From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordNoblesse and noble carry a tension between social distinction and a quality of soul or conduct.
- In JoubertThe fragment about receiving nobility from heaven keeps open whether it is transmissible; it does not identify a hereditary mechanism.
- In this editionThe English translation marks the boundary of the quoted maxim before Joubert’s added infinitive.
- A place to beginHeaven-given nobility may or may not be transmissible.
- English renderings
- nobility; noble
Meaning
Noblesse and noble carry a tension between social distinction and a quality of soul or conduct.
Use in the book
The fragment about receiving nobility from heaven keeps open whether it is transmissible; it does not identify a hereditary mechanism. The Lévis maxim is followed by Joubert’s addition that nobility obliges one to be noble, making a title answerable to a quality. In the argument about industry and political power, he clarifies that his noble rulers mean those possessing nobility of soul, a dignity from heaven or light and not blood. The clarification belongs to this particular political claim. It should not erase every social or inherited sense elsewhere in the notebooks.
Places to read
- II, p. 742, entry 9, ¶1Heaven-given nobility may or may not be transmissible.
- II, p. 743, entry 1, ¶1An attributed maxim is completed by an obligation to be noble.
- II, p. 915, entry 9, ¶1Nobility of soul is explicitly distinguished from blood.
Translation in this edition
The English translation marks the boundary of the quoted maxim before Joubert’s added infinitive. It preserves the transmissible/not-transmissible alternative and the undated status of the industry paragraph. The base provisionally renders villains in that paragraph, without converting it into modern criminality.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 742, 743, 915.