Otto Weininger: Sex, Science, and Self in Imperial Vienna

by Chandak Sengoopta

Turn-of-the century Vienna is remembered as an aesthetic, erotic, and intellectual world: the birthplace of Freud and psychoanalysis, the waltz, and novels of Schnitzler. The contexts of this cultural vibrancy, Chandak Sengoopta argues, were darker and more complex than we might imagine.

This provocative, enlightening study explores the milieu in which the philosopher Otto Weininger (1880-1903) wrote his controversial book Sex and Character. Shortly after its publication, Weininger committed suicide at the age of twenty-three. His book, which argued that women and Jews were mere sexual beings who lacked individuality, became a bestseller.

Hailed as a genius by intellectuals such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Kraus, Weininger was admired, not for his prejudices, but for his engagement with the central issues of the time—the nature and meanings of identity. Sengoopta pays particular attention to how Weininger appropriated scientific language and data to defend his views and examines the scientific theories themselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2000

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

> wiggtenstein never clarified

well,
1. maybe he did, but you never got it
2. maybe he did, but he forgot to sent you a letter of notification
3. how about he had no idea?
4. and so on

either way, this intellectual fraud should not have name dropped so generously.

[Karla Huebner]

This provides a very useful exploration of Weininger's use of existing scientific thought, and analyzes the main ideas in his Geschlecht und Charakter in the context of fin-de-siecle science and philosophy.