Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26
June 1856), better known as Max Stirner, was
a German philosopher who is often seen as
one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism,
psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism and individualist
anarchism. Stirner's main work is The Ego
and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His
Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum in German,
which translates literally as The Individual
and His Property). This work was first published
in 1845 in Leipzig and has since appeared
in numerous editions and translations.
== Biography ==
Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria. What
little is known of his life is mostly due
to the Scottish-born German writer John Henry
Mackay, who wrote a biography of Stirner (Max
Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk), published
in German in 1898 (enlarged 1910, 1914) and
translated into English in 2005. Stirner was
the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich
Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein
(1778–1839). His father died of tuberculosis
on 19 April 1807 at the age of 37. In 1809,
his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt
(a pharmacist) and settled in West Prussian
Kulm (now Chełmno, Poland). When Stirner
turned 20, he attended the University of Berlin,
where he studied philology, philosophy and
theology. He attended the lectures of Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was to become
a source of inspiration for his thinking.
He attended Hegel's lectures on the history
of philosophy, the philosophy of religion
and the subjective spirit. Stirner then moved
to the University of Erlangen, which he attended
at the same time as Ludwig Feuerbach.Stirner
returned to Berlin and obtained a teaching
certificate, but he was unable to obtain a
full-time teaching post from the Prussian
government. While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner
participated in discussions with a group of
young philosophers called Die Freien ("The
Free") and whom historians have subsequently
categorized as the Young Hegelians. Some of
the best known names in 19th century literature
and philosophy were involved with this group,
including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Bruno
Bauer and Arnold Ruge. Contrary to popular
belief, Feuerbach was not a member of Die
Freien, although he was heavily involved in
Young Hegelian discourse. While some of the
Young Hegelians were eager subscribers to
Hegel's dialectical method and attempted to
apply dialectical approaches to Hegel's conclusions,
the left-wing members of the group broke with
Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.
Frequently the debates would take place at
Hippel's, a wine bar in Friedrichstraße,
attended by among others Marx and Engels,
who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the
time. Stirner met with Engels many times and
Engels even recalled that they were "great
friends", but it is still unclear whether
Marx and Stirner ever met. It does not appear
that Stirner contributed much to the discussions,
but he was a faithful member of the club and
an attentive listener. The most-often reproduced
portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels,
drawn forty years later from memory at biographer
Mackay's request. It is highly likely that
this and the group sketch of Die Freien at
Hippel's are the only firsthand images of
Stirner. Stirner worked as a teacher in a
school for young girls owned by Madame Gropius
when he wrote his major work, The Ego and
Its Own, which in part is a polemic against
Feuerbach and Bauer, but also against communists
such as Wilhelm Weitling and the anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. He resigned from his
teaching position in anticipation of controversy
from this work's publication in October 1844.
Stirner married twice. His first wife was
Agnes Burtz (1815–1838), the daughter of
his landlady, who he married on 12 December
1837. However, she died from complications
with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843, he married
Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated
with Die Freien. They divorced in 1846. The
Ego and Its Own was dedicated "to my sweetheart
Marie Dähnhardt". Marie later converted to
Catholicism and died in 1902 in London.
After The Ego and Its Own, Stirner wrote Stirner's
Critics and translated Adam Smith's The Wealth
of Nations and Jean-Baptiste Say's Traite
d'Economie Politique into German to little
financial gain. He also wrote a compilation
of texts titled History of Reaction in 1852.
Stirner died in 1856 in Berlin from an infected
insect bite and it is said that Bruno Bauer
was the only Young Hegelian present at his
funeral, held at the Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde
Berlin.
== Philosophy ==
The philosophy of Stirner is credited as a
major influence in the development of nihilism,
existentialism and post-modernism as well
as individualist anarchism, post-anarchism
and post-left anarchy. Stirner's main philosophical
work was The Ego and Its Own, also known as
The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein
Eigentum in German, which translates literally
as The Unique One and His Property).
