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SUMMARY:'A falling star' – the sovereign self in Otto Weininger - Louis 
 Sass (Rutgers University\, New Jersey)
DTSTART:20090212T170000Z
DTEND:20090212T190000Z
UID:TALK15889@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
DESCRIPTION:_'Individuality is the fall of man\, and its symbol is the fal
 ling star.'_ (Weininger\, OLT 149)\n\nMy paper offers a case study of a on
 e-dimensional view of the self\, one that attempts to postulate the ideal 
 of an autonomous\, even sovereign\, reflective self or ego that would sepa
 rate itself from both the body and the social world. The theorist in quest
 ion is Otto Weininger\, a once-famous figure from fin-de-siècle Vienna wh
 ose notorious book\, _Sex and Character\,_ appeared in 1903. Weininger inf
 luenced many luminaries of early 20th century culture\, all of whom viewed
  him as having the qualities of genius – these include August Strindberg
 \, D.W. Lawrence\, Oswald Spengler\, Hermann Broch\, and Ludwig Wittgenste
 in.\n\nMy focus will be on the most abstract and foundational level of Wei
 ninger's theorizing\, which is his post-Kantian or hyper-Kantian conceptio
 n of the essential nature of human consciousness and the transcendental eg
 o. I shall discuss Weininger's affinities with as well as divergences from
  the thought of Kant\, Fichte\, and the German idealist tradition in gener
 al. My focus will be on the inherent contradictions\, both logical and exi
 stential\, which Weininger's extreme\, one-dimensional view seems to have 
 entailed\, and which may have contributed to his suicide at age 23. Weinin
 ger's work and life can be seen as a fable of the impossibility\, and ulti
 mate unlivability\, of a mode of being that would reject the embedded and 
 embodied nature of human selfhood.
LOCATION:CRASSH Seminar Room\, 17 Mill Lane
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