finally, we discuss the role of the business ethicist in facilitating such a process, suggesting a parallel between the role of the business ethicist and that of the psychoanalytic therapist. (shrink)

_Gravity and Grace_ shows Weil's religious thoughts and ideas, drawn from many sources - Christian, Jewish, Indian, Greek and Hindu - and focusing on suffering and redemption. It brings the reader face to face with the profoundest levels of existence as Weil explores the relationship of the human condition to the realm of the transcendent.

ABSTRACTSkepticism about citizen competence is a core component of Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels’s call, in Democracy for Realists, for rethinking our model of democracy. In this paper I suggest that the evidence for citizen incompetence is not as clear as we might think; important research shows that we are good group problem solvers even if we are poor solitary truth seekers. I argue that deliberative democracy theory has a better handle on this fundamental fact of human cognition (...) and therefore has a more realistic view of the conditions that might improve citizen competence. (shrink)