Beginning of Simone Weil’s Metaxu: Interrogating for Truth

Simone Weil’s Metaxu: Interrogating for Truth

Dorothy Tuck McFarland (1983) views Simone Weil as a "writer with profoundly holistic vision of man [sic] and his [sic] relationship to the world" (pp. 168-169). This vision is demonstrated in Weil's use of Attention, Decreation, and, most specifically, Metaxu to integrate her words into a singular and consistent corpus of literature that we find today. As a hysteric, Weil demands all the knowledge that she possibly can and then is not satisfied and desires more knowledge. The hysteric's discourse demands knowledge beyond what is given by the master narrative, by the hegemony of the time, and this is exactly what Weil does in her discussion of Metaxu.

I understand the word Metaxu to refer to three main cognitive actions which Weil employs in description of the term; 1) Weil uses action when she postulates that a wall or veil is both a barrier and a way through; 2) She further uses an insistence on looking for and holding together contradiction; 3) And Weil intends the view of the idea of a means versus an ends. This demonstrates the ways I see Weil’s ambiguous use of Metaxu and its multiple, complementary meanings.

Weil (2002) does acknowledge a Platonic understanding of Metaxu as a "between" which she refers frequently to "the distance between the necessary and the good." (p. 105) However, her concepts explored in this article demonstrate that Weil is concerned not with middle ground between two contradictories, but the bridge that allows one the means to travel back-and­forth between these points. This use is somewhat different that the traditional use of Metaxu.

For Weil, Metaxu has many different connotations including suffering, contradiction, impossibility, and certain contradictions that connect us to our humanity.  What is of premium importance in understanding Weil’s use of Metaxu is its process or action. Weil takes her action use of Metaxu to accept challenges, contradictions and power struggles as they lead her further along the path of the hysteric's search for more truth or knowledge.

I have found Weil to be a hysteric, especially from the perspective of the psychoanalytic characterization of the hysteric based on the theory of Jacques Lacan.  The hysteric, in this conception, is the person who cannot accept authorities’ definitions.  The hysteric seeks the fill lack; it should be understood that in Lacanian theory lack can never be filled. Therefore, though not accepting truth Weil continues to seek it out.    

Weil was a political activist and thinker who also used theological notions in her writing. Weil does not make a distinction between political and spiritual realms in her idea of Metaxu. The message of Metaxu refers to the transcendent or a "higher plane." Therefore, Weil's methods of Metaxu also lead her to an understanding of a move, which is never fully complete, which conflates the spiritual and the political.

Sources: 

Weil, S. (2002). Gravity and grace. New York, NY: Routledge.

McFarland, D. T. (1983). Simone Weil. New York, NY: Ungar Publishing Company.