Reasoning

Use in the book

Joubert’s intellectual machine encloses an opinion inside one already adopted, sometimes unnaturally. The metaphor exposes reasoning’s capacity to force a conclusion rather than dismissing every inference. His blind-man comparison likewise contrasts laborious inductions and conjectures with direct seeing. In the “strong mind” passage, an overdeveloped capacity to reason misleads when it exceeds the soul’s other faculties. The fragment about duties goes further, proposing that one must sometimes go against one’s own reasoning; its examples break off and do not provide a universal rule for rejecting reason.

Places to read

1. I, p. 107, entry 2, ¶1Conclusion is pictured as enclosing one opinion in another.
2. II, p. 756, entry 7, ¶1Reasoning, induction and conjecture are contrasted with seeing.
3. II, p. 657, entry 9, ¶1Disproportionate strength or practice can make reasoning misleading.
4. II, p. 859, entry 6, ¶2The limits of reasoning in duty are stated through unfinished examples.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves conclude/enclose, reason/reasoning, and the distinct inductions/conjectures. “Strong mind” retains the literal strength in esprit fort; the note also records its historical association with religious disbelief. “Sometimes” limits the claim about duty.

Induction

French: induction.

Induction has a broad inferential force in these witnesses. The English translation uses explicit inference in the moral passage and induction or inductions elsewhere. The first argument is conditional: if duties arise from nature, morality should emerge through clarity without an explicit inferential step. The criticism of Malebranche describes dependence on Cartesian principles as induction and consequence, while the stick analogy pairs inductions with conjectures in indirect movement. These uses do not establish a uniform technical contrast between modern induction and deduction. The printed Malebranche dates and unfinished publish[…] remain reported and qualified.

Places to read: I, p. 394–395, entry 7, ¶2; I, p. 444, entry 8, ¶1; II, p. 756, entry 7, ¶1.