Author: Sturm, Bruno
Title: Gegen Weininger : Ein Versuch zur Lösung des Moralproblems
Description: Wien, Wilhelm Braumüller, 1912. orig.wrappers. 21x14cm, 78 pp. Unopened. A critique of 'Geschlecht und Charakter" by Otto Weininger [1880-1903].. Small tear to spine. Some minor rubbing. Some foxing. VG. ¶ ["Bruno Sturm wrote a somewhat sympathetic response to Weininger, although as a 'contribution to positivism', & 'to a more optimistic worldview'... Sturm argues in 'Gegen Weininger' that if sexuality is a drive that is physiological and aimed at reproduction, eroticism is a 'conscious drive' that is abstract and without specific function. Sturm defends the average person's concern with sexuality against the focus on the genius on eroticism..." - David S. Luft, "Eros and Inwardness in Vienna", pages 206 & 213]. ["...In his book Sex and Character, Weininger argues that all people are composed of a mixture of the male and the female substance, and attempts to support his view scientifically. The male aspect is active, productive, conscious and moral/logical, while the female aspect is passive, unproductive, unconscious and amoral/alogical. Weininger argues that emancipation should be reserved for the "masculine woman", e.g. some lesbians, and that the female life is consumed with the sexual function: both with the act, as a prostitute, and the product, as a mother. Woman is a "matchmaker". By contrast, the duty of the male, or the masculine aspect of personality, is to strive to become a genius, and to forego sexuality for an abstract love of the absolute, God, which he finds within himself. A significant part of his book is about the nature of genius. Weininger argues that there is no such thing as a person who has a genius for, say, mathematics, or music, but there is only the universal genius, in whom everything exists and makes sense...." - wikipedia].

Keywords: Otto Weininger, Sex Psychology, Philosophy, Women, , , , ,