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 wordIntolérance is a danger arising within religious feeling or contempt for other religions, requiring reflection rather than simple intensity of conviction.
- In JoubertThe reading note connects contempt with intolerance and eventual persecution, then asks whether religions might instead be seen as unequal but concentric circles.
- In this editionThe English translation retains active intolerance, the unfinished clause and Joubert’s own review reminder in the main paragraph.
- A place to beginContempt leads toward persecution; concentric religions are proposed as a question.
- English renderings
- intolerance
Meaning
Intolérance is a danger arising within religious feeling or contempt for other religions, requiring reflection rather than simple intensity of conviction.
Use in the book
The reading note connects contempt with intolerance and eventual persecution, then asks whether religions might instead be seen as unequal but concentric circles. The question offers an image of relation without declaring their doctrines identical. The extended account assigns a checking power to experience and reflection, then specifies experience accumulated over centuries rather than a single life. Children’s questions and the unfinished One tolerates interrupt its reasoning. The closing To reconsider is therefore indispensable: the passage is an inquiry marked for return, not a final comprehensive theory of religious toleration.
Places to read
- I, p. 330, entry begun p. 329, no. 1, ¶31Contempt leads toward persecution; concentric religions are proposed as a question.
- II, p. 588–589, entry 12, ¶1Historical experience and reflection are proposed as checks, in a note marked for reconsideration.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains active intolerance, the unfinished clause and Joubert’s own review reminder in the main paragraph. Beaunier’s separately dated Chênedollé excerpt remains apparatus and does not supply the main passage’s date or voice.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 330; II, pp. 588, 589.