Delivered by Rebecca Rozelle-Stone Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Philosophy & Ethics, University of North Dakota
Can Philosophy Answer Force? Simone Weil on Violence, the Good, and Radical Friendship
Is philosophy today a frivolity? In a time when truth-seeking is regularly mocked, amorality is treated as fashionable, distractions from contemplation are ubiquitous, and sadism is both rationalized and glamorized in our political worlds, is philosophy simply an intellectual indulgence that no longer holds relevance for us? Or could it be that philosophy still uniquely offers us a way life that goes beyond analytic puzzles, mere critiques of fallacy, correctives to falsehood, and resistance to violence-as valuable as these tasks undoubtedly are? Could we reclaim philosophy as an affirmative and active "loving of wisdom," a kind of askesis (exercise) that not only institutes a pause in the domain of force but also that ushers in what is genuinely good, including new and radical models of relationality with others? This two-part lecture is inspired by Simone Weil's famous 1939 essay, "The Iliad, or The Poem of Force," as well as her writings on friendship and love, to examine the question of whether philosophy and the loves it inspires might sufficiently address force in increasingly fascistic contexts. In the first lecture, Rebecca focuses on the phenomenon of force and how it is manifested in a technologically-mediated and power-obsessed society, drawing on Weil's analysis of the Iliad. In the second lecture, Rebecca turns her attention to the potential of friendship as outlined by Weil and the ways it can deliver us from political impotence, fear, and passivity into alternate spaces for flourishing, solidarity, inspiration, and joyful attentiveness.
Register now: https://www.acu.edu.au/about-acu/faculties-directorates-and-staff/faculty-of-theology-and-philosophy/school-of-philosophy/simone-weil-lecture/registration-brisbane>
