Critical Online-Edition of the Works of Otto Weininger

The aim of this project is to produce a critical on-line edition of the complete works of Weininger: Sex and Character, On Last Things, The Pocket Notebook, the letters and the miscellae. Over one hundred years after the appearance of Sex and Character in Vienna in 1903, a critical edition of the text of this important work, including all of Weininger`s corrections to the first edition, is not yet at the disposal of scholars in the German-speaking world. An Italian translation of the works of Weininger was published in 1990 which included 80 text variants between the first and the second edition of Sex and Character. A new English translation was published in 2003 with reference to the variants. So a German edition is more necessary than ever to provide a reliable basis for future research into this controversial figure. The first step to that goal is to produce a complete text of Sex and Character with all 208 variants. An historical-critical commentary on the text collection called On last things is the second step in the project. These posthumously published texts summarize the philosophical thoughts of Otto Weininger and important background issues to his philosophical system are clarified. The same is true of Taschenbuch und Briefe (Pocket Notebook and letters, 1919), including a collection of aphorisms. Both will be edited with a commentary and cross-references to Sex and Character. The second step also involves compiling Weininger`s letters as well as other relevant documents (see Eros and Psyche edited by Hannelore Rodlauer). Also to be added are poems, lectures, articles, personal documents, biographic materials, newspaper advertisements and book reviews. A complete edition of the works and letters of Otto Weininger would then be at the disposal of Weininger scholarship. The electronic publication form permits newly found documents and literature to be easily added should such documents later appear. Such a complete on-line corpus of the text will be the basis for future serious scholarly discussion of the work of Otto Weininger. This is particularly important in Weininger`s case because rarely has a thinker been studied in a less systematic, historically nave and thus more distorting way than he.

The aim of this project is to produce a critical on-line edition of the complete works of Weininger: Sex and Character, On Last Things, The Pocket Notebook, the letters and the miscellae. Over one hundred years after the appearance of Sex and Character in Vienna in 1903, a critical edition of the text of this important work, including all of Weininger`s corrections to the first edition, is not yet at the disposal of scholars in the German-speaking world. An Italian translation of the works of Weininger was published in 1990 which included 80 text variants between the first and the second edition of Sex and Character. A new English translation was published in 2003 with reference to the variants. So a German edition is more necessary than ever to provide a reliable basis for future research into this controversial figure. The first step to that goal is to produce a complete text of Sex and Character with all 208 variants. An historical-critical commentary on the text collection called On last things is the second step in the project. These posthumously published texts summarize the philosophical thoughts of Otto Weininger and important background issues to his philosophical system are clarified. The same is true of Taschenbuch und Briefe (Pocket Notebook and letters, 1919), including a collection of aphorisms. Both will be edited with a commentary and cross-references to Sex and Character. The second step also involves compiling Weininger`s letters as well as other relevant documents (see Eros and Psyche edited by Hannelore Rodlauer). Also to be added are poems, lectures, articles, personal documents, biographic materials, newspaper advertisements and book reviews. A complete edition of the works and letters of Otto Weininger would then be at the disposal of Weininger scholarship. The electronic publication form permits newly found documents and literature to be easily added should such documents later appear. Such a complete on-line corpus of the text will be the basis for future serious scholarly discussion of the work of Otto Weininger. This is particularly important in Weininger`s case because rarely has a thinker been studied in a less systematic, historically nave and thus more distorting way than he.