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 wordSentiment, with plural sentimens or sentiments, can mean a felt disposition and a mode of inward judgment.
- In JoubertThe injunction to admit only opinions compatible with excellent feelings makes feeling a judge in intellectual matters, though not explicitly the sole judge.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves the plural-to-singular movement in the judicial metaphor and the can-believe/would-have distinction in the angelic comparison.
- A place to beginExcellent feelings constrain acceptable opinions.
- English renderings
- feeling; feelings
Meaning
Sentiment, with plural sentimens or sentiments, can mean a felt disposition and a mode of inward judgment. It is not confined to a passing emotion.
Use in the book
The injunction to admit only opinions compatible with excellent feelings makes feeling a judge in intellectual matters, though not explicitly the sole judge. The pity fragment claims that every feeling includes pity for oneself or others. The angelic standard then defines goodness through feelings one can believe an angel would have. The modal words keep this an imaginative moral test rather than a claim to know angelic psychology. Across these examples, the value and quality of a feeling matter as much as its intensity.
Places to read
- II, p. 744, entry 10, ¶1Excellent feelings constrain acceptable opinions.
- II, p. 855, entry 8, ¶1Pity is asserted as a component of every feeling.
- II, p. 908, entry 4, ¶1An imagined angelic response becomes a standard of goodness.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves the plural-to-singular movement in the judicial metaphor and the can-believe/would-have distinction in the angelic comparison. It uses feelings here but other contexts can require sense or sentiment; raw surface counts alone cannot fix the sense.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 744, 855, 908.