Sign

Use in the book

The argument “indicates” that friends are those who are good, after the saying about like has been read as a riddle about good people. The verb presents the current inference as a sign or indication available to the speakers.

This local result is immediately questioned. “Indicate” should therefore retain its argumentative setting rather than become an assurance that the dialogue has disclosed a final meaning of friendship.

Places to read

1. 214d–eὁ γὰρ λόγος ἡμῖν σημαίνει — For the argument indicates to us.

Use in the book

A mock sun is called a sign of rain because the cloud reflecting it is near the condition of becoming water; the southern occurrence is assigned greater force within that explanation. Mist, by contrast, is described as a thin, non-rain-bearing formation whose earlier dispersal serves as a sign of fair weather. Each sign is tied to a proposed physical account.

Places to read

1. I.30.2.10A mock sun indicates rain through the state of the reflecting cloud.
2. I.31.6.5Dispersing mist indicates fair weather.
3. I.41.9.1The body is interpreted through the double sense tomb and sign.

Translation in this edition

“Sign” here need not mean a supernatural omen. The interpretation follows the causal connection claimed by the ancient report, not a modern forecasting rule.

Tomb and sign

Sēma can mean both a tomb and a sign. I.41.9.1 exploits the resemblance of sōma, body, to sēma: the soul is imagined as buried in its body, yet also as signifying through it. These are proposed verbal explanations within the Cratylus excerpt. They illuminate the argument without establishing the historical derivation of the word for body.

Use in the book

The sequence thought–speech–writing makes writing the sign of another sign. Joubert does not thereby say that all signs are written. The conversation fragment lists eyes, gesture and voice among signs accompanying ideas that written expression cannot carry with it. The note on alphabetic finger signs then describes writing and reading in the air, with memory assisting the reading. It distinguishes that activity from mimes drawing in air. These observations identify several modes of signification without naming a particular sign language or offering a complete theory of communication.

Places to read

1. I, p. 376, entry 1, ¶1Writing signifies speech, which signifies thought.
2. II, p. 505, entry 9, ¶1Gesture, eyes and voice manifest ideas beyond the written word.
3. II, p. 729, entry 7, ¶1Alphabetic finger signs are writing in air, distinguished from mimed drawing.

Translation in this edition

The English translation repeats sign rather than substituting a modern semiotic vocabulary. Written word renders parole écrite in the conversation fragment, while speech renders parole in the two-stage sign relation.

Letter

French: lettre.

Lettre here names a written character, not correspondence. The translation instruction would preserve letter as well as sound and word unless exactness deforms the intended features; its English conditional interprets anomalous printed ni as probable si and discloses that correction. Elsewhere each letter’s figure can contribute to a word’s visual charm. O and I need only indicate circle and perpendicular to function as letters, whereas mathematical figures require perfection and absolute straightness. The comparison distinguishes adequate indication from geometrical precision without naming a typeface.

Places to read: I, p. 195, entry 1, ¶1; II, p. 741, entry 3, ¶1; II, p. 914–915, entry 7, ¶3.