Conception and understanding

Use in the book

The remark on Fontanes permits conceiving and explaining through images while refusing to let images alone judge and conclude. Conception is therefore not equivalent to proof. In the sound/word/thought sequence, the problem is interference: sounds may obstruct understanding words, and words may obstruct thought. A reported claim attributed to Berkley concerns conceiving existence outside every understanding. Joubert’s shorthand reference and praise should be read as his report, not as a complete philosophical argument independently established here.

Places to read

1. II, p. 732, entry 6, ¶1Images can support conception and explanation without justifying judgment or conclusion.
2. II, p. 618–619, entry 14, ¶1Sounds and words may obscure the content they should help one understand.
3. I, p. 260, entry 6, ¶1Joubert reports a claim about existence outside all understandings.

Translation in this edition

The English translation distinguishes conceive, understand and the plural understandings. The supplied [Words] on II.618 comes from the source editor; the ensuing ellipsis and alternative “or” remain incomplete. No fuller quotation from the work called Hylas is substituted.

Intellection

French: intellection.

Intellection names intellectual apprehension in the account of an idea governing an image. The square’s imagined image and even its figure must conform to the idea conceived through pure intellection. Joubert’s quoted material, proposed clearer wording and added correction remain distinct. The shorter maxim relocates purity from the book to its effect: the written presentation need not itself contain wholly pure intellection if it brings that purity about in the reader’s mind. The English translation retains the term; it does not equate purity with the absence of all imagery in writing.

Places to read: I, p. 438, entry begun p. 437, no. 3, ¶17; I, p. 440, entry 6, ¶1.