Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Simone Kotva is a research fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she teaches philosophical theology. She has published articles on French spiritualism, the philosophy of attention, and metaphysics.<i>Effort and Grace</i> is a captivating book that guides us through a tradition of French philosophical thought rarely discussed outside of France ... [It] is an important book for anyone who shares an interest in the critical and constructive potential of the notion of grace for contemporary approaches that want to resist the reduction of spirituality to a modern project wholly centred on the volitional effort of the ego.
The Heythrop Journal
Simone Kotva’s <i>Effort and Grace </i>makes several contributions, not the least of which is a critique of Hadot’s work by drawing on the French spiritualist tradition which Hadot himself was indebted to. Kotva’s book should be read by anyone who claims inspiration from Hadot or the growing literature around spiritual exercises.
Metaphilosophy
Kotva’s <i>Effort and Grace</i> is both a brilliant intervention in the contemporary debate over philosophy as spiritual practice and a compelling argument for the importance of Simone Weil to this discussion. Kotva’s book is also the most powerful and erudite treatment of the philosophy of French Spiritualism I am aware of in English. A significant work that is also a delight to read.
Jacob Sherman, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, California Institute for Integral Studies, USA
Increasingly it is seen that there are not two schools of modern philosophy: Analytic and Continental but three: English Empiricism, German Idealism and French Spiritualism. This books serves as a truly excellent and absorbing English introduction to this 'third way', with its extraordinary combination of introspection and realism, humanism and naturalism, mysticism and speculation, that render it so fitted to our new Twenty-First Century concerns and crises.
John Milbank, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Politics and Ethics, University of Nottingham, UK
In this pioneering monograph, Kotva shows how philosophy as spiritual exercise plays a crucial part in one current of modern, as well as all of ancient philosophy. As a result, Simone Weil is elevated to a position of central importance: her Christian hesitation between revived ancient schools demonstrates how the philosophical question of correct attention to reality is an integrally existential as well as conceptual matter. This book brilliantly demonstrates how Weil’s life and her thought continue to resonate with the deepest issues of our times.
Catherine Pickstock, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK
Philosophy and theology have long harboured contradictory views on spiritual practice. While philosophy advocates the therapeutic benefits of daily meditation, the theology of grace promotes an ideal of happiness bestowed with little effort. As such, the historical juxtaposition of effort and grace grounding modern spiritual exercise can be seen as the essential tension between the secular and sacred.
In Effort and Grace, Simone Kotva explores an exciting new theory of spiritual endeavour from the tradition of French spiritualist philosophy. Spiritual exercise has largely been studied in relation to ancient philosophy and the Ignatian tradition, yet Kotva’s new engagement with its more recent forms has alerted her to an understanding of contemplative practice as rife with critical potential.
Here, she offers an interdisciplinary text tracing the narrative of spiritual exertion through the work of seminal French thinkers such as Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, Alain (Émile Chartier), Simone Weil and Gilles Deleuze. Her findings allow both secular philosophers and theologians to understand how the spiritual life can participate in the contemporary philosophical conversation.
Preface
1 The spiritual exercise of philosophy: two ideals
2 The spiritual life: Maine de Biran
3 Grace: Félix Ravaisson
4 Effort: Henri Bergson and Alain (Émile Chartier)
5 The paradox of attention: Simone Weil
6 Epilogue: Reclaiming attention
Bibliography
Index
For the most part academic philosophy is considered a purely theoretical discipline that aims at systematic knowledge; contemporary philosophers do not, as a rule, think that they or their audience will lead better lives by doing philosophy. Recently, however, we have seen a powerful resurgence of interest in the countervailing ancient view that philosophy facilitates human flourishing. Philosophy, Seneca famously stated, teaches us doing, not saying. It aims to transform how we live. This ancient ideal has been continually reinvented from the Renaissance through to late modernity. It is now central to contemporary debates about philosophy’s role and future.
This series is the first synoptic study of the reinventions of the idea of philosophy as an ethical pursuit or ‘way of life’. Collectively and individually the books in this series will answer the following questions:
1. How have philosophers reanimated the ancient model of philosophy? How have they revised ancient assumptions, concepts and practices in the light of wider cultural shifts in the modern world? What new ideas of the good life and new arts, exercises, disciplines and consolations have they formulated?
2. Do these reinventions successfully re-establish the idea that philosophy can transform our lives? What have been the standard criticisms of this philosophical ambition and how have they been addressed?
3. What are the implications of these new versions of philosophy as a way of life for contemporary issues concerning the nature of philosophy, its procedures, limits and ends, and its relationship to wider society?