=== Egoism ===
Stirner argues that individuals are impossible
to fully comprehend. All mere concepts of
the self will always be inadequate to fully
describe the nature of our experience. Stirner
has been broadly understood as a proponent
of both psychological egoism and ethical egoism,
although the latter position can be disputed
as there is no claim in Stirner's writing
in which one ought to pursue one's own interest
and further claiming any ought could be seen
as a new fixed idea. However, he may be understood
as a rational egoist in the sense that he
considered it irrational not to act in one's
self-interest. However, how this self-interest
is defined is necessarily subjective, allowing
both selfish and altruistic normative claims
to be included. Individual self-realization
rests on each individual's desire to fulfill
their egoism. The difference between an unwilling
and a willing egoist is that the former will
be possessed by an empty idea and believe
that they are fulfilling a higher cause, but
usually being unaware that they are only fulfilling
their own desires to be happy or secure; and
the latter, in contrast, will be a person
that is able to freely choose its actions,
fully aware that they are only fulfilling
individual desires: Sacred things exist only
for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself,
the involuntary egoist [...] in short, for
the egoist who would like not to be an egoist,
and abases himself (combats his egoism), but
at the same time abases himself only for the
sake of "being exalted", and therefore of
gratifying his egoism. Because he would like
to cease to be an egoist, he looks about in
heaven and earth for higher beings to serve
and sacrifice himself to; but, however much
he shakes and disciplines himself, in the
end he does all for his own sake [...] [on]
this account I call him the involuntary egoist.
[...] As you are each instant, you are your
own creature in this very 'creature' you do
not wish to lose yourself, the creator. You
are yourself a higher being than you are,
and surpass yourself [...] just this, as an
involuntary egoist, you fail to recognize;
and therefore the 'higher essence' is to you
– an alien essence. [...] Alienness is a
criterion of the "sacred".
The contrast is also expressed in terms of
the difference between the voluntary egoist
being the possessor of his concepts as opposed
to being possessed. Only when one realizes
that all sacred truths such as law, right,
morality, religion and so on are nothing other
than artificial concepts—and not to be obeyed—can
one act freely. For Stirner, to be free is
to be both one's own "creature" (in the sense
of creation) and one's own "creator" (dislocating
the traditional role assigned to the gods).
To Stirner, power is the method of egoism—it
is the only justified method of gaining property.
=== Anarchism ===
Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted
social institutions—including the notion
of state, property as a right, natural rights
in general and the very notion of society—were
mere illusions, "spooks" or ghosts in the
mind. He advocated egoism and a form of amoralism
in which individuals would unite in unions
of egoists only when it was in their self-interest
to do so. For him, property simply comes about
through might: "Whoever knows how to take,
to defend, the thing, to him belongs property"
and "[w]hat I have in my power, that is my
own. So long as I assert myself as holder,
I am the proprietor of the thing". He says:
"I do not step shyly back from your property,
but look upon it always as my property, in
which I respect nothing. Pray do the like
with what you call my property!". Stirner
considers the world and everything in it,
including other persons, available to one's
taking or use without moral constraint and
that rights do not exist in regard to objects
and people at all. He sees no rationality
in taking the interests of others into account
unless doing so furthers one's self-interest,
which he believes is the only legitimate reason
for acting. He denies society as being an
actual entity, calling society a "spook" and
that "the individuals are its reality" (The
Ego and Its Own).
==== Union of egoists ====
Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was
first expounded in The Ego and Its Own. The
Union is understood as a non-systematic association,
which Stirner proposed in contradistinction
to the state. The Union is understood as a
relation between egoists which is continually
renewed by all parties' support through an
act of will. The Union requires that all parties
participate out of a conscious egoism. If
one party silently finds themselves to be
suffering, but puts up and keeps the appearance,
the union has degenerated into something else.
This union is not seen as an authority above
a person's own will.
==== Revolution ====
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of
revolution, arguing that social movements
aimed at overturning the state are tacitly
statist because they are implicitly aimed
at the establishment of a new state thereafter.
=== Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's possible
influence ===
Scholar Lawrence Stepelevich argues that Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a major influence
on The Ego and Its Own. While the latter has
an "un-Hegelian structure and tone" on the
whole and is hostile to Hegel's conclusions
about the self and the world, Stepelevich
argues that Stirner's work is best understood
as answering Hegel's question of the role
of consciousness after it has contemplated
"untrue knowledge" and become "absolute knowledge".
Stirner, Stepelevich concludes, presents the
consequences of the rediscovering one's self-consciousness
after realizing self-determination.
Scholars such as Douglas Moggach and Widukind
De Ridder have argued that Stirner was obviously
a student of Hegel, like his contemporaries
Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, but this
does not necessarily make him an Hegelian.
Contrary to the Young Hegelians, Stirner scorned
all attempts at an immanent critique of Hegel
and the Enlightenment and renounced Bauer
and Feuerbach's emancipatory claims as well.
Contrary to Hegel, who considered the given
as an inadequate embodiment of rationality,
Stirner leaves the given intact by considering
it a mere object, not of transformation, but
of enjoyment and consumption ("His Own").
