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 wordPerspective can mean a visible prospect or an arranged intellectual distance from which something becomes apprehensible.
- In JoubertThe reported mountain prospect gives scattered clouds a magical effect.
- In this editionThe English translation uses prospect for the landscape and in view for the practical orientation, retaining perspective in the compositional analogies.
- A place to beginPerspective is the prospect made magical by clouds below the observer.
- English renderings
- perspective; prospect; in view
Meaning
Perspective can mean a visible prospect or an arranged intellectual distance from which something becomes apprehensible.
Use in the book
The reported mountain prospect gives scattered clouds a magical effect. In discussion of Plato, a detour may be justified by the perspective or surprise that makes truth striking; the repeated fragments do not complete the argument. The instruction for judging a work requires making distance, creating perspective and choosing a point of view, even for a word or discourse. These are distinct acts of arranging apprehension, not a measurable viewing distance. Elsewhere having a second life in perspective simply means having it in view within a conditional argument about education.
Places to read
- I, p. 69, entry 2, ¶2Perspective is the prospect made magical by clouds below the observer.
- II, p. 492, entry 4, ¶1A philosophical detour can arrange perspective and surprise.
- II, p. 648, entry 1, ¶1Judgment of works requires a chosen distance and viewpoint.
- II, p. 734, entry 7, ¶1Perspective becomes the life kept in view by education.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses prospect for the landscape and in view for the practical orientation, retaining perspective in the compositional analogies. The conditional argument about two lives is not expanded into an independent proof of an afterlife.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 69; II, pp. 492, 648, 734.