European philosophy - the natural environment of what we call reason - did not generate itself, although there was a time when it believed in its self-creation ex nihilo. Philosophy has a great mother - religion. Religion is the background against which philosophy loomed, the soil out of which it grew. I will not try to characterize this soil and this background directly; I hope that the reasons for my reticence will become clearer in the course of my argument. From the very moment of its birth, European philosophy was destined to question the relationship between itself and its soil: myth. This became a particularly burning question (literally) when Christianity entered into the life of Europe, transforming all its institutions and traditions so profoundly that their continuity became problematic. This Christian abduction of Europe involved the second birth of everything European, including European philosophy...
Simone Weil – Love and Language
JVF Conference Papers