According to Douglas Moggach, Stirner does
not go beyond Hegel, but in fact leaves the
domain of philosophy in its entirety: Stirner
refused to conceptualize the human self, and
rendered it devoid of any reference to rationality
or universal standards. The self was moreover
considered a field of action, a 'never-being
I'. The 'I' had no essence to realize and
life itself was a process of self-dissolution.
Far from accepting, like the humanist Hegelians,
a construal of subjectivity endowed with a
universal and ethical mission, Stirner's notion
of 'the Unique' (Der Einzige) distances itself
from any conceptualization whatsoever: 'There
is no development of the concept of the Unique.
No philosophical system can be built out of
it, as it can out of Being, or Thinking, or
the I. Rather, with it, all development of
the concept ceases. The person who views it
as a principle thinks that he can treat it
philosophically or theoretically and necessarily
wastes his breath arguing against it'.
== Works ==
=== The False Principle of our Education ===
In 1842, Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung
(The False Principle of our Education) was
published in Rheinische Zeitung, which was
edited by Marx at the time. Written as a reaction
to Otto Friedrich Theodor Heinsius' treatise
Humanism vs. Realism, Stirner explains that
education in either the classical humanist
method or the practical realist method still
lacks true value. Education is therefore fulfilled
in aiding the individual in becoming an individual.
=== Art and Religion ===
Kunst und Religion (Art and Religion) was
also published in Rheinische Zeitung on 14
June 1842. It addresses Bruno Bauer and his
publication against Hegel called Hegel's doctrine
of religion and art judged from the standpoint
of faith. Bauer had inverted Hegel's relation
between Art and Religion, by claiming that
Art was much more closely related to Philosophy
than Religion, based on their shared determinacy
and clarity, and a common ethical root. However,
Stirner went beyond both Hegel and Bauer's
criticism by asserting that "Art" rather created
an object for "Religion" and could thus by
no means be related to what Stirner considered—in
opposition with Hegel and Bauer—to be "Philosophy":
It [philosophy] neither stands opposed to
an Object, as Religion, nor makes one, as
Art, but rather places its pulverizing hand
upon all the business of making Objects as
well as the whole of objectivity itself, and
so breathes the air of freedom. Reason, the
spirit of Philosophy, concerns itself only
with itself, and troubles itself over no Object.
Stirner deliberately left Philosophy out of
the dialectical triad (Art–Religion–Philosophy)
by claiming that Philosophy "doesn't bother
itself with objects" (Religion), nor does
it "make an object" (Art). In Stirner's account,
Philosophy was in fact indifferent towards
both Art and Religion. Stirner thus mocked
and radicalised Bauer's criticism of religion.
=== The Ego and Its Own ===
Stirner's main work is Der Einzige und sein
Eigenthum (in modern German spelling Der Einzige
und sein Eigentum; in English The Ego and
Its Own, literally The Unique and Its Property),
which appeared in Leipzig in October 1844,
with as year of publication mentioned 1845.
In The Ego And Its Own, Stirner launches a
radical anti-authoritarian and individualist
critique of contemporary Prussian society
and modern western society as such. He offers
an approach to human existence in which he
depicts himself as "the unique one", a "creative
nothing," beyond the ability of language to
fully express: If I concern myself for myself,
the unique one, then my concern rests on its
transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself,
and I may say: All things are nothing to me.
The book proclaims that all religions and
ideologies rest on empty concepts. The same
holds true for society's institutions that
claim authority over the individual, be it
the state, legislation, the church, or the
systems of education such as universities.
Stirner's argument explores and extends the
limits of criticism, aiming his critique especially
at those of his contemporaries, particularly
Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer; and at popular
ideologies, including religion, liberalism
and humanism (which he regarded as analogous
to religion with the abstract Man or humanity
as the supreme being), nationalism, statism,
capitalism, socialism and communism: In the
time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped
my head, whose offspring they yet were; they
hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies
– an awful power. The thoughts had become
corporeal on their own account, were ghosts,
e. g. God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc.
If I destroy their corporeity, then I take
them back into mine, and say: "I alone am
corporeal." And now I take the world as what
it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer
all to myself.
=== Stirner's Critics ===
Recensenten Stirners (Stirner's Critics) was
published in September 1845 in Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift.
