Über die letzten Dinge by Otto Weininger
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"Über die letzten Dinge" by Otto Weininger is a collection of philosophical essays and aphorisms written in the early 20th century. Centered on ethics and metaphysics, it advances a rigorous dualism of cosmos versus chaos, examines crime, madness, genius, time, and culture, and treats art and nature as symbols of moral realities. Readers can expect polemical reflections framed by a biographical preface and daring interpretations (notably of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt) that pursue
redemption through truth, responsibility, and inner transformation. The opening of the work presents a biographical preface that sketches the author’s life, studies, and turn from positivism to a Kantian-Platonic ethical dualism, alongside his intense musical sensibility (with Wagner and Beethoven central) and a symbolic reading of nature. It lays out the core thesis: human life is a combat between the “Nothing” (chaos, crime, insanity) and the “All” (goodness, truth), with genius and sainthood defined as the complete overcoming of that inner negation; strict sexual ethics and the earlier book are explained as defenses against moral collapse, culminating in the account of his suicide as a refusal of compromise. Brief letters and notes amplify his symbolist method and moral preoccupations, followed by a table of contents. The first major essay then begins by rejecting fashionable readings of Peer Gynt and recasting it as a universal redemption drama in Kantian terms: love as the path to a true self, the trolls’ self-sufficiency as moral failure, the “button-molder” as the unyielding claim of conscience, and the critique of the lukewarm human who lacks a stable “I,” with Solveig emblematic of salvation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Weininger, Otto, 1880-1903 |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Rappaport, Moriz, 1808-1880 |
| Title | Über die letzten Dinge |
| Original Publication | Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1904. |
| Credits | Alexander Bauer, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net |
| Language | German |
| LoC Class | B: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion |
| Subject | Philosophy |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78808 |
| Release Date | Jun 3, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 344 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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