Introduction. Sex and Character (OTBT 4)
Channel: KellyJones00
Date: 2014-02-26

A reading of the introduction to "Sex and Character" by Otto Weininger.

My quick introduction to the Introduction:
The first paragraph is one of my favourite passages in the entire book.  It is profound and revelatory.  But only recently, on studying it again and re-reading again closely, does its place of honour at the beginning of the thesis now make sense to me.  Weininger predicted in advance, the shocked and discomforted reaction his book would provoke, and how popular opinion would dig in against him.  That's why he began in this way.  

He wished to explain: "I am a thinker, so this is how I define things either empirically or non-empirically.  This is how one must inevitably understand WHAT WOMAN IS.  One moves from the empirical array of phenomena, collecting superficial and observable traits, gathering more and more data, and moving towards greater refinement and uniqueness --- further towards the complex unit THAT IS WOMAN'S CAST OF MIND."   (Read italics for the capitals.)  

"We find little in books but what we put there.  But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things."
--- Joseph Joubert

For philosophical discussions of Weininger's complex ideas, please post to the Men of the Infinite forum at:  www.naturalthinker.net/phpBB

Download a free, full translation of "Sex and Character" by Bob Willis:
www.theabsolute.net/ottow

(Thanks to Bob Willis)