It is a response in which Stirner refers to
himself in the third-person to three critical
reviews of The Ego and its Own by Moses Hess
in Die letzten Philosophen (The Last Philosophers),
by a certain Szeliga (alias of an adherent
of Bruno Bauer) in an article in the journal
Norddeutsche Blätter and by Ludwig Feuerbach
anonymously in an article called Über 'Das
Wesen des Christentums' in Beziehung auf Stirners
'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum' (On 'The Essence
of Christianity' in Relation to Stirner's
'The Ego and its Own') in Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift.
=== The Philosophical Reactionaries ===
Die Philosophischen Reactionäre (The Philosophical
Reactionaries) was published in 1847 in Die
Epigonen, a journal edited by Otto Wigand
from Leipzig. At the time, Wigand had already
published Der Einzige und sein Eigentum and
was about to finish the publication of Stirner's
translations of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste
Say. As the subtitle indicates, Die Philosophischen
Reactionäre was written in response to an
article by Kuno Fischer (1824–1907) entitled
Die Moderne Sophisten (1847). The article
was signed G. Edward and its authorship has
been disputed ever since John Henry Mackay
"cautiously" attributed it to Stirner and
included it in his collection of Stirner's
lesser writings. It was first translated into
English in 2011 and the introductory note
explains: Mackay based his attribution of
this text to Stirner on Kuno Fischer's subsequent
reply to it, in which the latter, 'with such
determination', identified G. Edward as Max
Stirner. The article was entitled 'Ein Apologet
der Sophistik und "ein Philosophischer Reactionäre"'
and was published alongside 'Die Philosophischen
Reactionäre'. Moreover, it seems rather odd
that Otto Wigand would have published 'Edward's'
piece back- to-back with an article that falsely
attributed it to one of his personal associates
at the time. And, indeed, as Mackay went on
to argue, Stirner never refuted this attribution.
This remains, however, a slim basis on which
to firmly identify Stirner as the author.
This circumstantial evidence has led some
scholars to cast doubts over Stirner's authorship,
based on both the style and content of 'Die
Philosophischen Reactionäre'. One should,
however, bear in mind that it was written
almost three years after Der Einzige und sein
Eigentum, at a time when Young Hegelianism
had withered away.
The majority of the text deals with Kuno Fischer's
definition of sophism. With much wit, the
self-contradictory nature of Fischer's criticism
of Sophism is exposed. Fischer had made a
sharp distinction between Sophism and philosophy,
while at the same time considering Sophism
as the "mirror image of philosophy". The Sophists
breathe "philosophical air" and were "dialectically
inspired to a formal volubility". Stirner's
answer is striking: Have you philosophers
really no clue that you have been beaten with
your own weapons? Only one clue. What can
your common sense reply when I dissolve dialectically
what you have merely posited dialectically?
You have showed me with what kind of 'volubility'
one can turn everything to nothing and nothing
to everything, black into white and white
into black. What do you have against me, when
I return to you your pure art?
Looking back on Der Einzige und sein Eigentum,
Stirner claims: Stirner himself has described
his book as, in part, a clumsy expression
of what he wanted to say. It is the arduous
work of the best years of his life, and yet
he calls it, in part, 'clumsy'. That is how
hard he struggled with a language that was
ruined by philosophers, abused by state-,
religious- and other believers, and enabled
a boundless confusion of ideas.
=== History of Reaction ===
Geschichte der Reaktion (History of Reaction)
was published in two volumes in 1851 by Allgemeine
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and immediately banned
in Austria. It was written in the context
of the recent 1848 revolutions in German states
and is mainly a collection of the works of
others selected and translated by Stirner.
The introduction and some additional passages
were Stirner's work. Edmund Burke and Auguste
Comte are quoted to show two opposing views
of revolution.
== Critical reception ==
Stirner's work did not go unnoticed among
his contemporaries. Stirner's attacks on ideology—in
particular Feuerbach's humanism—forced Feuerbach
into print. Moses Hess (at that time close
to Marx) and Szeliga (pseudonym of Franz Zychlin
von Zychlinski, an adherent of Bruno Bauer)
also replied to Stirner. Stirner answered
the criticism in a German periodical in the
article Stirner's Critics (original title
Recensenten Stirners, September 1845), which
clarifies several points of interest to readers
of the book—especially in relation to Feuerbach.
While Marx's Sankt Max (large part of Die
Deutsche Ideologie/The German Ideology), not
published until 1932, so assured The Ego and
Its Own a place of curious interest among
Marxist readers, Marx's ridicule of Stirner
has played a significant role in the preservation
of Stirner's work in popular and academic
discourse despite lacking mainstream popularity.
