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The Mind And Death Of A Genius

David Abrahamsen

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Description:Otto Weininger, the subject of this biographical and psychoanalytic study, was born in Vienna in 1880. In 1903, at the age of 23, he published an extraordinary book, Sex and Character, which attained great notoriety and has been translated into most of the European languages. A few months after its publication, Weininger, driven by the torments of psychosis and guilt, committed suicide.Dr. Abrahamsen’s reason for selecting Weininger as a subject for study is that he offers a very striking case for the now very generally discussed problem of the relation between abnormality and mental brilliance. Some question, of course, may be raised immediately about the justification of Abrahamsen’s title. Weininger’s book permits one to say that he was extraordinarily precocious and brilliant, that he had amazing flashes of insight, but I think we should be a little more chary of using the term “genius,” applying it only where there is some solid and continous body of work. Freud himself spoke of Weininger’s as a “lousy book,” though elsewhere he also describes it as “remarkable.” Both descriptions fit; since Freud was engaged in founding psychoanalysis upon the bedrock of patient and laborious investigation, he was undoubtedly a little nettled by a book that is for the most part speculative, a priori, rhapsodical; on the other hand, Freud later conceded the acuteness of a good many of Weininger’s perceptions. Weininger was really gratifying a literary and poetical impulse more than an analytic one, as is shown by the other fragments collected after his death. There is good ground for Freud’s irritation in this: psychoanalysis has been conquered as a domain of scientific research, and the layman had better park his lightning stabs of intuition at the door, otherwise he is apt to upset everything all around. Perhaps Weininger might have really turned out to be a genius had he lived and kept his neurosis from the dark borderline of madness.But these are incidental points, and it is the question of the relation of abnormality and genius that makes Dr. Abrahamsen’s book an interesting document. Unfortunately, he only raises the problem, adduces material from Weininger’s life, cites a few parallels from the history of culture, but does not attempt any fresh approach toward an analytic solution. The kinship between neurosis and genius seems to hold mainly for artists rather than scientists, and I think it holds for Weininger, too, mainly in relation to the literary and metaphorical impulse that he released in his writings. In fact, some of the more imaginative fragments quoted from Weininger suggest some further conclusions on the subject that Abrahamsen himself does not draw.In his last days Weininger went in for a study of universal symbolism, and he writes: “The thought came to me (in the spring of 1902) that there must be a relationship between the deep ocean and crime, and I believe I can maintain the same idea today. The depths of the ocean have no share in light, the greatest symbol of the highest life; any being that chooses to live there must be criminal, afraid of light. An octopus, when it is symbolic, can be seen only as a symbol of evil.” Abrahamsen comments, “This sort of symbolism is characteristic of archaic thinking. The symbol, unconsciously adapted, is a manifestation of regression to an earlier stage of thinking.” It is obvious that this kind of symbolic thinking has a great deal in common with certain kinds of poetic metaphor, and the poet living intensely among his metaphors may very well be indulging in a form of “archaic thinking.” And the more completely the poet projects the world under the forms of this archaic thinking, the less capable he becomes of coping with reality in its ordinary and practical dimension. This may be one clue to the neurosis so widespread among some of the greatest of modern writers.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The Mind And Death Of A Genius. To get started finding The Mind And Death Of A Genius, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
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Description: Otto Weininger, the subject of this biographical and psychoanalytic study, was born in Vienna in 1880. In 1903, at the age of 23, he published an extraordinary book, Sex and Character, which attained great notoriety and has been translated into most of the European languages. A few months after its publication, Weininger, driven by the torments of psychosis and guilt, committed suicide.Dr. Abrahamsen’s reason for selecting Weininger as a subject for study is that he offers a very striking case for the now very generally discussed problem of the relation between abnormality and mental brilliance. Some question, of course, may be raised immediately about the justification of Abrahamsen’s title. Weininger’s book permits one to say that he was extraordinarily precocious and brilliant, that he had amazing flashes of insight, but I think we should be a little more chary of using the term “genius,” applying it only where there is some solid and continous body of work. Freud himself spoke of Weininger’s as a “lousy book,” though elsewhere he also describes it as “remarkable.” Both descriptions fit; since Freud was engaged in founding psychoanalysis upon the bedrock of patient and laborious investigation, he was undoubtedly a little nettled by a book that is for the most part speculative, a priori, rhapsodical; on the other hand, Freud later conceded the acuteness of a good many of Weininger’s perceptions. Weininger was really gratifying a literary and poetical impulse more than an analytic one, as is shown by the other fragments collected after his death. There is good ground for Freud’s irritation in this: psychoanalysis has been conquered as a domain of scientific research, and the layman had better park his lightning stabs of intuition at the door, otherwise he is apt to upset everything all around. Perhaps Weininger might have really turned out to be a genius had he lived and kept his neurosis from the dark borderline of madness.But these are incidental points, and it is the question of the relation of abnormality and genius that makes Dr. Abrahamsen’s book an interesting document. Unfortunately, he only raises the problem, adduces material from Weininger’s life, cites a few parallels from the history of culture, but does not attempt any fresh approach toward an analytic solution. The kinship between neurosis and genius seems to hold mainly for artists rather than scientists, and I think it holds for Weininger, too, mainly in relation to the literary and metaphorical impulse that he released in his writings. In fact, some of the more imaginative fragments quoted from Weininger suggest some further conclusions on the subject that Abrahamsen himself does not draw.In his last days Weininger went in for a study of universal symbolism, and he writes: “The thought came to me (in the spring of 1902) that there must be a relationship between the deep ocean and crime, and I believe I can maintain the same idea today. The depths of the ocean have no share in light, the greatest symbol of the highest life; any being that chooses to live there must be criminal, afraid of light. An octopus, when it is symbolic, can be seen only as a symbol of evil.” Abrahamsen comments, “This sort of symbolism is characteristic of archaic thinking. The symbol, unconsciously adapted, is a manifestation of regression to an earlier stage of thinking.” It is obvious that this kind of symbolic thinking has a great deal in common with certain kinds of poetic metaphor, and the poet living intensely among his metaphors may very well be indulging in a form of “archaic thinking.” And the more completely the poet projects the world under the forms of this archaic thinking, the less capable he becomes of coping with reality in its ordinary and practical dimension. This may be one clue to the neurosis so widespread among some of the greatest of modern writers.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The Mind And Death Of A Genius. To get started finding The Mind And Death Of A Genius, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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The Mind And Death Of A Genius

The Mind And Death Of A Genius

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