Friendship and Purity of Soul

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Year of Publication

2000

Author

Rhees, Rush

Editor

Phillips, D. Z. (Dewi Zephaniah)

Book

Discussions of Simone Weil

Pages

127-138

Publisher

State University of New York Press

Place Published

Albany, NY

Language

English

Chapter

10

Keywords

compassion
friendship
purity

Annotation

Rhees contrasts Weil’s notion of purity to those of Plato’s, finding significant differences between them. He goes on to look at her claim there is ‘pure and impure’ compassion and friendship, raising many questions about Weil’s meaning here. He concludes by noting that Weil’s notions of the supernatural and of God are tied to her notion of a purity that does not ‘exist’, something, he says, he has not tried to explain but only desires to show why he has such difficulty making sense of it.