== Comments by contemporaries ==
Twenty years after the appearance of Stirner's
book, the author Friedrich Albert Lange wrote
the following: Stirner went so far in his
notorious work, 'Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum'
(1845), as to reject all moral ideas. Everything
that in any way, whether it be external force,
belief, or mere idea, places itself above
the individual and his caprice, Stirner rejects
as a hateful limitation of himself. What a
pity that to this book – the extremest that
we know anywhere – a second positive part
was not added. It would have been easier than
in the case of Schelling's philosophy; for
out of the unlimited Ego I can again beget
every kind of Idealism as my will and my idea.
Stirner lays so much stress upon the will,
in fact, that it appears as the root force
of human nature. It may remind us of Schopenhauer.
Some people believe that in a sense a "second
positive part" was soon to be added, though
not by Stirner, but by Friedrich Nietzsche.
The relationship between Nietzsche and Stirner
seems to be much more complicated. According
to George J. Stack's Lange and Nietzsche,
Nietzsche read Lange's History of Materialism
"again and again" and was therefore very familiar
with the passage regarding Stirner.
== Influence ==
While Der Einzige was a critical success and
attracted much reaction from famous philosophers
after publication, it was out of print and
the notoriety that it had provoked had faded
many years before Stirner's death. Stirner
had a destructive impact on left-Hegelianism,
but his philosophy was a significant influence
on Marx and his magnum opus became a founding
text of individualist anarchism. Edmund Husserl
once warned a small audience about the "seducing
power" of Der Einzige, but he never mentioned
it in his writing. As the art critic and Stirner
admirer Herbert Read observed, the book has
remained "stuck in the gizzard" of Western
culture since it first appeared.Many thinkers
have read and been affected by The Ego and
Its Own in their youth including Rudolf Steiner,
Gustav Landauer, Victor Serge, Carl Schmitt
and Jürgen Habermas. Few openly admit any
influence on their own thinking. Ernst Jünger's
book Eumeswil, had the character of the Anarch,
based on Stirner's Einzige. Several other
authors, philosophers and artists have cited,
quoted or otherwise referred to Max Stirner.
They include Albert Camus in The Rebel (the
section on Stirner is omitted from the majority
of English editions including Penguin's),
Benjamin Tucker, James Huneker, Dora Marsden,
Renzo Novatore, Emma Goldman, Georg Brandes,
John Cowper Powys, Martin Buber, Sidney Hook,
Robert Anton Wilson, Horst Matthai, Frank
Brand, Marcel Duchamp, several writers of
the Situationist International including Raoul
Vaneigem and Max Ernst. Oscar Wilde's The
Soul of Man Under Socialism has caused some
historians to speculate that Wilde (who could
read German) was familiar with the book.Since
its appearance in 1844, The Ego and Its Own
has seen periodic revivals of popular, political
and academic interest based around widely
divergent translations and interpretations—some
psychological, others political in their emphasis.
Today, many ideas associated with post-left
anarchy's criticism of ideology and uncompromising
individualism are clearly related to Stirner's.
His ideas were also adopted by post-anarchism,
with Saul Newman largely in agreement with
many of Stirner's criticisms of classical
anarchism, including his rejection of revolution
and essentialism.
=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ===
Friedrich Engels commented on Stirner in poetry
at the time of Die Freien:
Look at Stirner, look at him, the peaceful
enemy of all constraint.
For the moment, he is still drinking beer,
Soon he will be drinking blood as though it
were water.
When others cry savagely "down with the kings"
Stirner immediately supplements "down with
the laws also."
Stirner full of dignity proclaims;
You bend your willpower and you dare to call
yourselves free.
You become accustomed to slavery
Down with dogmatism, down with law.
He once even recalled at how they were "great
friends (Duzbrüder)". In November 1844, Engels
wrote a letter to Karl Marx. He reported first
on a visit to Moses Hess in Cologne and then
went on to note that during this visit Hess
had given him a press copy of a new book by
Max Stirner, Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum.
In his letter to Marx, Engels promised to
send a copy of Der Einzige to him, for it
certainly deserved their attention as Stirner
"had obviously, among the 'Free Ones', the
most talent, independence and diligence".
To begin with, Engels was enthusiastic about
the book and expressed his opinions freely
in letters to Marx: But what is true in his
principle, we, too, must accept. And what
is true is that before we can be active in
any cause we must make it our own, egoistic
cause-and that in this sense, quite aside
from any material expectations, we are communists
in virtue of our egoism, that out of egoism
we want to be human beings and not merely
individuals.
