Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I
Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.
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English Page · Branch 2222 of 3781
[ON KANT.] · Entry 2222
French
p. 444318 octobre.
Kant. — Cet esprit a toujours devant les yeux quelque lueur, mais jamais aucune clarté. « Je me pique (dit-il quelque part) d’ignorer ce que tout le monde scait. » Il est au reste doué de la faculté de se représenter longtemps ses propres abstractions et de leur donner à ses yeux de la consistance et une durée presque absolue. Il a une grande puissance et une grande patience d’attention. Esprit tenace : c’est ce qui l’a rendu propre à établir très bien quelques principes généraux de la morale. Il semble croire que nous avons dans nos idées quelque chose de plus invariable et de plus indestructible que dans nos sentimens et dans nos penchants naturels eux-mêmes. Voilà pourquoi il regarde le mot devoir comme un mot si fort et si important. Toute bonté lui paroit molle et presque fluide, et tout sens du droit lui paroit inflexible. Aussi en tire-t-il sa règle.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I: [ON KANT.]
p. 4444October 18.
Kant. — This mind always has some glimmer before its eyes, but never any clarity. “I pride myself (he says somewhere) on not knowing what everyone knows.” He is, moreover, endowed with the faculty of representing his own abstractions to himself for a long time and giving them, in his own eyes, solidity and an almost absolute duration. He has a great power and a great patience of attention. A tenacious mind: this is what has fitted him to establish very well certain general principles of morality. He seems to believe that in our ideas we have something more invariable and more indestructible than in our feelings and even in our natural inclinations. That is why he regards the word duty as so strong and so important a word. All goodness seems soft and almost fluid to him, and every sense of right seems inflexible. Thus he draws his rule from it.
Socrates
Reading The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I · [ON KANT.] · Entry 2222
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Joubert’s notebooks return to the work of thinking and writing, the demands of friendship, and questions of faith, beauty and conduct. This edition pairs the French with a new English translation, preserving the order of the chosen source and the unfinished character of its fragments. Dates and source references allow readers to follow a thought through time or return to its printed context.
Historical Text and Translation
The French text follows André Beaunier’s 1938 edition of Les Carnets de Joseph Joubert, published by Gallimard from Joubert’s autograph manuscripts. Volume I presents the entries on printed pages 32–475. French and English are aligned paragraph by paragraph, retaining the source order, printed dates and page references so readers can return to the facsimile.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this new English translation directly from the French, preserving Joubert’s distinctions, recurring images, ambiguities and unfinished thoughts. Translator’s notes clarify wording, references and uncertain readings: Essential keeps notes that help explain a passage, while All includes technical detail. Annotations from the 1938 source edition remain distinct from the new translator’s notes.
Rights
The linked facsimile records identify the French source as public domain in the United States. The new English translation and editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos, with source annotations and new editorial contributions credited separately. This edition pairs the complete French notebooks with an independent English translation, preserving the distinction between Joubert’s text and its accompanying notes.