Editing Max Stirner (section)

=== Response to Hegelianism ===
[[File:Stirner02.jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Max Stirner taken from a sketch by [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820–1895) of the meetings of ''[[Die Freien]]'']]
Scholar [[Lawrence Stepelevich]] states that G. W. F. Hegel was a major influence on ''The Unique and Its Property''. 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 states 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." Stepelevich concludes that Stirner presents the consequences of the rediscovering one's self-consciousness after realizing self-determination.{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985}}

Scholars such as [[Douglas Moggach]] and Widukind De Ridder have stated 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 rational, Stirner leaves the given intact by considering it a mere object, not of transformation, but of enjoyment and consumption ("His Own").<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83">Moggach, Douglas and De Ridder, Widukind. "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 82–83.</ref>

According to Moggach, Stirner does not go beyond Hegel, but he in fact leaves the domain of philosophy in its entirety, stating:
{{blockquote|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."<ref>"Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought.", In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 75.</ref>}}