Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Locke]

From all that Locke says on this subject and all that one can observe in oneself, one may conclude that: there are no innate judgments in us, but not that there are no innate ideas.

To play on sounds (or words) when this play results in no confusion of sense, but on the contrary brings clarity this play pleases.

We do not have the innate idea (or apprehension) of a certain essence or nature that we cannot see (that of spirit), we have an innate sense or feeling only of a certain rule of harmony and moral order (that of the just and unjust). The way this essence or nature exists and the very belief in its existence, the way this principle or rule should be applied and the particular rules that derive from it, are operations of our mind susceptible to infinite variations and even contradictions. This last point is like music. We all have the instinct for harmony; but we do not all have knowledge of it etc. etc. This is all I can see most clearly on this subject at this moment.

August 7.

(Myself.) 1. Whether there are or are not ideas that may be called innate is a question essentially bound up with the science, the knowledge of the soul; not simply a question of the schools.

2. If, when the proposition strikes the ear, the idea of a thing that has never struck the senses is born at once in our mind, hatches and develops there, one may believe, one may say, one must think that this is an innate idea, or one whose germ was in us, much as one supposes fire to be in the veins of the pebble. God exists, N is just, etc.

3. These innate ideas, or notions, or feelings are not indestructible in us. On the contrary, they can very easily be disfigured, denatured, altered, displaced, etc. (Though eternal, all this is mobile and easily driven out), like everything that is a germ.

Leibnitz. His word monad. Monad means unity.

Fénelon. He has metaphysical insights, not a body of doctrine. One could say as much of Malebranche.

Inn[ateness]. Descartes does not teach it. But he admits it, he supposes it, he thinks it, he believes it.

August 1.

Reading Locke.

August 2.

There are necessary and clear words in the language of the schools. They have remained. The others are found only in books, where they weary... Locke is full of them, though he contributed greatly to disentangling, purifying, and, so to speak, humanizing this philosophical idiom.

Mixed mode, for example. I ask what this can signify necessarily, that is, in such a way that no other word could express it as well. Likewise the terms complex ideas, real and nominal essence.

All these books are to philosophy what dictionaries are to grammar. They serve to fix the sense of words, but give no ideas. In these books, distrust words that have been unable to enter the world and are fit only to form a language apart.

He [Locke] taught philosophers to explain themselves and understand one another with a little more clarity. That is what all the much-praised services he rendered the human race can be reduced to.

He explains many questions that belong only to the schools; and a few others also that truly belong to science.

Let us distinguish carefully the questions that belong to science (or knowledge) and remain bound to it in every place, in every time, from those that belong only to the schools and have value, importance — and what am I saying — existence through fashion and fancy more than through nature and need, necessity.

August 3.

In considering these notions as germs we carry in our mind, which certain rays of light cause to hatch there, we understand ourselves; it is clearer.

T93.The French has no punctuation between clarté and ce jeu; the English keeps that unfinished join rather than silently inserting a clause boundary.

T94.The source prints Nous n’avons l’idée without a restrictive que before d’une. The English retains a negative reading. The parallel second clause and the surrounding discussion could suggest a missing que, which would instead yield We have the innate idea only of a certain essence. The French has not been emended, and the intended force of the first clause remains unresolved.

T213.The opening prints Nous n’avons l’idée without a following restrictive que before d’une; no missing complement is silently supplied.

T95.Myself renders the source’s parenthetical Moi. The numbered sequence 1–3 belongs to Joubert’s text, not to the translation’s stable entry numbering.

T96.Born, hatches, germ, and the veins of the pebble retain the successive images. N remains the source’s unfilled designation.

T97.Eternal, mobile, and easily driven out are all retained. The English does not reconcile the apparent tension between eternity and the germ’s vulnerability.

T98.Inn[ateness] marks the source editor’s expansion Inn[éité], retaining the visible opening letters and bracketing the corresponding English completion.

T99.Mixed mode, complex ideas, and real and nominal essence retain the technical terms under discussion. The English does not replace the terms with an explanation of Locke’s system.

T100.Understand one another reads s’entendre reciprocally among the philosophers. The reflexive possibility, understanding themselves, is not excluded by the French.

T101.Science retains science in the broad sense explicitly glossed by Joubert as knowledge. The schools denote scholastic or academic debate in this contrast, not merely schooling.

T102.We understand ourselves follows on s’entend; mutual understanding is also possible. Rays causing germs to hatch preserves the mixed light and growth image.