The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.
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Simone Weil’s radical philosophy of love and attention
Sean Illing speaks with history professor Robert Zaretsky about Simone Weil, a 20th-century French writer and activist who dedicated her life to a radical philosophy of love and attention. They discuss how she inspired her contemporaries — like Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir — and how her revolutionary ideas have remained relevant and important.
Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area
Guest: Robert Zaretsky, history professor, The University of Houston
References:
- The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by Robert Zaretsky (The University of Chicago Press, 2021)
- “The Philosophers: Resisting Despair” by Sean Illing (Vox, May 2022)
- The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Routledge, 2022)
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This episode was made by:
- Engineer: Patrick Boyd
- Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
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