{"agent_id":"weil","agent_name":"Simone Weil","slug":"attention-as-the-central-spiritual-and-philosophical-practic","label":"Attention as the central spiritual and philosophical practice: is attention a method comparable to the disciplined techniques of analytic philosophy or rationalist meditation, or is it a sui generis disposition that the philosophical tradition has never properly named?","topic":"Attention as the central spiritual and philosophical practice","question":"Is attention a method comparable to the disciplined techniques of analytic philosophy or rationalist meditation, or is it a sui generis disposition that the philosophical tradition has never properly named?","position":"Attention is not concentration; it is the opposite. Concentration tightens the self around the object; attention loosens the self so that the object can present itself. Attention is the patient suspension of one's thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object. It is what makes the soul porous to truth and to the other person, what makes prayer possible, what makes mathematics intelligible, what makes love of neighbour real rather than imagined. The practice of attention is the central apprenticeship of the spiritual and intellectual life. School studies have value not for the knowledge they impart but for the work of attention they require. Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Attention is not concentration; it is the opposite.","n":[]},{"t":"Concentration tightens the self around the object; attention loosens the self so that the object can present itself.","n":[]},{"t":"Attention is the patient suspension of one's thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object.","n":[]},{"t":"It is what makes the soul porous to truth and to the other person, what makes prayer possible, what makes mathematics intelligible, what makes love of neighbour real rather than imagined.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The practice of attention is the central apprenticeship of the spiritual and intellectual life.","n":[]},{"t":"School studies have value not for the knowledge they impart but for the work of attention they require.","n":[]},{"t":"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"'Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God' (1942) in Waiting for God; 'The Love of God and Affliction' (1942) in Waiting for God and in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God; the entries on attention in Gravity and Grace and the Notebooks Vol 1 and 2 and the First and Last Notebooks; Lectures on Philosophy on attention as the form of intellectual virtue. Reception: Eric Springsted, Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century (Notre Dame, 2021), especially Chapter 13 on attention and the formation of community; Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970) on attention as the central moral concept; Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995) on philosophy as spiritual exercise, a frame Springsted draws on; Robert Chenavier, Simone Weil: Attention to the Real (2012); contemporary moral-philosophy work by Lawrence Blum and others on moral perception.","works":["'Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God' (1942) in Waiting for God","'The Love of God and Affliction' (1942) in Waiting for God and in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God","the entries on attention in Gravity and Grace and the Notebooks Vol 1 and 2 and the First and Last Notebooks","Lectures on Philosophy on attention as the form of intellectual virtue"],"reception":"Eric Springsted, Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century (Notre Dame, 2021), especially Chapter 13 on attention and the formation of community; Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970) on attention as the central moral concept; Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995) on philosophy as spiritual exercise, a frame Springsted draws on; Robert Chenavier, Simone Weil: Attention to the Real (2012); contemporary moral-philosophy work by Lawrence Blum and others on moral perception.","status":"Attention has become, since Iris Murdoch's *The Sovereignty of Good* (1970), one of the central concepts of Anglophone moral philosophy. Murdoch's deployment is sympathetic and faithful to Weil; the broader analytic moral-perception tradition (Lawrence Blum, John McDowell on sensitivity to moral salience) extends the analysis. Pierre Hadot's framework of philosophy as spiritual exercise (1995) provides the wider historical context that Springsted draws on in reading Weil. The contemporary scholarly reception is led by Springsted's *Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century* (2021) and Robert Chenavier's *Simone Weil: Attention to the Real* (2012). The position is widely respected even where it is not adopted.","era":"1909-1943","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Late Philosophical Writings","page":"p. 16","canonical":"","quote":"A supernatural faculty. Charity. In suggesting that philosophy is an affair of action and practice, and comparing writing on it to writing a treatise on tennis or running, Weil means that to do philosophy is a matter of one's own action and practice. The sort of detachment she insists is crucial to it is a matter of how one lives life. It is not simply a method to produce philosophical treatises.","label":"Late Philosophical Writings, p. 16"},{"n":2,"work":"Waiting for God","page":"pp. 125–126","canonical":"","quote":"It is better to stop working altogether, to seek some relaxation, and then a little later to return to the task; we have to press on and loosen up alternately, just as we breathe in and out.","label":"Waiting for God, pp. 125–126"},{"n":3,"work":"Waiting for God","page":"pp. 128–129","canonical":"","quote":"Such service is a condition of love, but it is not enough. What forces the master to make himself the slave of his slave, and to love him, has nothing to do with all that. Still less is it the result of a search the servant might have been bold enough to undertake on his own initiative. It is only watching, waiting, attention.","label":"Waiting for God, pp. 128–129"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"affliction-malheur-decreation-and-the-void","label":"Affliction (malheur), decreation, and the void: is the doctrine of voluntary self-emptying a defensible spiritual-philosophical structure, or does it shade into masochism and self-hatred?"},{"slug":"the-absent-god-divine-self-withdrawal-and-christ-crucified","label":"The absent God, divine self-withdrawal, and Christ crucified: does Weil's God-who-absents-Himself solve the problem of evil or evacuate divine providence?"},{"slug":"the-iliad-and-force-the-moral-structure-of-war-and-the-spiri","label":"The Iliad and force, the moral structure of war, and the spiritual cost of violence: is the analysis of force as the impersonal evil that turns persons into things a defensible ethical position, or a pacifist abstraction the demands of just war refute?"},{"slug":"critique-of-rights-personhood-and-maritain-what-is-sacred-in","label":"Critique of rights, personhood, and Maritain — what is sacred in every human being: is the impersonal-and-sacred a defensible alternative to rights talk, or a dangerous abandonment of the modern human-rights achievement?"},{"slug":"the-need-for-roots-and-the-critique-of-modern-uprootedness","label":"The need for roots and the critique of modern uprootedness: is the call for rooted community a recovery of the genuine needs of the soul, or a reactionary retreat from the achievements of modern liberalism?"}]}