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 wordPudeur concerns reserve, concealment and the relation between one’s embodied presence and others.
- In JoubertIf modesty is absent from organization, the short maxim proposes placing it in will: acquired direction can supply what constitution lacks.
- In this editionThe English translation keeps organization in its bodily constitutional sense, not an institution, and preserves all weaving/clothing/structure terms.
- A place to beginWill can supply a missing constitutional reserve.
- English renderings
- modesty
Meaning
Pudeur concerns reserve, concealment and the relation between one’s embodied presence and others. It is not confined to chastity.
Use in the book
If modesty is absent from organization, the short maxim proposes placing it in will: acquired direction can supply what constitution lacks. The weaving image then gives it a fabric that clothes existence and makes a sphere apart. Its subject label is Beaunier’s bracketed supply, which matters when interpreting the image. The list of beautiful feelings finally includes modesty among the qualities shaping expression on a face. The private boundary can therefore have a visible form.
Places to read
- I, p. 263, entry 2, ¶1Will can supply a missing constitutional reserve.
- II, p. 726, entry 10, ¶1A supplied subject label identifies the fabric-and-sphere image.
- II, p. 882, entry 7, ¶1Modesty joins feelings that beautify facial expression.
Translation in this edition
The English translation keeps organization in its bodily constitutional sense, not an institution, and preserves all weaving/clothing/structure terms. It translates the supplied label as “[Modesty.]” rather than converting it into an unqualified authorial title.
Obscenity
French: obscène.
The quoted Bonald maxim calls the obscene the last degree of the familiar. The English translation preserves the abstract categories and the force of last degree. This is an attributed saying, not a verified general definition of obscenity or an assertion that every familiar manner is obscene.
Places to read: II, p. 582, entry 8, ¶1.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 263; II, pp. 582, 726, 882.