Otto Weininger on the character of man

be possible, or even any consecutive thinking. It would, to go back to Alice, be like playing a game of chess in which the pieces didnot wait to be moved but insisted not only on moving of their own accord, but even on continually changing their shape. Because concepts are not subject to time and change as things in the actual world are, it is only through them that we can think consecutively or experience the world as an ordered world. Otherwise it would be a mass of indeterminate floating images. It would not be the world which we experience. The concept is thus, as Weininger says, ‘the creator of reality’.

The world of experience and the language we use to speak about it thus depend on the notion of the concept. And the concept depends on the identity of the ego, and so on my selfconsciousness. In this way the whole of our real world, which means the world as we experience it, depends on an idea. For the notion identity, which is at the root of all existence, is itself real only as idea. It is also beyond time. In order that I can assert that ‘A is A’, I must have the concept A clearly in mind and preserve the memory of it during the time in which I affirm its identity with the second A. In order that I may affirm my own identity as an ego which does not change with time—that is, not my empirical ego which I experience as ‘me’, but my intelligible ego which is ‘’—I must have a continuous memory of my experiences. Memory is the necessary condition for the affirmation of my identity, and thus it is necessary for my self-consciousness. So memory is a distinguishing mark of mankind. The stronger my identity the clearer and more continuous is my memory.

In order to appreciate fully the standpoint from which Weininger is speaking it is necessary to describe what he affirms as the ideal or goal of mankind, which is an intensification to perfection of self-consciousness. This he calls genius. Unfortunately the word is misused nowadays by calling a very talented person a genius. Weininger distinguishes genius from talent as being not merely different in degree, but altogether of a different order. Talent is proficiency in a particular sphere of human endeavour. It can be inherited, as for instance the musical talent of the Bach or the Strauss families. Genius is essentially individual. It is a quality of character and is not dependent on any particular ability. A genius need not have any special talent.

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