Later, Marx and Engels wrote a major criticism
of Stirner's work. The number of pages Marx
and Engels devote to attacking Stirner in
(the unexpurgated text of) The German Ideology,
in which they derided him as Sankt Max ("Saint
Max"), exceeds the total of Stirner's written
works. As Isaiah Berlin has described it,
Stirner "is pursued through five hundred pages
of heavy-handed mockery and insult". The book
was written in 1845–1846, but it was not
published until 1932. Marx's lengthy, ferocious
polemic against Stirner has since been considered
an important turning point in Marx's intellectual
development from idealism to materialism.
It has been argued that historical materialism
was Marx's method of reconciling communism
with a Stirnerite rejection of morality.
=== Stirner and post-structuralism ===
The influential French poststructuralist thinker
Jacques Derrida in his book Specters of Marx
dealt with Stirner and his relationship with
Marx while also analysing Stirner's concept
of "specters" or "spooks". Gilles Deleuze,
another key thinker associated with post-structuralism
mentions Stirner briefly in his book The Logic
of Sense. Saul Newman calls Stirner a proto-poststructuralist
who on the one hand had essentially anticipated
modern post-structuralists such as Foucault,
Lacan, Deleuze and Derrida, but on the other
had already transcended them, thus providing
what they were unable to—i.e. a ground for
a non-essentialist critique of present liberal
capitalist society. This is particularly evident
in Stirner's identification of the self with
a "creative nothing", a thing that cannot
be bound by ideology (like leftist or Marxists
ideology of French post-structuralists), inaccessible
to representation in language.
=== Possible influence on Friedrich Nietzsche
===
The ideas of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche
have often been compared and many authors
have discussed apparent similarities in their
writings, sometimes raising the question of
influence. In Germany, during the early years
of Nietzsche's emergence as a well-known figure
the only thinker discussed in connection with
his ideas more often than Stirner was Arthur
Schopenhauer. It is certain that Nietzsche
read about The Ego and Its Own, which was
mentioned in Friedrich Albert Lange's History
of Materialism and Karl Robert Eduard von
Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unconscious,
both of which Nietzsche knew well. However,
there is no indication that he actually read
it as no mention of Stirner is known to exist
anywhere in Nietzsche's publications, papers
or correspondence. In 2002, a biographical
discovery revealed it is probable that Nietzsche
had encountered Stirner's ideas before he
read Hartmann and Lange in October 1865, when
he met with Eduard Mushacke, an old friend
of Stirner's during the 1840s.Yet as soon
as Nietzsche's work began to reach a wider
audience, the question of whether he owed
a debt of influence to Stirner was raised.
As early as 1891 (while Nietzsche was still
alive, though incapacitated by mental illness),
von Hartmann went so far as to suggest that
he had plagiarized Stirner. By the turn of
the century, the belief that Nietzsche had
been influenced by Stirner was so widespread
that it became something of a commonplace,
at least in Germany, prompting one observer
to note in 1907 that "Stirner's influence
in modern Germany has assumed astonishing
proportions, and moves in general parallel
with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are
regarded as exponents of essentially the same
philosophy".Nevertheless, from the beginning
of what was characterized as "great debate"
regarding Stirner's possible positive influence
on Nietzsche, serious problems with the idea
were noted. By the middle of the 20th century,
if Stirner was mentioned at all in works on
Nietzsche, the idea of influence was often
dismissed outright or abandoned as unanswerable.However,
the idea that Nietzsche was influenced in
some way by Stirner continues to attract a
significant minority, perhaps because it seems
necessary to explain the oft-noted (though
arguably superficial) similarities in their
writings. In any case, the most significant
problems with the theory of possible Stirner
influence on Nietzsche are not limited to
the difficulty in establishing whether the
one man knew of or read the other. They also
consist in determining if Stirner in particular
might have been a meaningful influence on
a man as widely read as Nietzsche.
=== Rudolf Steiner ===
The individualist-anarchist orientation of
Rudolf Steiner's early philosophy—before
he turned to theosophy around 1900—has strong
parallels to and was admittedly influenced
by Stirner's conception of the ego, for which
Steiner claimed to have provided a philosophical
foundation.
=== Anarchism ===
Stirner's philosophy was important in the
development of modern anarchist thought, particularly
individualist anarchism and egoist anarchism.
Although Stirner is usually associated with
individualist anarchism, he was influential
to many social anarchists such as anarcha-feminists
Emma Goldman and Federica Montseny. In European
individualist anarchism, he influenced its
main proponents after him such as Émile Armand,
Han Ryner, Renzo Novatore, John Henry Mackay,
Miguel Giménez Igualada and Lev Chernyi.
