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 wordDuration concerns continuance or a span; instant isolates a moment within succession.
- In JoubertThe early physical-only person is confined to the present instant, unable to extend a self into past or future.
- In this editionThe translation keeps “duration” and “instant” rather than harmonizing both to time.
- A place to beginThe instant confines a self without intelligence’s temporal reach.
- English renderings
- duration; instant; moment
Meaning
Duration concerns continuance or a span; instant isolates a moment within succession. They relate to time without exhausting its meanings.
Use in the book
The early physical-only person is confined to the present instant, unable to extend a self into past or future. Intelligence is therefore involved in temporal reach, not merely in adding knowledge to a fully formed self. Brief duration belongs to enchantment together with radiance and lightness. Yet pure duration, unlike eternity, is later said to lack something divine. The notebooks value the fleeting and the enduring in different contexts rather than simply choosing one over the other.
Places to read
- I, p. 45, entry begun p. 44, no. 1, ¶10The instant confines a self without intelligence’s temporal reach.
- II, p. 487, entry begun p. 486, no. 14, ¶2Brief duration belongs to enchantment.
- II, p. 725, entry 9, ¶1Pure duration is distinguished from eternity.
Translation in this edition
The translation keeps “duration” and “instant” rather than harmonizing both to time. “Suspended” opens the enchantment fragment without an invented subject, and its short duration remains a positive feature there.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 45; II, pp. 487, 725.