Maria Villela-Petit

Questioning Greece with Heidegger and Simone Weil

In this book a long-time student of  phenomenology and of Greek art and philosophy stages a “loving quarrel” between two daring thinkers who loved Greece but had diametrically opposed interpretations of its legacy. Maria Villela-Petit brings out unsuspected strengths in Simone Weil’s readings of Homer, Plato, and Greek Tragedy and unsuspected weaknesses in Heidegger’s historical construction and the tradition of German philhellenism which shaped it.

Available from Amazon US, UK, JP, &c. Also available in e-book format for Apple and Kindle.

“An excellent resource for those interested in the growing literature on Heidegger’s Greeks, this volume’s central strength lies in the comparative analysis of the dramatically divergent mindsets of Weil and Heidegger, which yields many insights for critical Heidegger scholarship. However, the volume has a wider reach, owing more to Weil than to Heidegger, in its concern with the roots of violence.” —Maria Clara Bingemer

“The volume is an excellent resource for those interested in the growing
literature on Heidegger’s Greeks, particularly Plato. Villela-Petit draws on
Simone Weil’s lesser-known but warmly responsive scholarship on the Greeks
to provide a supplement and a corrective to Heidegger’s idiosyncratic interpretations.” —Emile Alexandrov