Sex & Character Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition — Reading Companion

Aphoristic Authority

Weininger’s prose frequently adopts the cadence of an aphorist. In the excerpt on respect and understanding, he writes: “The first by ignoring him, the second by being friendly with him.” The parallelism is deliberate, turning a moral distinction into a memorable formula. This technique recurs throughout the text, lending an air of self-evident truth to claims that are, in fact, highly contestable. Contemporary reviewers noted this stylistic vivacity; Die Wage called him “a brilliant stylist” whose “form fits the thought like a veil of silver.” Yet the aphoristic mode also forecloses nuance: a sentence like “the greater a man is the greater efforts he will make to understand things that are most strange to him” presents a normative hierarchy as if it were an observation of nature.

Kantian Vocabulary as Argumentative Frame

The excerpt draws heavily on Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy. Weininger invokes the categorical imperative directly: “man is the only creature in the universe who is a purpose to himself.” He then translates Kant’s distinction between treating persons as ends versus means into a social psychology of respect and contempt. The terms “end,” “means,” “respect,” and “understanding” are deployed with a precision that mimics philosophical argument, yet the reasoning often leaps from abstract principle to psychological claim without empirical mediation. For instance, the assertion that “no one thinks so much or so intently as he [the great man] about other people” is presented as a logical consequence of his universal disposition, not as a testable hypothesis. This rhetorical move—borrowing Kant’s authority while departing from his method—is characteristic of the book’s approach.

The Great Man as Interpretive Lens

Weininger’s model of understanding is explicitly elitist. The “great man” stands in “vital, understanding relationship” not only with contemporaries but with historical figures like Napoleon, Plato, and Mahomet. This claim is supported by an appeal to Pascal: “A mesure qu’on a plus d’esprit, on trouve qu’il y a plus d’hommes originaux.” The ordinary man, by contrast, “readily thinks that he understands a thing” and fails to perceive “the unfamiliar spirit” in art or philosophy. The passage positions the artist as the paradigmatic understander, one who “creates the past which he did not know for others.” This is less a theory of interpretation than a portrait of the ideal knower—a figure who resembles Weininger’s own self-conception. The argumentative structure here is circular: the great man is defined by his capacity for understanding, and his capacity for understanding is evidenced by his greatness.

Scientific Ambition, Philosophical Method

The book’s subtitle promises an “Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition,” and the front matter includes press notices from medical and scientific journals. Allgemeine Wiener Medizinische Zeitung predicts it will be “in the hands of every doctor.” Yet the excerpt on respect and understanding contains no biological data, no statistical observation, no reference to empirical studies. Instead, Weininger proceeds by definition and deduction: he defines respect as “endeavouring to understand,” then deduces that the great man, who understands most, is most moral. This is a philosophical argument dressed in the language of science. The tension between the two modes is never resolved; the book’s authority rests on the reader’s willingness to accept its axiomatic starting points. The excerpts provide no evidence that Weininger engages with counterarguments or alternative frameworks.

Readers approaching Sex & Character should attend to the texture of its prose as much as to its propositions. Weininger’s sentences reward close reading: they are often elegant, sometimes startling, and always designed to persuade through form as much as through logic. The book is best understood not as a scientific treatise but as a philosophical polemic that uses the tools of aphorism, Kantian ethics, and a cult of genius to advance a deeply personal vision. The excerpts offer a concentrated sample of his method; the full text extends these strategies across hundreds of pages, with all the repetition and variation that implies.

The rain tapped against the window while I underlined Weininger’s rigid Kantianisms, his sharp aphorisms feeling like doors slamming. That evening, restless, I pulled another old volume from the shelf, wondering if Bebel had ever faced the same storm. Woman and Socialism — Background and Themes offered a contrasting warmth, a different grammar for the same sorrowful questions.