In American individualist anarchism, he found
adherence in Benjamin Tucker and his magazine
Liberty while these abandoned natural rights
positions for egoism. Several periodicals
"were undoubtedly influenced by Liberty's
presentation of egoism". They included I,
published by Clarence Lee Swartz and edited
by William Walstein Gordak and J. William
Lloyd (all associates of Liberty); and The
Ego and The Egoist, both of which were edited
by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers
that Tucker followed, there were the German
Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand; and The
Eagle and The Serpent, issued from London.
The latter, the most prominent English-language
egoist journal, was published from 1898 to
1900 with the subtitle "A Journal of Egoistic
Philosophy and Sociology". Other American
egoist anarchists around the early 20th century
include James L. Walker, George Schumm, John
Beverley Robinson, Steven T. Byington and
Edward H. Fulton.In the United Kingdom, Herbert
Read was influenced by Stirner and noted the
closeness of Stirner's egoism to existentialism
(see existentialist anarchism). Later in the
1960s, Daniel Guérin says in Anarchism: From
Theory to Practice that Stirner "rehabilitated
the individual at a time when the philosophical
field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism
and most reformers in the social field had
been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism
to stress its opposite" and pointed to "the
boldness and scope of his thought". In the
1970s, an American Situationist collective
called For Ourselves published a book called
The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical
Necessity Of Demanding Everything in which
they advocate a "communist egoism" basing
themselves on Stirner.Later in the United
States, it emerged the tendency of post-left
anarchy which was influenced profoundly by
Stirner in aspects such as the critique of
ideology. Jason McQuinn says that "when I
(and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize
ideology, it is always from a specifically
critical, anarchist perspective rooted in
both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist
philosophy of Max Stirner". Bob Black and
Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere
to Stirnerist egoism. In the hybrid of post-structuralism
and anarchism called post-anarchism, Saul
Newman has written on Stirner and his similarities
to post-structuralism. Insurrectionary anarchism
also has an important relationship with Stirner
as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher
and Alfredo Bonanno who has also written on
him in works such as Max Stirner and "Max
Stirner und der Anarchismus".
=== Free love, homosexuals and feminists ===
The German stirnerist Adolf Brand produced
the homosexual periodical Der Eigene in 1896.
This was the first ongoing homosexual publication
in the world and ran until 1931. The name
was taken from the writings of Stirner (who
had greatly influenced the young Brand) and
refers to Stirner's concept of "self-ownership"
of the individual. Another early homosexual
activist influenced by Stirner was John Henry
Mackay. Feminists influenced by Stirner include
Dora Marsden who edited the journals The Freewoman
and The New Freewoman and anarchist Emma Goldman.
Stirner also influenced free love and polyamory
propagandist Émile Armand in the context
of French individualist anarchism of the early
20th century which is known for "[t]he call
of nudist naturism, the strong defense of
birth control methods, the idea of "unions
of egoists" with the sole justification of
sexual practices".
== See also ==
Individualist anarchism in Europe
Philosophy of Max Stirner
Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and
Max Stirner
Egoist anarchism
== Notes ==
== References ==
Stirner, Max: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum
(1845 [October 1844]). Stuttgart: Reclam-Verlag,
1972ff; English translation The Ego and Its
Own (1907), ed. David Leopold, Cambridge/
New York: CUP 1995.
Stirner, Max: "Recensenten Stirners" (September
1845). In: Parerga, Kritiken, Repliken, Bernd
A. Laska, ed., Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag, 1986;
English translation Stirner's Critics (abridged),
see below.
Max Stirner, Political Liberalism (1845).
== Further reading ==
Max Stirner's 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'
im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen deutschen
Kritik. Eine Textauswahl (1844–1856). Hg.
Kurt W. Fleming. Leipzig: Verlag Max-Stirner-Archiv
2001 (Stirneriana).
Arena, Leonardo V., Note ai margini del nulla,
ebook, 2013.
Arvon, Henri, Aux Sources de l'existentialisme,
Paris: P.U.F. 1954.
Essbach, Wolfgang, Gegenzüge. Der Materialismus
des Selbst. Eine Studie über die Kontroverse
zwischen Max Stirner und Karl Marx. Frankfurt:
Materialis 1982.
Feiten, Elmo (2013). "Would the Real Max Stirner
Please Stand Up?". Anarchist Developments
in Cultural Studies. ISSN 1923-5615.
