From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordJoubert distinguishes organs from their powers and uses the eyes and ears as models of inward access.
- In JoubertThe image of doors and windows makes the eyes and ears entrances to the soul.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves singular ear beside plural eyes in the final witness, and sight/hearing beside the named organs.
- A place to beginEyes and ears serve as doors and windows.
- English renderings
- eye; eyes; ear; ears; sight; hearing
Meaning
Joubert distinguishes organs from their powers and uses the eyes and ears as models of inward access. Their figurative mobility does not erase their bodily differences.
Use in the book
The image of doors and windows makes the eyes and ears entrances to the soul. The account of the tender eye, however, stresses bodily proportion: straw may feel like a pebble or obscure sight like a beam, because the receiving organ is delicate. Speech and writing are then said to let us hear with eyes and see with ears, transferring effects across ordinary sensory divisions. The late undated assertion that we shall see with sight rather than eyes, and hear with hearing rather than an ear, separates the surviving faculty from its bodily instrument. It remains a spiritual assertion, not a description of ordinary anatomy.
Places to read
- I, p. 85, entry 2, ¶2Eyes and ears serve as doors and windows.
- I, p. 204, entry 2, ¶1The eye’s delicacy explains disproportionate effects.
- I, p. 197, entry 4, ¶1Speech and writing exchange the expected tasks of eyes and ears.
- II, p. 900, entry 5, ¶1Future faculties are distinguished from bodily senses and organs.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves singular ear beside plural eyes in the final witness, and sight/hearing beside the named organs. Its “visual orbit” at I.204 does not replace orbite visuel with a modern anatomical term. The odd et grands vides construction at I.197 remains visibly interrupted.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 85, 197, 204; II, pp. 900.