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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[ON KANT.]

Kant (Emmanuel). He has written much. His ideas of critique (or examination) of the principles of pure and practical reason (that is, of metaphysics and morality), of judgment (or taste in the fine arts), of law (civil and political), theology, etc. came to him late. His first work of this kind (the Critique of Pure Reason) was printed in Riga in 1781 or 2. Kant was then nearly sixty. His first ideas, among the latest he adopted, begin to disentangle themselves only in his discourse “de mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis,” delivered at Kœnigsberg in 1770: he was then fifty-six. We have by him, translated into French, the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, published by the author in 1764; the Project for Perpetual Peace, 1788; the Idea of a Universal History Written with Cosmopolitan Views, 1784.

Charles Devillers, in his translation of the Idea of a History, published in 1798, had announced that he intended shortly to deliver to the public the translation of the book entitled “Critique of Pure Reason.” But he has not kept his word. He does not even mention this promise in the book he has just published (August 1801) under the title “Exposition of Kant’s Philosophy.” The Latin translation we have of Kant’s works is written in a harsh, obscure, tangled style. It is true German Latin. Yet one must be content with it. The translation is by Frédérich Gottlob Born, dedicated to [blank]), 1796, 97, 98. Leipsick.

Note. — Kant seems to have made a laborious language for himself. And as it was laborious for him to construct, it is laborious to understand. This has doubtless often made him take his operation for his material. He believed he was constructing ideas for himself when he was constructing only words. But there is something so opaque (and brown) in his phrases and apprehensions that it was scarcely possible for him not to believe there was some solidity there. This is the danger into which a [ ] and heavy style naturally leads the mind of the person who employs it. Our transparencies and our lightnesses deceive us less. There is a subject to treat. Here it is: “On the deceptions the mind practices upon itself, according to the nature of the language it employs.” Kant’s (language) is composed of very positive abstract words (that is, of thick shadows). And these words he has often made himself. Has therefore received from them all the impressions realities make upon us.

Hume’s remark on the link between cause and effect struck him. He felt himself awaken from his scientific drowsiness, and his mind shook off the cold languor into which it had long since fallen.

“Since my destiny is to love metaphysics (he says elsewhere) and to love it alone.”

August 31.

His book would therefore very aptly be called Critique or discernment of what (in our thoughts) belongs to our mind alone and not to external objects.

True philosophical grammar.

We therefore see time within ourselves.

The object of morality is duty. Its end is virtue. His own virtue and the happiness of others, there is man’s double end. Happiness is [his] supreme destination. It is not what he ought to seek, but only what he can obtain and expect if he is worthy of it.

Law governs action. Morality governs the rule.

Every man must have within himself a force that makes even his most secret actions bend to the rule. Each must be his own magistrate, king, judge.

Infinite benevolence, well-regulated beneficence or well-doing. (He holds that love and hatred cannot be commanded; why not?)

No virtue without ascendancy over oneself.

Ἀπάθεια: a kind of unshakability indispensable to virtue.

September 1.

Kant. He is mistaken. The measure of all things is (not man, not the mind of man, but) the immovable for the movable, the infinite for the limited, the same for what is changeable, the eternal for the transient. God is as necessary to metaphysics as to morality.

September 2.

And your alexandrine style...

If we have this destination, why is life given to us except to make ourselves fit for it; but making ourselves fit for it is not enough: we must also make ourselves worthy of it. Dignity, says Kant. Well! then, let us adopt this word, but in the sense we mean.

S3.Source editor’s annotationThis short notice on Kant is not in the notebooks. I find it on a separate, undated leaf, which this line allows one to date: “the book he has just published (August 1801).”

T87.The dates, ages, names, and titles are retained as reported in the notice, including nearly sixty and fifty-six; they have not been silently corrected. In publié[es], the source editor supplies a French agreement ending that English published cannot reproduce naturally; no bracket is added to suggest that the entire verb was supplied.

T88.De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis means On the form and principles of the sensible and intelligible world. The title remains in Latin in the text.

T271.Printed Emmanuel, practique, Devillers, Frédérich, Leipsick, oppaque and the bibliographic dates/age fifty-six remain as printed, without factual corrections to the French. The source editor’s publié[es], blank [blanc] and empty [ ] are preserved; the unmatched closing parenthesis after [blanc] remains. The right edge on 296 and left edge on 297 clip numerous word beginnings/endings; ordinary completions are supplied from surviving words and syntax, including Kœnigsberg. The final A reçu is a printed fragment without a subject; no Il is supplied. The source-editor [SUR KANT.] heading ends the Savigny section and extends through 297/e02.

T272.The source editor infers a date from an internal August 1801 reminder; the loose leaf has no independent date. The right edge clips endings of trouve and le; completed from the surviving text.

T89.The criticism of the Latin translation is Joubert’s reported judgment. [blank]) retains the source’s supplied blank label and unmatched closing parenthesis. The printed Devillers, Frédérich and Leipsick spellings remain.

T90.Laborious repeats pénible three times. Apprehensions renders appréhensions as acts or forms of apprehending, not anxieties. Opaque, brown, solidity, transparencies, lightnesses, and thick shadows retain the passage’s material images.

T91.Positive preserves positifs in the assertion that abstract words seem definite or substantial. The empty bracket remains empty. The final Has received is left without a supplied subject, as in A reçu.

S1.Source editor’s annotationWhat follows, on Kant, comes from another leaf (or, more precisely, notebook).

S2.Source editor’s annotation“volume 2. page 6. Hume’s remark is that of the link of cause to effect.”

T94.Scientific drowsiness retains assoupissement scientifique, without replacing it with a familiar wording from another translation of Kant. The bodily awakening and cold languor remain.

T273.The source’s new-leaf annotation call is printed beside the opening asterisk, before this entry. The left edge clips first letters of several lines; ordinary completions supplied. The quotation’s Puisque clause remains unfinished.

T95.The Since clause remains without a main clause. Alone renders uniquement as loving metaphysics exclusively.

T96.Object, end, and destination remain distinct. Happiness translates the source editor’s [Le] bonheur without an English definite article, while [his] marks the supplied [sa]. The bracket on Le therefore has no independent English word to carry it. Own virtue and others’ happiness preserve the double end.

T97.Both occurrences of règle as a verb are translated by governs, while the final noun remains rule. The compressed distinction between law and morality is not expanded.

T98.Benevolence remains distinct from beneficence or well-doing, preserving the source’s two terms bénéficence and bienfaisance. He holds reads Il veut as the position under discussion; the question why not remains Joubert’s.

S1.Source editor’s annotationJoubert writes: Ἀπάτια.

T99.The main text retains the source editor’s Ἀπάθεια; the separate source note preserves Joubert’s different written form Ἀπάτια. The Greek is not silently replaced by the modern English word apathy.

S2.Source editor’s annotationHere we return to the notebooks.

T100.The repeated for preserves pour in the paired terms; the same translates le même without turning it into an abstract doctrine of identity.

T101.The fragment does not identify the addressee or specify the application of alexandrin. The adjective is retained as alexandrine without supplying a verse form or an allusion.