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 wordObjet and sujet have several contexts that do not map neatly onto a modern opposition between knowing subject and external object.
- In JoubertThe reflection on definition circumscribes a bodiless object in an unreal space: being an object of discourse does not require being a physical body.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves object and subject where the contexts sustain them.
- A place to beginAn object of definition can be bodiless.
- English renderings
- object; subject
Meaning
Objet and sujet have several contexts that do not map neatly onto a modern opposition between knowing subject and external object. An object may be what is perceived or considered; a subject may be a bearer of qualities or a work’s topic.
Use in the book
The reflection on definition circumscribes a bodiless object in an unreal space: being an object of discourse does not require being a physical body. The provisional assemblage of qualities calls their bearer a subject and distinguishes substance as an assemblage of accidents. In literary making, however, an ordinary work needs a subject while a beautiful one needs a germ. Here subject names thematic material rather than a conscious observer. The material object entering a space supplies yet another use, in the optical displacement comparison.
Places to read
- II, p. 917, entry 1, ¶1An object of definition can be bodiless.
- I, p. 277, entry 2, ¶1Subject is provisionally treated as an assemblage of qualities.
- II, p. 489, entry 3, ¶1Subject is a work’s topic, distinguished from its germ.
- II, p. 481, entry 6, ¶1A visible object is considered as an entering body.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves object and subject where the contexts sustain them. Neither word by itself establishes a modern subject–object theory, and the tentative “Let us say” remains significant.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 277; II, pp. 481, 489, 917.