The second half of the book is much cooler, and you can kind of skim (or even ignore) the first section, which mostly has to do with biology and W’a theories about that. There’s a 50 page stretch in the second section after chapter 4 that’s really great. If you’re curious, that’s where I would go.
When I discovered a biography of Otto Weiniger in my college library some 20 years ago I made a promise to myself then and there to never ever be anything like him. Reading it was like watching a car crash. Fascinating but traumatizing.
Not really. You can certainly disregard his unfounded assertions about women, but at base his system is built on a metaphysical binary. Male and female are his fundamental categories, and he basically ascribes all positive values to the male and all negative ones to female. So he’s kind of metaphysically sexist.
He was right about everything
I don’t read a lot of philosophy but that sounds interesting.
The second half of the book is much cooler, and you can kind of skim (or even ignore) the first section, which mostly has to do with biology and W’a theories about that. There’s a 50 page stretch in the second section after chapter 4 that’s really great. If you’re curious, that’s where I would go.
When I discovered a biography of Otto Weiniger in my college library some 20 years ago I made a promise to myself then and there to never ever be anything like him. Reading it was like watching a car crash. Fascinating but traumatizing.
Can you divorce the sexism from the philosophy
Not really. You can certainly disregard his unfounded assertions about women, but at base his system is built on a metaphysical binary. Male and female are his fundamental categories, and he basically ascribes all positive values to the male and all negative ones to female. So he’s kind of metaphysically sexist.