Sincerity and frankness

Use in the book

The quotation attributed to Mme de Staël and Joubert’s response distinguish frankness by character from truthfulness by principle. A frank person may fail to keep a secret, while a virtue gives way when it encounters a higher virtue. Joubert develops this into an ordering of duties, contrasting natural qualities with enlightened conduct. Another note makes sincerity, unlike infallibility or an accurate mind, something within one’s power. The complaint that friends lose frankness through tact and silence adds a social cost to considerate restraint. None of these distinctions allows sincerity to certify that a belief is true.

Places to read

1. II, p. 601, entry 5, ¶1A quoted comparison leads to a distinction between natural frankness and virtuous veracity.
2. II, p. 659, entry 8, ¶1Sincerity is within one’s power, accuracy is not guaranteed.
3. II, p. 673, entry 1, ¶1Tact and silence can erode frankness among friends.

Translation in this edition

The English translation marks where the Staël quotation ends and Joubert’s economic comparison and reformulation begin; the precise external quotation was not collated. The damaged […]iscrétion in the friendship note remains unresolved rather than being presented as intact discretion.

Dissimulation

French: dissimulation.

Dissimulation is assigned to experience, while vanity comes from temperament. The passage then insists that the former is a vice and the latter a passion: different origins and moral categories must not be confused. The English translation retains dissimulation without treating it as mere polite reserve.

Places to read: I, p. 257, entry begun p. 256, no. 6, ¶3.