Foreword

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Year of Publication

1996

Author

Volkoff, Vladimir

Editor

Dunaway, John M. Springsted, Eric O.

Book

The Beauty That Saves: Essays on Aesthetics and Language in Simone Weil

Pages

ix-xvi

Publisher

Mercer University Press

Place Published

Macon, Georgia

Language

English

Keywords

Greek thought
metaxu (intermediaries)
patriotism

Annotation

Volkoff discusses how he encountered Weil and what she has come to mean to him. He identifies three paradoxes he in her thought, all having to do, he says, with the concept of mediation. The first of these centres on what he describes as Weil’s ‘old-fashioned value of patriotism’ as found in The Need for Roots. The second paradox was “that she was of Jewish extraction, but she was so fascinated with Greek thought” (p. xiii). Finally he says the third and most important paradox arises from Weil’s contention that “Christian charity springs from the same source as Greek geometry” (p. xiii).

Notes

Transcription by John M Dunaway of a talk by Volkloff at St. Joseph's Catholic Church on January 13, 1981. Significant content is available through Google Books -http://books.google.com.br/books?id=7R8K4gIqBEIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+beauty+that+saves&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false