Abstract
Sub-titled ‘On the Spiritual Exercise of Philosophy’, this book by Simone Kotva—who teaches at the University of Cambridge—does four things very well. First, it provides a demanding yet rewarding examination of the complex relationship between activity and passivity, between effort and receptivity, in spiritual exercise and in philosophy. Second, it also expands our appreciation of how one of the major figures under scrutiny here, Simone Weil (1909–1943), stands within a tradition that is rarely acknowledged in the literature about her—a form of French spiritualism deeply influenced by Augustinianism. Third, in its treatment of philosophy as a spiritual exercise and an art of living, it offers a counterbalance to the (widely influential) work on this topic by Pierre Hadot, who leant more heavily to the Stoic emphasis on effort and concentration while neglecting the part played by passivity. Kotva reclaims passivity as a spiritual style and mode of being. Finally, although treated only very briefly in the concluding chapter, she very effectively links passivity to the renewal of interest being shown today in attention in ethics, to the slow movement (which resists the culture of constant busyness and haste) which savours and appreciates, rather than possesses and manipulates what is around it; and to the implications for ecological thinking. If the technocratic mentality of measurement, control and heavy-handed intrusiveness is to be countered and if concern for the environment is to be fostered, we need to learn how to tread lightly, to go gently and to act carefully.
A major strength is the historical perspective the author brings to this philosophical study. She successfully locates Weil against the intellectual hinterland that influenced her: Maine de Biran (1766–1824), Félix Ravaisson (1813–1900), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), and Alain (Emile Chartier, 1868–1951). These thinkers wrestled with the relative weight to be given to effort, striving, and concentration, on the one hand, and to receptivity, passivity, and openness to grace, on the other. In each case, including that of Weil, Stoic thinking played an important part in how they attempted to resolve the relative contribution of effort and passivity. On the whole, where they were drawn more to Stoic thinking, these writers tended to give more emphasis to effort; where Augustinianism was their dominant guide—especially as articulated in the line of French spiritualism traced out by Kotva—effort was downplayed and passivity, waiting, dependency on grace, even abandonment was stressed more.
The author shows how writers influenced by the stream of 17th-century French Augustinianism (for example, Fénelon) faced growing suspicion of mysticism (and such features as passivity, self-abandonment, and dependency on grace) throughout the 19th century and on into the 20th century; more and more the Stoic ideal of effort was being stressed while dependency on grace received less and less attention. Although not mentioned by the author, it is likely that this shift in emphasis was influenced by widespread secularization in society and the growing confidence of secularist thinking.
The attentiveness advocated in this book (and for which Weil is an exemplar) is similar in spirit and tone to that urged by Josef Pieper, who is quoted by the author (p. 7): ‘We have to be awake and active . . . but all the same, it is a “relaxed” looking . . . receiving the things that present themselves to us that come to us without any need for “effort” on our part to “possess” them.’ Paradoxically, the relaxed nature of such attentiveness is only arrived at as a fruit of preceding effort, though such effort cannot guarantee a successful outcome. Effort is necessary, but so is the capacity and the willingness to receive something from beyond oneself. Self-emptying creates the space to receive an unsolicited but welcome gift from beyond our selves (grace).
Autonomy and dependency must be held in constant and creative tension. For Weil attentiveness requires active receptivity, the effort of waiting. For we are dual beings, active and passive, and for us the world is both obstacle and means (it thwarts us and yet also supports us); it is what separates us from God and at the same time it is that through which we are allowed to know God. In her chapter on Weil, Kotva offers a striking image. ‘When the sailor tacks against the wind they are not manipulating the wind; they are placing themselves in such a position as to make use of the wind’s power, which does not change but remains unaltered, and entirely beyond human control. It is the same with human action in general, which is never the result of changing the world at will and through effort, but of figuring out how to obey it’ (p. 144). In promoting the importance of passivity, Weil distinguishes (p. 150) between passivity which is imposed and against our will (and thus can only be submitted to blindly and with bitterness) and passivity that is motivated by love, is undertaken willingly and so becomes generative of good (within ourselves and for others).
What was meant by spiritual exercise, clearly a central notion for this book, seemed at times rather elusive. Although there are hints scattered throughout the book, it would have helped if, early on in the argument—in order to clarify what the writers covered here had in mind by the term—the author had provided a succinct and explicit description of what they meant by ‘spiritual exercise,’ along with some examples of the activities and virtues associated with it. Curiously, the term does not appear in the index. Sometimes the references to ‘spiritual life’ also seem rather abstract and unconnected to any particular practices. This reader was prompted to ask: how does spiritual effort differ from intellectual and moral effort?
However, despite these minor quibbles, this is a sophisticated, well-documented, and fertile piece of scholarship. In addition to the principal theme of the relationship between effort and passivity, light is also cast on such topics as the will, habit, spontaneity, desire, and intuition. The argument is clear, coherent, and cogent. Readers most likely to benefit will be postgraduate students and scholars in philosophy and in theology (especially those interested in the relation between philosophy and spirituality), scholars who focus on 19th- and 20th-century French thought, those who wish to understand the sources of Simone Weil’s thought, and, more broadly, those looking for a more rigorous and substantial foundation for an ecological approach to the world than the mindfulness movement and the plethora of self-improvement and well-being literature currently available.