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 wordPuissance concerns a power or capacity; opération concerns its exercise or what is done.
- In JoubertWater and fire leave different landscapes through the operations of differently paced powers.
- In this editionThe English translation keeps “power,” “possibility,” and “operation” separate in these witnesses.
- A place to beginElemental powers are distinguished through their operations.
- English renderings
- power; operation; operations
Meaning
Puissance concerns a power or capacity; opération concerns its exercise or what is done. Their juxtaposition is useful without making them a formally defined pair throughout the notebooks.
Use in the book
Water and fire leave different landscapes through the operations of differently paced powers. The power to imagine is elsewhere distinguished from the possibility of seeing afforded by our nature. In the bodily discussion, actual operation is better evidence of inner dispositions than the shape of a head. These uses direct attention from an attributed ability to how it acts and what may be inferred from the action.
Places to read
- I, p. 61, entry 4, ¶2Elemental powers are distinguished through their operations.
- II, p. 790, entry 1, ¶2Imaginative power exceeds possible bodily vision.
- II, p. 680, entry 2, ¶1Operation provides evidence inaccessible from outward features.
Translation in this edition
The English translation keeps “power,” “possibility,” and “operation” separate in these witnesses. Political authority is another sense of puissance elsewhere; it should not be treated as a physical force merely because the same word occurs.
Instrument
French: instrument.
At II.677 aptitudes and powers are said to be given only to the instrument. The source does not explicitly identify that instrument as a particular organ.
Places to read: II, p. 677–678, entry 10, ¶1.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 61; II, pp. 677, 678, 680, 790.