Editing Simone Weil (section)

=== Beauty ===
Simone Weil's concept of beauty is not an isolated aesthetic category, but a deeply moral and spiritual principle that interweaves with nearly every facet of her thought, including affliction, attention, justice, God, and the pursuit of truth.<ref name=":15">{{Cite book|last=Rozelle-Stone |first=Rebecca |title=Simone Weil: A Very Short Introduction |chapter=Beauty |chapter-url=https://academic.oup.com/book/55988/chapter-abstract/440093395?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false |access-date=2025-05-16 |website=academic.oup.com|date=2024 |pages=92–106 |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780192846969.003.0006 |isbn=978-0-19-284696-9 }}</ref> In ''Gravity and Grace'', she writes: "The love of the beauty of the world is the only pure love. It is the love that enables us to look at things without trying to appropriate them."<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |title=Gravity and grace |last2=Thibon |first2=Gustave |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-29001-2 |edition=1st |location=London, New York |publication-date=2002 |language=English |translator-last=Crawford |translator-first=Emma |translator-last2=Von der Ruhr |translator-first2=Mario}}</ref>{{rp|148}} She reiterates this in a related line: "The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it be."<ref name=":9" />{{rp|148}} Here, Weil expresses that beauty fosters a kind of ethical desire, one that does not consume but simply affirms the existence of what is beautiful. This idea links beauty directly to justice, which she defines not as fairness or social order, but as the full recognition of another's reality without attempting to possess or alter it. In her words "Justice consists in seeing that no harm comes to those whom we have noticed as real beings."<ref name=":9" />{{rp|151}} Weil laments that modern civilization (its politics, media, education, and literature) has severed this connection between beauty and truth. It fosters a corrupt understanding of greatness, rooted in power and spectacle rather than humility, attention, and beauty. She contrasts this with true greatness as seen in Zen poems, Giotto's paintings, and the lives of saints<ref name=":412">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|180}} As such, Weil propose beauty as something that can help someone transcend the perspective of an individual's own project.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Rozelle-Stone |first1=A. Rebecca |title=Simone Weil |date=2024 |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simone-weil/#Aest |access-date=2025-05-15 |edition=Summer 2024 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |last2=Davis |first2=Benjamin P. |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}}</ref><ref name=":15" />
Theologically for Weil, "The beautiful is the experiential proof that the incarnation is possible". The beauty that is inherent in the form of the world (this inherency is proven, for her, in [[geometry]], and expressed in all good [[art]]) is the proof that the world points to something beyond itself; it establishes the essentially [[teleology|telic]] character of all that exists. In Weil's concept, beauty extends throughout the universe:<blockquote>"[W]e must have faith that the universe is beautiful on all levels...and that it has a fullness of beauty in relation to the bodily and psychic structure of each of the thinking beings that actually do exist and of all those that are possible. It is this very agreement of an infinity of perfect beauties that gives a transcendent character to the beauty of the world...He (Christ) is really present in the universal beauty. The love of this beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe".<ref name="pp164">Weil, Simone. ''Waiting For God''. Harper Torchbooks, 1973, pp. 164–165.</ref></blockquote> She also wrote that "The beauty of this world is Christ's tender smile coming to us through matter".<ref name="pp164" />

''[[Beauty]]'' also served a [[soteriological]] function for Weil: "Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul." It constitutes, then, another way in which the [[divine]] reality behind the world invades people's lives: where affliction conquers with brute force, beauty sneaks in and topples the empire of the self from within.{{cn|date=May 2025}} Overall, Simone Weil views beauty as a manifestation of divine reality that draws the soul toward truth and goodness. For her, beauty has an impersonal quality that compels ''attention'', a key virtue in her philosophy. Beauty can momentarily lift a person out of self-centeredness, preparing them to encounter God. It is not merely aesthetic, but moral and spiritual in nature.<ref name=":15" />