From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordTénuité names extreme thinness or fineness in these material comparisons.
- In JoubertThe compressed account of matter insists that calling it appearance expresses real tenuity without contesting its indubitable reality.
- In this editionThe English translation preserves the repeated noun and its plural.
- A place to beginReal tenuity is explicitly distinguished from denial of reality.
- English renderings
- tenuity; tenuities
Meaning
Ténuité names extreme thinness or fineness in these material comparisons. It can qualify something real; it is not a euphemism for nonexistence.
Use in the book
The compressed account of matter insists that calling it appearance expresses real tenuity without contesting its indubitable reality. The layered-pasteboard picture gives the word another task: tenuities combined produce the dense. Fineness and density are therefore related by arrangement, not simply treated as mutually exclusive kinds of substance. In the humoral account of faults, the term also qualifies digestive juices. The different uses explain why the slightly unfamiliar English tenuity is more precise than a uniform replacement by weakness or vagueness.
Places to read
- I, p. 235–236, entry 6, ¶1Real tenuity is explicitly distinguished from denial of reality.
- I, p. 236, entry 5, ¶1Thin layers combined are imagined to produce density.
- I, p. 194, entry 3, ¶1Tenuity also describes a condition of digestive juices.
Translation in this edition
The English translation preserves the repeated noun and its plural. The physiological discussion carries unexpanded D. G. and an incomplete clause about envy; its appearance here neither identifies those initials nor repairs the clause.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 194, 235, 236.