Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics
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\u27Ecce homo\u27 ou les labyrinthes de la lecture
No full textThe motif of reading is placed at the center of Ecce Homo as both a vital problem and a practice in action. Nietzsche undertakes to reread every one of his "so good books" except the one he is currently writing, placing his reader in a position identical to his own. Faced with this ultimate Nietzschean "Library of Babel," the reader will have to re-experience for himself what it means to read his works, and assess his own reading biases in light of the ascending or declining values associated with the text. Rarely noticed by its best commentators, Ecce Homo\u27s "abysmal" mirrored reading device is also that of a labyrinth, haunted by the figures of Ariane and Dionysus, and its singular composition combines the doctrine of eternal return with the selective experiment of reading. 
Sortir du nihilisme : Nietzsche, Mill et l’individualité comme clé de transformation morale et civilisationnelle
Full text linkNietzsche’s criticism of the masses could have looked hackneyed at the end of the XIXth century, had it not the originality of moving onto psychological and biological levels what others previously elaborated only at a social scale: a "herd instinct" explaining both the lack of social cohesion and the loss of possible individual affirmation in democratic and egalitarian ages. As he sees the utilitarian promotion of happiness and empathy as part of the problem, he fiercely condemns John Stewart Mill’s philosophy – as he understands it. Our point is to throw into relief that Mill’s theory of individuality is but closer to Nietzsche’s views for regenerating life against the spreading of democratic "nihilism". Our cross-reading of Mill and Nietzsche therefore aims at offering a reassessment of their antagonism and at highlighting ways of overcoming "nihilism" via culture and cultivation of the "character" and the individual surpassing of oneself
Se transporter dans l\u27autre" : une théorie weilienne de l’empathie ?
No full textDefined as the ability to understand and share others\u27 feelings and suffering, empathy seems to come naturally to mind when we consider Simone Weil\u27s life and works. If this concept doesn\u27t explicitly appear in her writings, "pity", "sympathy" and "compassion" are pervasive: the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how these notions converge on the contemporary understanding of "empathy". Since the turn of the century, this concept has known such a development that it has become difficult to clearly identify its object, and to appreciate its ethical value. To study Simone Weil\u27s works from the angle of empathy offers both a new approach of the concept, and a very relevant point of view to put in light the great continuity between all the fields of the philosopher\u27s thought. Our main hypothesis is that the weilian theory of empathy is based on the idea of "transposition", a process that allows someone to transport himself into another person, and from the natural to the supernatural dimension. It is in this last dimension that Simone Weil can found intersubjectivity, and solve the ethical problem of empathy: the right distance between the Self and the Other
Simone Weil and the need for obedience: political, religious, and ethical dimensions
Full text linkThis essay explores the development of Simone Weil\u27s conception of obedience across religious, political, and ethical contexts. By bringing together these strands of Weil\u27s thought, it aims to illuminate some important connections in her treatment of obedience throughout these diverse topics. The author argues that Weil\u27s political treatment of obedience is deeply influenced by ideas in Christian thought, and that this account is situated within an understanding of obedience in the natural world which is itself ethically loaded. Hence it is suggested that Weil\u27s account of obedience has something to offer philosophy today: namely, a conception of obedience which recognises the practical and ethical need for obeying others, but which is distinct from the mere submission to power
From Inattentiveness Towards Moral Failures: Acknowledging Simone Weil in Iris Murdoch’s Literary Writings
Full text linkSimone Weil\u27s ideas proved fundamental for Iris Murdoch, opening up a difficult path of thought for one rooted in the British philosophical tradition in the 1950s (Sim 1985, Bok 2005, Lovibond 2011a, Panizza 2022a, Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman 2022). Grasping the Weilian-inspired moral theory of attention sketched by Iris Murdoch is a prerequisite for comprehending the development of her moral ideas (Panizza 2015, Broackes 2012) and the form they may take in her literary writings (Griffin 1993, Morgan 2006). This paper argues that we can read an expression of Simone Weil in Iris Murdoch\u27s novels which articulate her notions of grace and gravity, but also convey the Weilian insights that shape Murdoch\u27s moral perfectionism. It investigates three of Murdoch\u27s well-known male protagonists, i.e., Bradley Pearson, Charles Arrowby and Hilary Burde, so as to comprehend how their moral failures relate to a defective implementation of the concepts of love and attention as theorised by Simone Weil as leading to goodness. Hence, it offers a new examination of the way in which the Murdochian literary staging of inattention as a cause of moral deficiency reveals its Weilian-based ethics of attention
Simone Weil et les dimensions mystiques de la nourriture
Full text linkThis article aims to examine the mystical meanings of food in the texts Gravity and Grace, Waiting for God, and First and Last Notebooks by the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943). The main questions posed over the course of this study are as follows: How does Weil interpret food in her mystical texts? What relationship do her ideas have with her context of the Second World War, with Judaism, with her body? Are biomedical understandings of behavior, such as anorexia nervosa, applicable to Weil? The methodology will involve an in-depth reading of the three texts mentioned above, sketching the key theories of decreation and affliction. The main thesis of the paper is that food has an irremediably ambiguous status in Weil, marking both the degrading subjection of the human being to the earthly laws of necessity and gravity, and paradoxically, a path to salvation, where, through the spiritual transformation of decreation, the human being eats and is eaten by God. The author argues that this quasi-Christian mysticism must first be understood in Weil’s context of the Second World War, and that it also involves a problematic relationship with Judaism. Moreover, this study contends that interpretations utilizing primarily medical frameworks to understand Weil\u27s food deprivation, such as anorexia nervosa, are insufficient. Such pathologization, as will be demonstrated, neglects the complex and often ambiguous mystical, ethical, and ontological meanings that Weil locates in hunger.
