Simone Weil’s “Human Personality”: Between the Personal and the Impersonal

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

2005

Author

Hamilton, Christopher

Journal

Harvard Theological Review

Volume

98

Number

2

Pages

187-207

Language

English

Publish Dates

April

Keywords

affliction (malheur)
beauty
good
personal/impersonal
self
suffering

Annotation

This article looks at Weil’s claim there is some impersonal aspect within individual humans that seeks ‘the good’. The author goes on to present a well-researched in-depth discussion of the philosophical and theological concepts behind Weil’s claim and the response of scholars to it, pointing out a number of significant problems both in the interpretation of Weil’s claim and the claim itself. The article ends with an assessment of the value of the claim in light of and, in some senses, in spite of the problems raised in relation to it.

Notes

Reviewed by E. Jane Doering in Cahiers Simone Weil 31, no.1 (2008):86-91 (in English)