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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[SAVIGNY NOTEBOOK]

I therefore call space everything that is not me and is nothing determinate.

August 30.

Yes, but the understanding is inevitably inclined to represent to itself in detail, piece by piece and feature by feature.

That is to say, if he does not admit it as thought, he admits it as practice. He admits it as just, and the others, on the contrary, admit it as quantity but reject it as rule, etc.

Observ. To prove freedom through crime (which is resistance to one of the inclinations of our being — toward good) as well as through acts of virtue (which are also a deviation from our inclination toward well-being) is admirable.

Ideas that one can readily conceive but cannot use as one pleases, that it is not possible to make more or less perceptible, more or less proved, for which, finally, one cannot fight, inspire less interest in men who are more ardent than enlightened, whose mind is more active than contemplative.

This does indeed bear some resemblance to a transcendental egoism, that is, to a state of mind in which one would admit only oneself as reality and everything else as phenomenon. Thus nature, for fear that we might abuse such a philosophy, has made it difficult for us to conceive.

And this doctrine does indeed sometimes seem to abolish the world, not through the intention of the author and his adherents, but through the natural, material, and unintended effect of their thing.

It is not only the language of the schools that he reforms, but the language of man that he annihilates.

Not through its consequences, but through its impressions.

August 31.

“They enchant death,” as Chateaubriand used to say.

God is everywhere, yes, but the mind of man sees him better in a church. He is more present to our mind there.

In the world, irreligion is now only a prejudice.

T79.Represent to itself renders se représenter without supplying the object omitted in the source; it need not mean that the understanding represents its own self.

T80.The unidentified he and it remain, along with thought/practice, just/quantity, and rule. No doctrinal content is inserted to complete the compressed reminder.

T81.Observ. abbreviates observation. Good and well-being remain distinct; crime and virtue resist different inclinations in the stated argument.

T82.Egoism retains égoïsme, defined within the passage as admitting only oneself as reality. It is not reduced to a claim about selfish conduct.

T83.Their thing preserves the deliberately unspecific leur chose rather than silently replacing it with system or doctrine.

S1.Source editor’s annotationA biography of Kant follows. It ends thus: “His logic has just been compiled and published. He has given an anthropology. — But the essentials of his doctrine are contained in the three Critiques. A physical geography by him is about to appear, compiled and brought up to date by his friend Professor Ring. He is still putting the finishing touches to a work entitled Transition from Metaphysics to Physics. His doctrine has been prohibited by the governments of several countries; it has been ill received in almost all.” Then Joubert notes this in pencil: “Hobbes, for M. de Chateaubriand.” Next, under the date August 31, 1801, come several pages of extracts (unless I am mistaken) from Kant. Joubert has understood Kant’s system well. “To demonstrate the influence of the nature of the understanding upon the nature of knowledge. Indeed, there is his purpose clearly expressed. Vid. pag. 130.” Then: “Children’s metaphysics... It is good, whatever he may say of it.” Then: “Distinction between two kinds of abstraction. Time, space, forms inherent in us with which we clothe everything introduced into us. See this whole chapter.” At the end of the notebook, a few thoughts no longer concerning Kant, which I reproduce.

T84.Its selects the doctrine or thing as the possessor of consequences and impressions; the source ses can also refer to the author. The separate fragment remains.

T92.Prohibited reads défendue with the governments and the following ill received as its context. The source’s Ring remains without replacing it with an inferred name. Anthropology translates printed antropologie; its French spelling remains.

T93.Vid. pag. 130 means See page 130. The statements that Joubert understood Kant and that the extracts are probably from Kant are Beaunier’s judgments, not new translator claims. His reported notebook dates remain in the annotation.

T269.The right scan edge clips multiple word endings, including de, Mais, paroître, le, intitulé, défendue, presque, système, nature, Puis, Voy. and trait; ordinary completions are supplied from the visible stems and syntax. Printed antropologie and Ring are retained, not silently standardized. The reported 31 août 1801 extracts and bibliographic dates remain source apparatus.

S2.Source editor’s annotationOne can read “disoit” or “diroit.”

T85.Used to say follows disoit. Beaunier’s separate note allows diroit, would say; the alternative is not silently incorporated into Joubert’s main text.