Editing Max Stirner (section)

== Works ==
=== ''The False Principle of Our Education'' ===
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{{related|[[Humanities]]}}
In 1842, ''The False Principle of Our Education'' (''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung'') was published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'', which was edited by Marx at the time.<ref>''Encyclopaedia of Philosophy'' (1967). The Macmillan Company and The Free Press: New York.</ref> Written as a reaction to the treatise ''Humanism vs. Realism'', written by {{ill|Otto Friedrich Theodor Heinsius|de|Theodor Heinsius}}. Stirner explains that education in either the classical humanist method or the practical realist method still lacks true value. He states that "the final goal of education can no longer be knowledge". Asserting that "only the spirit which understands itself is eternal", Stirner calls for a shift in the principle of education from making us "masters of things" to making us "free natures", naming his educational principle "[[personalist]]".

=== ''Art and Religion'' ===
''Art and Religion'' (''Kunst und 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 to "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", stating:
{{blockquote|[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.<ref>''Art and Religion'', p. 110.</ref>}}

Stirner deliberately left "Philosophy" out of the dialectical triad (Art–Religion–Philosophy) by claiming that "Philosophy" does not "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.<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83"/>

=== ''The Unique and Its Property'' ===
{{main|The Unique and Its Property}}
Stirner's main work, ''The Unique and Its Property'' (''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum''), appeared in [[Leipzig]] in October 1844, with as year of publication mentioned 1845. In ''The Unique and Its Property'', Stirner launches a radical [[anti-authoritarian]] and [[individualist]] critique of contemporary [[Prussia]]n 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, stating that "[i]f 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".<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 324.</ref>

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, also at popular ideologies, including communism, humanism (which he regarded as analogous to religion with the abstract Man or humanity as the supreme being), liberalism, and nationalism as well as capitalism, religion and [[statism]], arguing:
{{blockquote|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.<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 17.</ref>}}

=== ''Stirner's Critics'' ===
 
''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners'') 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 Unique and Its Property'' 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 ''On 'The Essence of Christianity' in Relation to Stirner's 'The Unique and Its Property''' (''Über 'Das Wesen des Christentums' in Beziehung auf Stirners 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum{{'}}'') in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''.

=== ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' ===
''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' (''Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'') was published in 1847 in ''Die Epigonen'', a journal edited by Otto Wigand from Leipzig. At the time, Wigand had already published ''The Unique and Its Property'' and was about to finish the publication of Stirner's translations of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say. As the subtitle indicates, ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' was written in response to a 1847 article by [[Kuno Fischer]] (1824–1907) entitled ''The Modern Sophists'' (''Die Moderne Sophisten''). 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 by Widukind De Ridder and the introductory note explains:
{{blockquote|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.<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer. Translated and introduced by Widukind De Ridder", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 90 (2011).</ref>}}

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 it as the "mirror image of philosophy". The sophists breathe "philosophical air" and were "dialectically inspired to a formal volubility". Stirner's answer is striking:
{{blockquote|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?<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (''Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought''), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 99 (2011).</ref>}}

Looking back on ''The Unique and Its Property'', Stirner claims that "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".<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner ''(Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought''), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 104 (2011).</ref>

=== ''History of Reaction'' ===
''History of Reaction'' (''Geschichte der Reaktion'') was published in two volumes in 1851 by Allgemeine Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and immediately banned in Austria.<ref name="seinleben"/> It was written in the context of the recent [[revolutions of 1848 in the German states|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]].