From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordDensity and solidity concern compactness and firmness in material or figurative accounts.
- In JoubertThe layered-pasteboard image makes the dense result from tenuities applied to one another.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves “tenuity,” “tenuities,” and “the dense,” avoiding a smoother but less exact paraphrase.
- A place to beginThin layers and invisible adherence generate the dense.
- English renderings
- dense; solidity; solidities
Meaning
Density and solidity concern compactness and firmness in material or figurative accounts. They are related but not interchangeable properties.
Use in the book
The layered-pasteboard image makes the dense result from tenuities applied to one another. Another nested account makes the rare the counterpart of the dense: rare there means diffuse or thin, not uncommon. Solidity can also characterize thought, yet false solidities can mislead as surely as empty subtleties. The favorable appearance of firmness is therefore no guarantee of truth.
Places to read
- I, p. 236, entry 5, ¶1Thin layers and invisible adherence generate the dense.
- I, p. 179, entry 12, ¶1Rare and dense mark degrees of material subtlety.
- I, p. 169, entry 7, ¶1Thought is characterized through solidity.
- I, p. 275–276, entry 9, ¶1False solidities are a source of intellectual error.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves “tenuity,” “tenuities,” and “the dense,” avoiding a smoother but less exact paraphrase. Its note explains rare as thin or diffuse. The lexicon does not promote the unattested dictionary noun densité as Joubert’s printed term.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 169, 179, 236, 275, 276.