"The genius is not the product of his age, is not to be explained by it, and we do him no honour if we attempt to account for him by it." -- Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Part II, Chap 5.
...but explain him by his age is exactly what Sengoopta tries to do for Weininger. The book helps to situate Weininger in the scientific millieu of his time, as the Harrowitz and Hyams collection (-Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger-) earlier tried to do against a literary backdrop, and though we are grateful for these efforts, both fail to come terms with the seriousness of Weininger's philosophy. They repeat many of the usual dismissive assessments, either by trying to explain him as an unpleasant social phenomenon or personal pathology. We are still waiting for a genuinely philosophical exposition of Weininger's importance to moral philosophy in general and gender-based moral theories, in particular. We strongly suspect, for example, that radical feminism will one day discover a curious allegiance with Weininger. (Janik's -Essays on Wittgenstein and Weininger- in places, however, hints in a more thoughtful direction.)
