The Philosophy Of Max Stirner Explained

In this video we will explain the key ideas from Max Stirner's book called 'The ego and its own'. Stirner’s philosophy is usually called “Egoism”. He claims that the egoist is someone who rejects the pursuit of being a devotee to "a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling" and that the egoist has no political position. He claims that the egoists “live themselves out” and do not care about how “well or ill humanity may fare thereby”.
According to Stirner, humans are driven by egoism in the sense that they are self-interested. He finds that we, as individuals, should act in the ways we see fit without any sort of restriction. Stirner says “I am everything to myself and I do everything on my account”.

Egoism rejects all forms of constraints and these constraints include the state, social conventions, laws, moral codes and religion. Even these actions that we think are beneficial to others or as selfless acts are seen as having a selfish motive. Sure, egoism can accept these selfless acts because it could say that such behaviour benefits an individual’s self-image.

Things such as the notion of the state, property as a right, natural rights, and the notion of society are just “spooks” in our minds according to Stirner.

According to Max Stirner, in his book, ‘The ego and its own, there are three stages of the human experience or three stages of the individual life. These three stages are made up of the realism, idealism and egoism stages. So he begins the first part of the egoism and its own with a dialectical structure based on individual stages of life which are the childhood, youth and adulthood stages.

The first stage is the realistic stage of childhood. Children are constrained or limited to material and natural forces such as their parents in this stage. Freedom from such constraints will be achieved with what Stirner calls the self-discovery of the mind. As children discover and explore ways to get across these limits, they become more determined and cunninger.

Next comes the idealistic stage of youth and along with it comes new internal sources of constraints or limits because the individual becomes enslaved once again. What do they become enslaved to? They become enslaved to the spiritual forces of conscience and reason.

When adulthood comes along then so does a more developed egoism arise. Individuals can then escape the material and spiritual limits and learn to value their satisfaction above anything else.

Stirner sees this dialectic of individual growth as similar to historical development.