Simone Weil

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French philosopher and activist who took a very pragmatic and grounded yet radical approach to her philosophy. The way which you direct your attention (i.e. your way of attending to the world) drastically influences how you experience the world. Weil went a step further and believed that your attention dictates which experiences are even possible to experience. Specifically, Weil called for a sort of ‘negative effort’ toward attention: one which removes the I from the experience and is receptive to all the possible experiences of the world. “Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain, who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it.” She held an intersubjective epistemology, believing that knowing the truth require

French philosopher and activist who took a very pragmatic and grounded yet radical approach to her philosophy. Attention and epistemology The way which you direct your attention (i.e. your way of attending to the world) drastically influences how you experience the world. Weil went a step further and believed that your attention dictates which experiences are even possible to experience. Specifically, Weil called for a sort of ‘negative effort’ toward attention: one which removes the I from the experience and is receptive to all the possible experiences of the world. “Our thought should be in

Simone Weil

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