Notebooks. Volume 4 (July 1942-August 1943)

The fourth, final volume of Simona Weil’s notebooks contains texts related to the last year of the philosopher’s life - from the beginning of emigration to a dying illness, which did not allow her to be realized to give the life of France’s freedom in the armed struggle with the Nazis. In addition to the actual notebooks, a number of articles of religious, political and even military content are included here. Mystical stress, the pathos of the preacher and readiness for the martyrdom are combined here with a balanced and perspicacious political analysis, the desire for absolute good, proclaimed as the only goal - with ideas and proposals, the common practical meaning of which confirmed the time and experience. Tom is complemented by the conversation of the translator with the literary critic Olga Bull.
The publication is dedicated to the memory of Francois Fede, a French philosopher who died on April 29, 2021.
Publishing house and translator thank Y. I. Gorodetsky for help in the publication of the book.
“An urgent, urgent task: to build the logic of the absurd. To determine the criterion of the true and false in that transcendental area where the contradiction is appropriate is in the field of the sacrament. In this area, accuracy is needed even more than in mathematics. The accuracy is new, about which today they have no idea. Here is a criterion: a truly absurd is a reflection, transposition, a translation of one of the unsettled absurdity in the conditions of human existence. It is necessary to explore these unheard of absurdity. ” Simone Weil