Although most of Simone Weil's published writings are now available in English, I feel that English readers will be interested in these notes of her lectures, taken down by Madame Anne Reynaud-Guérithault when she was a pupil in a girls' lycée at Roanne where Simone Weil taught philosophy in the school year 1933–4. Madame Reynaud-Guérithault herself warns us that these are one pupil's hastily written notes and not a verbatim record of the lectures. Nevertheless they provide us with a fascinating glimpse of Simone Weil the teacher. In ‘hearing’ her trace the history of thought for her pupils, one hears echoes of her own philosophical training. But one is also struck by her breadth of knowledge and understanding, clarity of expression and, most forcibly of all, by her almost visionary ability to draw together strands of knowledge from many different fields. She deals here with a wide range of topics and so the book in itself is a good introduction to philosophy. Those who already know her later writings in translation will be interested to find them hinted at in part in these earlier thoughts.

The Leçons de philosophie were first published in French by Plon (1959). I have added brief explanatory notes on some of the references in the text which might be unfamiliar to Englishspeaking students using this as a first introduction to philosophy.