SCHATTEN- UND LICHTSEITEN DER GENIETHEORIE OTTO WEININGERS

Abstract

Is it possible to separate the wheat from the chaff in Otto Weiningerʼs (in)famous Geschlecht und Charakter and to analyse its theory of genius without taking into consideration the antifeminist and antisemitic context of the work as a whole? This article argues that it is not: Weininger's theory of genius is central to his misogynistic and antisemitic cultural critique. He uses genius as the unassailable subject, ‘the divine in man’, to oppose Ernst Mach's thesis of the ‘unrettbares Ich’ (‘irretrievable self’) that was popularised by Hermann Bahr as a fitting diagnosis of the malaise of modernity.