Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T13:56:26.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Eggshells or Nourishing Yolk? A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Weiningerian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2009

By
Béla Szabados
Edited by
David G. Stern  and
Béla Szabados
Béla Szabados
Affiliation:
Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Classics, University of Regina
David G. Stern
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Béla Szabados
Affiliation:
University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Get access

Summary

Every artist has been influenced by others & shows (the) traces of that influence in his works; but what we get from him is all the same only his own personality.(but what he means to us is all the same only his personality) What is inherited from others can be nothing but egg shells. We should treat the fact of their presence with indulgence, but they will not give us Spiritual nourishment

(CV, 27).

Influence, properly understood, refers to nothing less than the reconstruction of genesis of outstanding achievement … rather than to mere intellectual pushing and pulling

(Janik 1995, 62).

Did Weininger Influence the Later Wittgenstein?

In 1931 Wittgenstein listed the names of ten thinkers who had influenced him. Here is what he wrote: “I think I have never invented a line of thinking but that it was always provided for me by someone else & I have done no more than passionately take it up for my work of clarification. That is how Boltzmann Hertz Schopenhauer Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos Weininger Spengler, Sraffa have influenced me” (CV, 16). Commenting on Wittgenstein's list of influences, Georg von Wright writes that the list presents a chronological account, and that it is unlikely that Wittgenstein would have added to it later on in life (von Wright 1982, 213).

Type
Chapter
Information
Wittgenstein Reads Weininger , pp. 29 - 61
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BB: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958/1964). The Blue and Brown Books. Edited by Rush Rhees. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Bloom, Harold (1975). The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press
CV: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980/1998). Culture and Value. Edited by G. H. von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nyman. Translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cited translations are taken from the revised second edition (1998) with a new English translation by Peter Winch. Oddly enough, the main text of this translation shows Wittgenstein's first drafts of his thoughts and footnotes the variant final drafts. In my quotations I show both variants by including the final drafts in parentheses
Drury, M. O'C (1981). “Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein.” In Rush Rhees, ed., Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, 87–110. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Haller, Rudolf (1988). “What Do Wittgenstein and Weininger Have in Common?” In Haller, Questions on Wittgenstein, 90–9. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
Harrowitz, Nancy A., and Barbara Hyams, eds., (1995). Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Janik, Allan (1995). “How Did Weininger Influence Wittgenstein?” In Nancy A. Harrowitz and Barbara Hyams, eds., Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger, 61–72. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Janik, Allan, and David G. Stern (2002). Personal Correspondence
Klagge, James, ed. (2001). Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Le Rider, Jacques (1982). Le Cas Otto Weininger: Racines de l'antiféminisme et l'antisémitisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France
LRKM: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore. Edited by G. H. von Wright. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
LT: Weininger, Otto (1904). Über Die Letzten Dinge. Vienna & Leipzig: W. Braumüller. Translated by Steven Burns as On Last Things. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001
McGuinness, Brian (1988). Wittgenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig (1889–1921). Berkeley: University of California Press
Monk, Ray (1990). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York: Free Press
PG: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). Philosophical Grammar. Edited by Rush Rhees. Translated by Anthony Kenny. Oxford: Blackwell
PI: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Second edition, 1958; third edition, 1973; fourth edition, 2001. Translations are taken from the fourth edition
PO: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993). Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951. Edited by James Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Rhees, Rush, ed. (1981). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Rueger, Alexander (2002). Personal Correspondence
S&C: Weininger, Otto (1903/1906). Geschlecht und Character: Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung. Munich: Matthes & Seitz. Translated, anonymously and without footnotes, as Sex and Character. New York: Heinemann, 1906. Page references in the text are to the 1906 edition
Spengler, Oswald (1926). The Decline of the West. Translated by C. F. Atkinson. London: George Allen & Unwin
Stern, David G. (2001). “Was Wittgenstein a Jew?” In James Klagge, ed., Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy, 237–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Szabados, Béla (1999). “Was Wittgenstein an Anti-Semite? The Significance of Anti-Semitism for Wittgenstein's Philosophy.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 29: 1–28
TLP: Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961
von Wright, Georg Henrik (1982). “Wittgenstein in Relation to his Times.” In von Wright, Wittgenstein. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 108–20
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1978). Remarks on Colour. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by Linda L. McAlister and Margarete Schättel. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000). Wittgenstein's Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. References are to the von Wright (1982) numbering system

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×