STIRNER, MAX. - Pseudonym of the philosopher Johann Caspar Schmidt, b. 25 Oct. 1806 at Bayreuth, d. 25 June 1856 at Berlin. He studied (1826-28; 1832-34) philosophy, classical philology and theology at Berlin, a disciple of Hegel (v.) and of Schleiermacher (v.), then at Erlangen and at Königsberg. After having lived as a tutor, a struggling schoolteacher and a journalist, he spent the last years of his life in poverty.
His principal work, through which he is widely known, is Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (Leipzig 1845; several editions after the 3rd, ibid. 1901; Italian trans. [*L'Unico] with introduction by E. Zoccoli, Turin 1902). Mention should also be made of the Kleinere Schriften and the Entgegnungen auf die Kritik seines Werkes «Der Einz. u. z. Eig.» (ed. by J. H. Mackay, Berlin 1898; Italian trans. [Repliche ai suoi critici] by A. Treves, Milan 1923) and furthermore Die Gesch. der Reaktion (2 vols., Berlin 1852); Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung ed. d. Humanismus u. d. Realismus* (Leipzig-Charlottenburg 1911; Basel 1927).
S. belonged to the Hegelian left; he criticized Hegel's dialectic, proclaiming at the same time, against every form of historicism (v.), the irreducible and unique position of the individual (v.), the principle of every value, thought and action. Hence the critical violence that sets him against the schemes of every religious, moral, historical, political ideology, a disguise, for him, of interests that must be abolished before the new and radical principle of absolute individualism (v.). In the attempt to realize the ideal, with Hegel, lies the error of the modern world.
S.'s doctrine has therefore been regarded as the most rigorous form of immoralism and anarchy. The presence in his thought of certain existentialist suggestions is not to be excluded. Thus the Stirnerian "Unique One" would appear as the genuine existent, destined to arise from nothingness in order to merge back into it. Nevertheless it must be observed that many existentialists, like Hegelianism itself, seek to pose the moral problem on foundations that S. totally rejects. The study that has been made of S.'s thought has presented it above all under the political aspect of anarchy deriving from the new premises of a radically and rigorously individualistic ideology.
Bibliography7 works
Luigi Pelloux