Post: #1

This is an... Uh, interesting book I discovered a while back.

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.theabsolute.net/ottow/sexcharh.html

This book is not very widely known and but is extremely interesting nonetheless.

I'm too lazy to write a proper review but there's two things worth noting about it:

1. It's so anti-female that even most forum members would probably call it misogynistic. His basic thesis is essentially that women "have no souls," and he says this clearly in no uncertain terms. Schopenhauer's "On Women" is incredibly tame by comparison.

2. It's not just some pamphlet... It's a fairly serious book. It had a pretty big influence on the philosopher ludwig wittgenstein and was a very early forerunner of certain aspects of psychoanalysis.

Overall, I'm not sure what to say about the book, other than that it's very interesting. Certain insights of his seem really spot on and yet others come across as kinda stupid. All I can say is it's worth a read.

Post: #2

The dude wrote the book and then killed himself at 23.

I think his suicide was responsible for the book becoming a cult hit in Europe at the time. Even to the point of other young people being inspired to carry out copycat suicides.

I have never gotten round to reading it though. But it sounds interesting.

Post: #3

I read a biography of Wittgenstein.

In there it mentions that one of Wittgenstein's favourite books was the Otto Weininger one (mentioned above).

Later in life - Wittgenstein found out that he was actually Jewish. And despite that - he agreed with the anti-semite sentiments in the Weininger book which argued that Jews were not capable of true creativity - and instead had to steal and vary the ideas of other cultures.

Seems Wittgenstein had some of that self-hating Jew stuff going on. And he even applied these sentiments to his own philosophical work.

Although to be fair - I really don't think Wittgenstein was that original. His early work was mostly based on Schopenhauer and Frege. And his later work was pretty rubbish - and even then lesser known philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle were coming up with similar ideas.

Just my opinion! I know about 50% of philosophers think Wittgenstein was the greatest philosopher of all time. I went to a university where that viewpoint was common.

Post: #4

cardguy, have you ever tried reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations?

Post: #5

(03-28-2014 03:37 PM)cardguy Wrote:  I read a biography of Wittgenstein.

In there it mentions that one of Wittgenstein's favourite books was the Otto Weininger one (mentioned above).

Later in life - Wittgenstein found out that he was actually Jewish. And despite that - he agreed with the anti-semite sentiments in the Weininger book which argued that Jews were not capable of true creativity - and instead had to steal and vary the ideas of other cultures.

Seems Wittgenstein had some of that self-hating Jew stuff going on. And he even applied these sentiments to his own philosophical work.

Although to be fair - I really don't think Wittgenstein was that original. His early work was mostly based on Schopenhauer and Frege. And his later work was pretty rubbish - and even then lesser known philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle were coming up with similar ideas.

Just my opinion! I know about 50% of philosophers think Wittgenstein was the greatest philosopher of all time. I went to a university where that viewpoint was common.

Yeah, I don't really know much about Wittgenstein. I was actually a philosophy minor in university, but my school's department was heavily continental (rare for a North American university). I do know that almost all analytic philosophers though consider him the quintessential thinker of their discipline, so I guess he had something going on

Post: #6

Yeah - I have read 'Philosophical Investigations'. I have read all of his work actually (for instance the colour notebooks and a few other smaller books).

For what it is worth - I preferred the Tractatus to his later work. But I think philosophy is a very subjective field. To begin with - everyone has a different conception of what Philosophy is. And it is only once you have decided that - that you can get around to seeing how you feel about a philosopher's work.

Post: #7

cardguy, if you are ever interested in re-reading the Investigations, I would be curious to see if you think about it differently now (I presume you read it some years ago when you were still a student).

For what it's worth, I believe that the Investigations is the most important contribution to philosophy since Plato. There are insights achieved there that no one has had before Wittgenstein, and that have not really been understood by anyone since then, because they are so counter-intuitive. There are common errors and prejudices in the way virtually all people think when they are doing philosophy or thinking quite generally that have muddled and continue to muddle all abstract thought including all of contemporary "analytic philosophy", and I think that Wittgenstein made a fundamental breakthrough in understanding these errors and explaining them in the Investigations.

I consider the Investigations the best, most original, and most important book I've ever read and the one that has influenced my thinking more than any other. If anyone wants to read or re-read it and has questions or comments about it, I'd be very happy to respond to them. The one thing I would recommend with it is to go slow. Because Wittgenstein's insights are so counter-intuitive and unusual, he had to choose an indirect method of attack in the book, and while none of the material seems technically difficult, it can be very easy to miss the point. One has to keep coming back to certain things again and again until one has an "aha!" moment and one's whole point of view suddenly changes. But the superficial reader can miss all of the action. As Wittgenstein himself quipped once, in philosophy the winner of the race is the one who finishes last, and that is certainly a good guideline to keep in mind in attempting to understand his text.

Post: #8

Yeah - I will read it at some point. Knowing you are a big fan means alot to me since you are my favourite poster on the board. So - I will definitely reconsider his work at some point.

Philosophy is difficult for me. I used to read it all the time. But now I can only read it when the mood grabs me (which is quite rare).

Anyway - here are some links you might enjoy:

Here is an unpublished Wittgenstein archive which is being prepared for publication.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/unpub...e-explored

And here is an interesting magazine (from 1997) article on the controversy surrounding the decades long battle to publish Wittgenstein's unpublished works.

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/iss...n/witt.htm

As for my tastes - here is a review I wrote of my favourite philosophy book:

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