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 wordPoint and line are geometrical objects, yet Joubert repeatedly explains them through fine tips, thread, hair, and the movement between distinct positions.
- In JoubertThe explicit definitions give a point a place on a surface where an imagined fine tip can rest, and a line a surface-part on which thread, hair, or a pen stroke can be laid.
- In this editionThe English translation uses point for point and tip for pointe, and reads individu as indivisible in the Peripatetic argument.
- A place to beginTip, thread, hair and pen stroke support distinct definitions.
- English renderings
- point; line
Meaning
Point and line are geometrical objects, yet Joubert repeatedly explains them through fine tips, thread, hair, and the movement between distinct positions.
Use in the book
The explicit definitions give a point a place on a surface where an imagined fine tip can rest, and a line a surface-part on which thread, hair, or a pen stroke can be laid. The point is not the physical tip itself. The ball-of-thread image then encloses the line within the point as something capable of being drawn out. In the disagreement with the Peripatetics, discrete notes joined by resonance provide a model for points joining into continuity through swelling. That unusual account is a philosophical analogy, not a result to be silently modernized into current geometry.
Places to read
- I, p. 241, entry 6, ¶1Tip, thread, hair and pen stroke support distinct definitions.
- I, p. 163, entry 1, ¶1A ball of thread images a line contained within a point.
- I, p. 196, entry 8, ¶1Musical continuity is offered as an analogy for a line composed of points.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses point for point and tip for pointe, and reads individu as indivisible in the Peripatetic argument. The fragmentary opening “To the one” and the equals sign of the thread image are retained. Point used as a negative particle is not evidence for this geometrical headword.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 163, 196, 241.