Johann Kaspar Schmidt (Max Stirner)

Brian Perez (section 12)
Final Report

   Johann Kaspar Schmidt, better known as Max Stirner, was a 19th century German philosopher and student of G. W. F. Hegel. Stirner was considered a predecessor of Nihilism, Existentialism, and, most notably, Individualist Anarchism. He, along with other Young Hegelians, would partake in discussion that would ultimately lead to influencing modern political thought monumentally. Although Stirner is considered a forgotten thinker, his ideas from his book (The Ego and Its Own) help form the basis of the Anarchist Ideology.

                                                Early Life

   When Stirner 20, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philoligy, philosophy and theology. He attended the lectures of 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. He 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 Ones) and whom historians have subsequently categorized as the Young Hegelians.

                                                                  Die Freien

   

Die Freien (The Free Ones) was a 19th-century circle of Young Hegelians formed at the University of Berlin and gathering for informal discussion over a period of a few years. Attendees included Max Stirner, Bruno Bauer, Arnold Ruge, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, among others. The members of Die Freien held widely diverging views and met for the purpose of debate; they did not represent a unified political or ideological outlook. Stirner would occasionally socialize with the Young Hegelians, but held views much to the contrary of these thinkers, all of whom he consequently satirized and mocked in his nominalist masterpiece The Ego and Its Own.

Although Stirner was great friends with Engels, it is not known whether he met with Karl Marx. However, both Marx and Engels wrote criticisms on Stirner's beliefs in The German Ideology; the amount of pages of attacking "Saint Max" exceeds the amount of all Stirner's written works

                                                            The Ego and Its Own

   Stirner's book is made up of two parts:

• The first part of the book begins by setting out a tripartite structure based on an individual's stages of life (Childhood, Youth and Adulthood). In the first realistic stage, children are restricted by external material forces. Upon reaching the stage of youth, they begin to learn how to overcome these restrictions by what Stirner calls the "self-discovery of mind". However, in the idealistic stage, a youth now becomes enslaved by internal forces such as conscience, reason and other fixed ideas ("Spooks" as he liked to call them) of the mind (including religion, nationalism, and other ideologies). The final stage, "egoism" sees the now adult individual freed from all internal and external constraints, attaining individual autonomy
• Part two is centered on the possibility of freedom from current ideological ways of thinking through a robust philosophical egoism. Stirner's egoism is centered on what he calls Eigenheit ('Ownness' or autonomy). This 'Ownness' is a feature of a more advanced stage of human personal and historical development. It is the groundwork for our world-view.

   Stirner does not recommend that the individual try to eliminate the state, but simply that they disregard the state when it conflicts with one's autonomous choices and go along with it when doing so is conducive to one's interests. Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw Union of Egoists, non-systematic associations, which Stirner proposed in as a form of organization in place of the state. A Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. Even murder is permissible "if it is right for me."

Questions:

1. Who's lectures did Max Stirner Attend?
2. What was the name of the the group of Young Hegelians?
3. What did Striner call fixed ideas?

Discussion Questions:

1. Is something as bad as murder justifiable if it is for one's desire/self-interest?
2. One of Stirner's arguments on property is, "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property." Basically, "if I take it and I can defend it, it's mine." Do you agree?
3. Should we try to get rid of the "spooks" in our heads and try to create a less dogmatic society?