Max Stirner (Johann Kaspar Schmidt)
1806-1856 · German Idealism · Prominent
Stirner was the most radical of the Young Hegelians, the German writers who worked in Hegel's wake. God died and people set Man, Society, Morality and the State in the empty chair. He called every one of them a spook, a ghost you invented and then knelt to, in The Ego and Its Own. What is left is the one reading this sentence: the Unique, who owns himself and whatever else he can take.
Signature
The position Stirner is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- strongly leans Individualism
- Ethics Basis
- Egoism
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- strongly leans Individualism (100 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Universals
- strongly leans Nominalism (92 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Constructed (3 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- strongly leans Horizontal (100 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (25 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Subjective (16 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- mildly leans Mastery (31 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- leans Ends (12 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly between Pacifism and Militarism (56 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (25 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Stirner refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Anarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Power
What is the highest good? - Perception
- Other
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Power-Knowledge
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Egoism
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Other
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Will-to-Power / Existence Precedes Essence
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Self
What is your primary bond and loyalty?