Helms, Hans G, Die Ideologie der anonymen
Gesellschaft. Max Stirner 'Einziger' und der
Fortschritt des demokratischen Selbstbewusstseins
vom Vormärz bis zur Bundesrepublik, Köln:
Du Mont Schauberg, 1966.
Koch, Andrew M., "Max Stirner: The Last Hegelian
or the First Poststructuralist". In: Anarchist
Studies, vol. 5 (1997) pp. 95–108.
Laska, Bernd A., Ein dauerhafter Dissident.
Eine Wirkungsgeschichte des Einzigen, Nürnberg:
LSR-Verlag 1996 (TOC, index).
Laska, Bernd A., Ein heimlicher Hit. Editionsgeschichte
des "Einzigen". Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1994
(abstract).
Marshall, Peter H. "Max Stirner" in "Demanding
the Impossible: A History of Anarchism "(London:
HarperCollins, 1992).
Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind, "Hegelianism
in Restoration Prussia,1841–1848: Freedom,
Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian
Thought". In: Herzog, Lisa (ed.): Hegel's
Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents
and Undercurrents. Basingstoke and New York,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 71–92 (Google
Books).
Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical
Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought),
Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2011 (full book).
Newman, Saul, Power and Politics in Poststructural
Thought. London and New York: Routledge 2005.
Paterson, R.W.K., The Nihilistic Egoist: Max
Stirner, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1971.
Spiessens, Jeff. The Radicalism of Departure.
A Reassessment of Max Stirner's Hegelianism,
Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon
Tyne, 2018.
Stepelevich, Lawrence S. (1985). "Max Stirner
as Hegelian". Journal of the History of Ideas.
46 (4): 597–614. doi:10.2307/2709548. ISSN
0022-5037. JSTOR 2709548.
Stepelevich, Lawrence S., Ein Menschenleben.
Hegel and Stirner". In: Moggach, Douglas (ed.):
The New Hegelians. Philosophy and Politics
in the Hegelian School. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2006, pp. 166–176.
Welsh, John F. Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism:
A New Interpretation. Lexington Books. 2010.
Wilkinson, Will (2008). "Stirner, Max (1806–1856)".
In Hamowy, Ronald. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism.
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp.
493–494. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n300.
ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC
750831024.
Di Mascio, Carlo, Stirner Giuspositivista.
Rileggendo l'Unico e la sua proprietà, 2
ed., Edizioni Del Faro, Trento, 2015, p. 253,
ISBN 978-88-6537-378-1.
== External links ==
Works written by or about Max Stirner at Wikisource
Quotations related to Max Stirner at Wikiquote
Media related to Max Stirner at Wikimedia
Commons
=== General ===
Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Max Stirner". Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy., an extensive
introduction
Svein Olav Nybergs website on Max Stirner,
with extensive links to texts and references
Max Stirner within the LSR project (English
section)
Max Stirner Project by H. Ibrahim Türkdogan
Archive of texts on Stirner at the Anarchist
Library
=== Relationship with other philosophers ===
Max Stirner, a durable dissident, 'How Marx
and Nietzsche suppressed their colleague Max
Stirner and why he has intellectually survived
them'
Stirner Delighted in His Construction – "loves
miracles, but can only perform a logical miracle",
by Karl Marx
Nietzsche's initial crisis due to an encounter
with Stirner's "The Ego", by Bernd A. Laska
(2002)
"At the End of the Path of Doubt: Max Stirner",
By Lawrence S. Stepelevich (Owl of Minerva
41:1–2 (2009–10) pp. 85–106)
=== Texts ===
Works by Max Stirner at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Max Stirner at Internet
Archive
Works by Max Stirner at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
Online book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum
The complete original text in German of Der
Einzige und sein Eigentum
The complete English edition of "The Ego and
his Own", in the translation of Steven T.
Byington.
Some of Stirner's illuminating "Shorter Essays",
translated into English
Recensenten Stirners / Stirner's Critics bilingual:
full text in German / abridged text in English
(trans. Frederick M. Gordon)
Stirner's Critics by Max Stirner translated
by Wolfi Landstreicher, with an introduction
by Jason McQuinn (2013 revision of the only
full-text English translation of both "Stirner's
Critics" and "The Philosophical Reactionaries"
by Wolfi Landstreicher published by CAL Press)
Archive of the 4 works of Stirner translated
into English including a 2011 complete translation
of Stirner´s Critics (translated by Wolfi
Landstreicher at the Anarchist Library)
