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
The general characterisation of the ideal woman, “W,” is followed by the
construction of individual types, which are finally resolved into two
elemental figures (Platonic conceptions to some extent), the Courtesan
and the Mother. These are differentiated by their pre-occupation with
the sexual act (the main, and in the ultimate sense, sole interest of
“W”), in the first case, as an end in itself, in the second as the
process which results in the possession of a child. The abnormal type,
the hysterical woman, leads up to a masterly psychological (not
physiological) theory of hysteria, which is acutely and convincingly
defined as “the organic mendacity of woman.”
Weininger himself attached the highest importance to the
ethico-philosophical chapters that conclude his work, in which he passes
from the special problem of sexuality to the problems of individual
talent, genius, æsthetics, memory, the _ego_, the Jewish race, and many
others, rising finally to the ultimate logical and moral principles of
judgment. From his most universal standpoint he succeeds in estimating
woman as a part of humanity, and, above all, subjectively. Here he
deliberately comes into sharp conflict with the fashionable tendencies
towards an unscientific monism and its accompanying phenomena,
pan-sexuality and the ethics of species, and characterises very aptly
the customary superficialities of the many non-philosophical modern
apostles, of whom Wilhelm Bölsche and Ellen Key are perhaps the most
representative types. Weininger, in defiance of all reigning fashions,
represents a consolidated dualism, closely related to the eternal
systems of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant, which finds an original
issue in a bitterly tragic conception of the universe. Richard Wagner
(whom Weininger calls the greatest of human beings after Jesus) gives
artistic expression in his _Parsifal_ to the conception Weininger sets
forth scientifically. It is, in fact, the old doctrine of the divine
life and of redemption to which the whole book, with its array of
detail, is consecrated. In Kundry, Weininger recognises the most
profound conception of woman in all literature. In her redemption by the
spotless Parsifal, the young philosopher sees the way of mankind marked
out; he contrasts with this the programme of the modern feminist
movement, with its superficialities and its lies; and so, in conclusion,
the book returns to the problem, which, in spite of all its wealth of
thought, remains its governing idea: the problem of the sexes and the
possibility of a moral relation between them--a moral relation
fundamentally different from what is commonly understood by the term, of
course. In the two chapters: “The Nature of Woman and her significance
in the Universe,” and “Woman and Mankind,” we drink from a fountain of
the ripest wisdom. A tragic and most unhappy mind reveals itself here,
and no thoughtful man will lay down this book without deep emotion and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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