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 wordFermentation may be a physical process or an image of activity that brings something to maturity, with the possibility of mere sourness instead of fruit.
- In JoubertAnger’s fermentation can ripen gentle and peaceful feelings, but only if the crisis completes its course.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves the changing images and the unusual reflexive “they brood over themselves.” It does not convert ferment into a single modern biochemical term across the passages.
- A place to beginFermentation can mature feeling or remain sour.
- English renderings
- fermentation; ferment; leaven
Meaning
Fermentation may be a physical process or an image of activity that brings something to maturity, with the possibility of mere sourness instead of fruit.
Use in the book
Anger’s fermentation can ripen gentle and peaceful feelings, but only if the crisis completes its course. The alternative is its own sourness. A ferment or leaven kept in the mind is likewise a principle of action, life, and fertility, shifting into the image of sleeping or self-brooding seeds. The warning that fermentation is not movement, and movement not life, prevents one process from serving as a sufficient explanation of another.
Places to read
- I, p. 402, entry 2, ¶1Fermentation can mature feeling or remain sour.
- I, p. 372–373, entry 11, ¶1Ferment and leaven give mind and work fertility.
- II, p. 767, entry 3, ¶1Fermentation, movement, and life remain distinct.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves the changing images and the unusual reflexive “they brood over themselves.” It does not convert ferment into a single modern biochemical term across the passages.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 372, 373, 402; II, pp. 767.