La "dissolution" paradoxale du sujet dans la période nietzschéenne de la "maturité"
Full text linkIn Nietzsche\u27s "mature" texts, we are witnessing a complete dissolution of the subject. At first glance, however, this appears highly paradoxical (Wotling 2015), leading some commentators to suggest that there is a real contradiction in Nietzsche\u27s work (Gardner 2009), insofar as the author never ceases to speak of himself and at the same time invites his reader to become who he is. Are we to understand, then, that any self is illusory and constitutes a metaphysical illusion, i.e., that the becoming in which we are always caught according to Nietzsche must make any position of a self impossible, and at the very least diminishing? Following in the footsteps of Alexander Nehamas (1985), we believe that we can overcome the contradiction identified by S. Gardner by showing that Nietzsche\u27s conception of the self is not "realistic", but precisely also fictional and dynamically positive at the same time
Dispositifs pulsionnels et économies de la subjectivation : actualités de Nietzsche au prisme de Pierre Klossowski
Full text linkThis article aims to reposition Nietzsche\u27s thought within contemporary fields of research through the prism of its reception by Pierre Klossowski. Our analysis makes use of Klossowski\u27s unpublished manuscripts, allowing us to better articulate and situate Nietzsche\u27s thought within Klossowski\u27s thought, which is nourished by a dialogue that goes beyond his work devoted to Nietzsche and develops an analysis that is particularly amenable to updating. In developing a Nietzsche-informed general economy of subjectivation, Klossowskian theory tends toward various aspects of theoretical explorations present in media thought and the posthumanities. In doing so, we show that Nietzsche\u27s thought, as approached by Klossowski, allows for unprecedented connections that shed light on the genealogy of the posthumanities, conceptually enrich research in Media archaeology and Science and Technology Studies, and anticipate the crucial role of affect and information in contemporary processes of subjectivation
Blood on the Leaves / Blood on the Roots: Nietzsche, Schürmann, and Wynter on Ressentiment, Bad Conscience, Doublesness, and Metaphysics at the Birth of the Human Being as Praxis at the End of Metaphysics
Full text linkThis paper sets out to investigate the Nietzschean connection between Sylvia Wynter and Reiner Schürmann through a reading of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche’s account of ‘bad conscience’ is read through the Wynterian and Fanonian concept of ‘sociogeny’ to demonstrate its necessity to Nietzsche’s project of the Great Redeemer. This paper, then, demonstrates a previously undiagnosed influence of Nietzsche on Wynter and the role that anarchy plays in her construction of the ‘human being as praxis’. The essay concludes with an amelioration of Schürmann’s epochal genealogy to account for a racialized lacunae present in his Western genealogy of thought. It is by bringing all three together that we understand anarchy as being firmly committed to anti-racist and anti-anti-Black enactments. It concludes by highlighting the possibility of metaphysics after the withering of epochal archē in what this paper calls ‘the multitude of metaphysics’
La réception surréaliste de Simone Weil. Simone Weil et Georges Bataille
Full text linkDespite her hostility to surrealism, Simone Weil received a paradoxical reception in the work and thought of Georges Bataille. From this point onwards she has attracted the interest of psychoanalysis up to the present day. After their meeting and exchanges at the beginning of the 1930s, Bataille wrote a novel in which he created a portrait of Simone Weil and asks, through her, questions which served to develop and enrich the next stages of his theoretical constructions. This pathway to progress through reference to Simone Weil has often gone unnoticed. However, it deserves to be reconstituted because it brings a disturbing light that Weil would not have approved but that could help us to renew our understanding of her personality and her work