Max Stirner

1806-1856 · German · Egoist Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Critique of Ideology, Post-Hegelian Polemics

Nothing is more to me than myself.

A schoolteacher at a Berlin girls' academy, scribbling the most explosive book of his generation between lessons — that was Johann Caspar Schmidt, who signed it Max Stirner. He moved among the Young Hegelians at Hippel's wine bar alongside Marx, Engels, and Feuerbach, then in 1844 published Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Ego and Its Own) and detonated the whole circle. He died poor in 1856, twice jailed for debt, killed by an infected insect bite — a quiet end for the most radical writer of the Hegelian aftermath.

Topics Max Stirner addresses

• the unique one (der Einzige)
• the creative nothing
• spooks (fixed ideas)
• ownness (Eigenheit)
• property as power
• the union of egoists
• egoism as description, not prescription
• the egoist's withdrawal from authority
• humanism as inverted Christianity
• Man (Mensch) as spook
• the State as spook
• liberalism as political humanism
• communism as social humanism
• the critique of morality
• the critique of political authority
• the dissolution of all essences
• the inhumane (Unmensch)
• egoist enjoyment (Genuss)
• the bourgeois individual vs the unique
• Feuerbach and the religious inversion
• the Marx-Engels Saint Max polemic
• the Young Hegelians (Die Freien)
• Bruno Bauer and self-consciousness
• the ancient / modern / Christian periodization

Questions to put to Max Stirner

The Unique One and the Creative Nothing

• What do you mean when you say you've based your affair on nothing?
• How is the Unique One different from the individual or the self?
• Why can't the Unique be captured by any concept or category?
• What's the difference between ownness and selfishness?
• How should I understand the claim that nothing is more to you than yourself?

Spooks and Fixed Ideas

• What is a spook, and how does it get power over us?
• How are God, Mankind, and the State all the same kind of thing?
• Why do you think morality is a fixed idea?
• How do I recognize when I'm being ruled by a spook?
• What's left after all the spooks have been cleared away?
• Is your own concept of the Unique just another spook?

Egoism and Self-Interest

• Are you saying all human action is actually egoistic?
• How is your egoism different from just saying people are selfish?
• What's wrong with altruism or caring about others?
• Why do you think people who claim to act morally are deceiving themselves?
• Does recognizing my egoism change how I should act?

Property, Power, and the Union of Egoists

• What do you mean when you say property is what I have power over?
• How is your view of property different from saying might makes right?
• What is the union of egoists, and how does it work?
• Why don't unions of egoists need contracts or constitutions?
• How would a union of egoists be different from a voluntary association or a commune?

Against the State and Political Authority

• Why do you call the State the highest spook?
• How is a democratic state just as bad as a monarchy?
• What's the difference between your view and classical anarchism?
• Why isn't replacing the State with free associations enough?
• What does it mean for the egoist to withdraw from political authority altogether?

Feuerbach, Humanism, and the Young Hegelians

• How is Feuerbach's humanism just inverted Christianity?
• Why do you think replacing God with Mankind doesn't solve the problem?
• What's your critique of liberalism and communism as humanist ideologies?
• How did you see the Young Hegelian project differently from your peers?
• Why did Marx and Engels spend so much time attacking you in 'Saint Max'?
• What's at stake for you in the polemic against Marx?

Converse with Max Stirner on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Max Stirner's own writing, cited to the page.