Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
In a certain sense this is an end of the investigation, a final
conclusion to which all analysis of the female leads. And although this
conclusion, put thus concisely, seems harsh and intolerant, paradoxical
and too abrupt in its novelty, it must be remembered that the author is
not the first who has taken such a view; he is more in the position of
one who has discovered the philosophical grounds for an opinion of long
standing.
The Chinese from time immemorial have denied that women possess a
personal soul. If a Chinaman is asked how many children he has, he
counts only the boys, and will say none if he has only daughters.
Mahomet excluded women from Paradise for the same reason, and on this
view depends the degraded position of women in Oriental countries.
Amongst the philosophers, the opinions of Aristotle must first be
considered. He held that in procreation the male principle was the
formative active agent, the “logos,” whilst the female was the passive
material. When we remember that Aristotle uses the word “soul” for the
active, formative, causative principle, it is plain that his idea was
akin to mine, although, as he actually expressed it, it related only to
the reproductive process; it is clear, moreover, that he, like all the
Greek philosophers except Euripides, paid no heed to woman, and did not
consider her qualities from any other point of view than that of her
share in reproduction.
Amongst the fathers of the Church, Tertullian and Origen certainly had a
very low opinion of woman, and St. Augustine, except for his relations
with his mother, seems to have shared their view. At the Renaissance the
Aristotelian conceptions gained many new adherents, amongst whom Jean
Wier (1518-1588) may be cited specially. At that period there was a
general, more sensible and intuitive understanding on the subject, which
is now treated as merely curious, contemporary science having bowed the
knee to other than Aristotelian gods.
In recent years Henrik Ibsen (in the characters of Anitra, Rita, and
Irene) and August Strindberg have given utterance to this view. But the
popularity of the idea of the soullessness of woman has been most
attained by the wonderful fairy tales of Fouqué, who obtained the
material for them from Paracelsus, after deep study, and which have been
set to music by E. T. A. Hoffman, Girschner, and Albert Lorzing.
Undine, the soulless Undine, is the platonic idea of woman. In spite of
all bi-sexuality she most really resembles the actuality. The well-known
phrase, “Women have no character,” really means the same thing.
Personality and individuality (intelligible), ego and soul, will and
(intelligible) character, all these are different expressions of the
same actuality, an actuality the male of mankind attains, the female
lacks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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