“The great human error is to reason in place of finding out.”
– Simone Weil
Simone Weil was the rare philosopher who could not help but to live her philosophy. The defining characteristic of her life was sympathy. The French philosopher was born in 1909 in Paris to agnostic Jewish parents, and an older brother. Her father, a doctor, was drafted in WWI. At six years old, she refused sugar in solidarity with the soldiers on the Western Front. As a teenager, she claimed Marxism and pacifism, writing tracts and short essays for political and literary publications. In 1928 , she was admitted to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure to study philosophy, finishing first in the exam for “General Philosophy and Logic,” and beating out feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir.
From 1934 to 1936, she taught philosophy at a secondary school for girls in Le Puy. Weil frequently took leaves of absence during her short career to examine and work on behalf of social causes. On one such occasion in 1932, she traveled to Germany to help Marxists who were considered at the time the most organized communist organization in Europe. Weil wanted to evaluate this for herself. After her time there, Weil was greatly concerned the communists would be overwhelmed by the German socialists, which would indeed be the case. Making the effort to find out for herself would become the marking distinction of her life.
Two years later, she took another leave of absence to go work in automotive factories in Paris. Rather than theorizing about working class struggles, she wanted to experience life as part of the working class. As a result of her labors at these factories, she concluded the masses were overworked, too tired to think, and ultimately treated as less than human. While in Paris, she wrote in her “Factory Journal”, “Time was an intolerable burden”. Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides further details around her reasoning, “[M]odern factory work comprised two elements principally: orders from superiors and, relatedly, increased speeds of production. While the factory managers continued to demand more, both fatigue and thinking (itself less likely under such conditions) slowed work. As a result, Weil felt dehumanized.”
In 1936, she joined a militia, despite her professed pacifism, to fight on the Republican side in Spanish Civil War. However, Weil was nearsighted and quite clumsy, culminating in her stepping in a boiling pot of oil, and badly burning her leg. She did not see combat apart from firing her rifle at a bomber during an air raid. After injuring her leg, she left Spain to travel in Portugal and Italy, where she encountered Christianity. Her spiritual encounter with Christianity produced several books, gave a mystical quality to her philosophy, and continued to inform her politics and thinking the rest of her short life. Her most famous work is the ambitious The Need for Roots, in which she examines the past, the cultural and ethical setting for France’s defeat by the Germans, and aims to provide a road map for the future of France. While she wrote throughout her life -with her most important works written in a mere fifteen years – her ideas did not receive widespread attention until after her death.
Her early death at age 34 has given rise to several theories. The official cause of death is described as cardiac arrest brought on by self-starvation and tuberculosis, and it’s here the theories emerge. The coroner himself describes her last days as a sort of hunger strike in solidarity with the German families afflicted by the war, who were eating limited rations. Another theory states the philosopher was so weak from tuberculosis she was unable to eat. Still another claims she was influenced by the writings of Schopenhauer, who extolled starvation as the only noble form of self-denial. Regardless of the events leading up to her death, Weil’s life is a grand example of living out your convictions.
Her quote, encouraging us to investigate as much as possible rather than theorize, applies to more than social conditions. The most literal example of this advice is the scientific method. Observe, question, hypothesize, test, refine. These sure and steady steps have ushered in the modern era of human civilization. Empirical observation, being up close to the subject in question, forming detailed hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, and repeating the process works in the lab and in real life social conditions.
Investigating also applies to less formal ideas. Quotes, statistics, and claims can be verified in most cases. If you’re unsure of a fact, look it up. Facts can be validated with certainty. Beyond facts, read first hand accounts from people who have lived through foreign experiences; don’t just take the word of random people online. Talk to people who have different backgrounds than yours. Do the work to understand perspectives and empathize with others. Follow Weil’s example and spend time working or volunteering in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Don’t theorize about what you can experience first hand.
Weil’s example reminds me of a passage in Emerson’s “The American Scholar” address, where he is describing the whole man, detailing how the American scholar must join life experience together with what they extract from the lessons of history. “Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen into truth….The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power,” wrote Emerson. Being a philosopher didn’t preclude Weil from taking concrete physical action on behalf of so many people. It shaped her philosophy and commanded respect, prompting Albert Camus to declare her, “The only great spirit of our times.” Let us not be too theoretical in our knowledge, but willing to live out our curiosity, eager to learn first hand the lessons only experience can impart. Where we can live the answers, let us boldly do so.
It’s refreshing to read about a woman; young, French, who lived out her ideals; lofty and egalitarian. Her ideas and life together stand in stark contrast with so many of the past’s philosophers and today’s social media activism. Weil’s life proves true the adage “what you do speaks so strongly I can not hear what you say;” she was discontent to wonder and theorize when the world presents the opportunities to learn first hand through direct experience. Let us avoid this error as often as possible.
Photo by Vitoria Beatriz Fetter on Unsplash
