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 wordOrgans are bodily instruments or sites of activity; cerveau is the brain, while chair names flesh.
- In JoubertThe criticism of inferring mind from head-shape says the brain’s constitution is better known through operation than through outward dimensions.
- In this editionThe English translation retains the differences among organ, brain, and flesh.
- A place to beginOperation, not external dimensions, discloses brain disposition.
- English renderings
- organ; organs; brain; flesh
Meaning
Organs are bodily instruments or sites of activity; cerveau is the brain, while chair names flesh. Joubert uses their differences when discussing the relation of thought to its bodily conditions.
Use in the book
The criticism of inferring mind from head-shape says the brain’s constitution is better known through operation than through outward dimensions. The appendix’s Aeolian-harp image asks delicate organs to respond to an impulse from nature instead of being forced into production by mere will. A separate account of ideas imagines an impression passing through the whole body when eyes, hearing, and flesh are insensible. These accounts are historically situated reflections, not mutually verified neurological mechanisms.
Places to read
- II, p. 680, entry 2, ¶1Operation, not external dimensions, discloses brain disposition.
- II, p. 926, entry 3, ¶1An immediately preceding passage criticizes a brain made active only by will, without natural production.
- II, p. 926, entry 4, ¶1Delicate organs respond like an Aeolian harp.
- I, p. 249, entry 2, ¶1Flesh and sensory activity can be suspended in an account of impressions.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains the differences among organ, brain, and flesh. It does not replace bodily constitution with a modern diagnostic category or turn the harp into a literal experimental model.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 249; II, pp. 680, 926.