Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cartesian background
- 3 The sensations of the present moment
- 4 “La simple perception de la nature est une sorte de danse”
- 5 Language
- 6 Necessity
- 7 Equilibrium
- 8 “Completely free action”
- 9 The power to refuse
- 10 “The void”
- 11 Geometry
- 12 Incommensurability
- 13 Beauty
- 14 Justice
- 15 “A supernatural virtue”?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - The power to refuse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cartesian background
- 3 The sensations of the present moment
- 4 “La simple perception de la nature est une sorte de danse”
- 5 Language
- 6 Necessity
- 7 Equilibrium
- 8 “Completely free action”
- 9 The power to refuse
- 10 “The void”
- 11 Geometry
- 12 Incommensurability
- 13 Beauty
- 14 Justice
- 15 “A supernatural virtue”?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the preceding chapters I have tried to show how the account of concept formation underlying Simone Weil's early thinking led her into difficulties when she tried to apply it to the conception human beings have of each other. Let me recapitulate the outlines of the argument.
Our concepts are formed as our primitive, unreflective reactions to our surroundings are transformed, refined, into more ordered, methodical modes of behaviour. The order in which the steps constituting these procedures are carried out is a necessary one in the sense that observance of the order in the carrying out of the steps is a criterion of their constituting a given methodical procedure. In many cases certain abstract conceptual constructions are created, the necessary properties of, and relations between, which are derived from the necessary order of the procedural steps by which they are created. These concepts are given physical application in our dealings with our environment; they are used, for instance, in the description of various objects in such a way that the necessities involved in the concepts become criteria for the classification of those objects into determinate kinds. Objects of a certain kind are thereby themselves characterized as having certain necessary properties and relations.
Thus, for example, “we cannot construct a polygon before a triangle.” This necessary feature of our geometrical procedure helps to determine the concepts “polygon” and “triangle,” in such a way that various sorts of polygon are related to the triangle in a necessary way.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Simone Weil: "The Just Balance" , pp. 102 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989