Panel: SIMONE WEIL AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY



655.4 - "DIEU DANS PLATON": MYSTICISM AND MEDIATION IN SIMONE WEIL'S PLATONISM

AUTHORS:
Schneider P. (University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria)
Text:
Written during her stay in Marseille between 1941 and 1942, my paper explores two lesser-known manuscripts of Simone Weil containing a series of notes entitled "Dieu dans Platon" ("God in Plato"). These notes offer a condensed glimpse into Weil's highly original and deliberately anachronistic reading of Plato, in which she does not present him as the founder of Western metaphysics or political philosophy, but as an "authentic mystic" avant la lettre. Accordingly, Plato does not appear at the beginning of Western philosophy but rather at the end of a largely lost tradition of Greek wisdom encompassing currents such as Orphism and Pythagoreanism, while at the same time anticipating key themes of later Christian mysticism. His dialogues are thus not to be read as systematic philosophical treatises but as texts that hint at a deeper spiritual doctrine that cannot be directly stated but must be "divined". Starting from the manuscripts of "Dieu dans Platon", my paper examines how Weil transforms central themes of Platonic philosophy into elements of a distinctly religious and political vision. Of particular interest is the way she understands Platonic philosophy not as a doctrine of truth or salvation in transcendence, but as a demanding practice situated within the conditions of earthly necessity. By reading Plato as a thinker of mediation (metaxu) between the human and the divine, Weil develops a philosophy that is at once mystical and political: a discipline of remaining oriented toward the Good while exposing oneself fully to the tensions and necessities of the world. As I argue, it is precisely this tension - a radical exposure to the world together with the conspicuous absence of any promise of redemption or eschatological fulfillment - that lies at the center of Weil's philosophical project and opens new perspectives on the relationship between Greek philosophy, mysticism, and political thought.