[lit-ideas] Re: Simone Weil (Was: Kataphatic, Negative and Apophatic Theo...

  • From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:38:40 -0400

At 01:28 PM 8/6/2004, you wrote:
>I don't know that she was trying to do science.  In other books which  she
>wrote for publication she likely was.  And they are much 
>more  analyzable.  But
>again, Gravity & Grace was her private personal  jouranlizing ramblings;
>thoughts she jotted to herself never thinking anyone  else would read 
>them.  If she
>had been approached about publishing them I'm  sure she would have
>restructured and reworded them.  Some of her entries I  find totally 
>comprehensible and
>straightforward.  Some are paradoxical and  fascinating in where they lead
>your mind.  Others are totally obscure  because she wrote in a sort of 
>personal
>shorthand that is pretty cryptic.   I really *really* need to find my copy!!

I'm not saying that she was necessarily trying to do science, but the 
quotes provided show that she was drawing a very clumsy connection between 
gravity and grace and running with it. She was CLEARLY trying to form an 
extended metaphor on this connection and for me, it doesn't work.

Here's one beef:

"To come down by a movement in which gravity plays no part... Gravity makes
things come down, wings make them rise:  What wings raised to the second
power can make things come down without weight?"

"wings raised to the second power"? Weil wouldn't know a square if she ran 
into one of its corners.

  I just can't stand it when people try to do this. It doesn't work. Things 
AIN'T exponentiatable.  Sorry, I'll get off my high horse -- with the help 
of gravity, we think.

paul

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