{{פילוסוף
|שם=מקס שטירנר
|תאריך לידה=25 באוקטובר 1806
|תאריך פטירה=26 ביוני 1856
|זרם=אגואיזם אתי, אנרכיזם אינדיבידואליסטי
|תחומי עניין=אתיקה, פוליטיקה
|משפיעים=הגל, אדם סמית
|מושפעים=פרידריך אנגלס, קרל מרכס
}}
'''ג'ואן קספר שמידט''' (גרמנית: '''Johann Kaspar Schmidt''') הידוע יותר בשם העט שלו '''מקס שטירנר''' ('''Max stirner''') (25 באוקטובר 1806 - 26 ביוני 1856) היה הוגה דעות  ופילוסוף גרמני.

==חייו==
שטירנר נולד בבוואריה ב-1806. מעט ידוע על חייו.
 
הוא למד אגואיזם.
 
בשנת 1845 פורסמה עבודתו החשובה ביותר, "האגו ועצמו" (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum). 

מקס שטירנר מת חסר פרוטה בשנת 1856.

==משנתו והשפעתו== 
בהשפעת אווירת הפילוסופיה הרומנטית הגרמנית שבסביבתה גדל, גרסת האנרכיזם של שטירנר, שהוצגה ב"האגו ועצמו", היא צורה קיצונית של אינדיבידואליזם, או אגואיזם, הממקם את הפרט הייחודי מעל הכל: מדינה, קניין, רכוש, חוק או חובה.
 
במקום הגישה הקפיטליסטית, מקס שטירנר מציע "איגוד של אגואיסטים",  שמשמעותה שותפויות חופשיות של פרטים ייחודיים המשתפים פעולה כשווים על מנת להשיג את מירב החופש וסיפוק מאוויים (כולל המאווים הרגשיים למען סולידריות, או במונחיו של שטירנר -  יחסים בין- אישיים intercourse).

בספרו טען כי כל הדתות והאידאולוגיות מתבססות על מושגים ריקים מתוכן. טענה זו ישימה לדעתו גם לגבי מוסדות החברה, המבוססים על מושגים אלה, קרי מדינה, חוקים, כנסייה ומערכת החינוך או מערכות אחרות הטוענות לסמכות על פני הפרט. לפי דעתו, רק כאשר הטענה השקרית לסמכות, המבוססת על מושגי יסוד שיקרים, תתגלה אז תוכל הפעולה, השליטה והזהות האינדיבידואלית לבוא לידי ביטוי אמיתי. 

מימוש עצמי פרטני מבוסס על שאיפתו האינדיבידואלית של הפרט לממש את האגואיזם שלו, בין אם הוא נובע מדחפים מודעים או לא מודעים. ההבדל היחידי, לפי שטירנר, בין אגואיסט שלא מרצון לבין אגואיסט מרצון הוא שהראשון "ישלט" על ידי רעיון ריק מתוכן מתוך תקווה שרעיון זה יביאו לאושר ואילו השני, יבחר באופן חופשי את הדרכים לממש את האגואיזם שלו ואף ייהנה מהתהליך עצמו.
 
לפי דעתו, רק כאשר האדם יתפוס את מושגי היסוד של חוק, זכות, מוסריות ודת כמושגים מלאכותיים ולא כסמכויות קדושות, אז יוכל לפעול בחופשיות.   

<sup></sup>{{Infobox_Philosopher |
 <!-- Scroll down to edit this page -->
 <!-- Philosopher Category -->
 region = Western Philosophy |
 era = 19th-century philosophy |
 color = #B0C4DE |

 <!-- Image and Caption -->
 image_name = max stirner.jpg |
 image_caption = Max Stirner, as portrayed by Friedrich Engels |

 <!-- Information -->
 name = Johann Kaspar Schmidt |
 birth = October 25, 1806 (Bayreuth, Bavaria) |
 death = June 26, 1856 (Berlin, Prussia) |
 school_tradition = Categorised historically as a Young Hegelian. Precursor to Existentialism, individualist feminism, Nihilism, Individualist anarchism, Post-Modernism, Post-structuralism. |
 main_interests = Ethics, Politics, Property, Value theory |
 influences = Hegel,<ref>The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967.</ref> Adam Smith |
 influenced = Frank Brand, Steven T. Byington, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Saul Newman, Benjamin R. Tucker, John Henry Mackay |
 notable_ideas = Egoism |
}}

'''Johann Kaspar Schmidt''' (October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856), better known as '''Max Stirner''' (the ''nom de plume'' he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow=„Stirn“), was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary grandfathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism.
Stirner's main work is ''The Ego and Its Own'', also known as ''The Ego and His Own'' (''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'' in German, which translates literally as ''The Unique One and his Property''). This work was first published in 1844 in Leipzig, and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.

==Biography==
thumb|left|200px|Max Stirner's birthplace in Bayreuth
Stirner was born in Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay, who wrote a biography of Stirner (''Max Stirner - sein Leben und sein Werk''), published in German in 1898 (enlarged 1910, 1914), and translated into English in 2005.

Stirner was an only child to Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769-1807), a flute maker, and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778-1839) a Lutheran. Just six months after he was born his father died of Tuberculosis on the 19th of April 1807 at the age of 37. <ref name="seinleben">[http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/bio/sein_leben/ John Henry Mackay: Max Stirner -- Sein Leben und sein Werk] p.28</ref> In 1809 his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt a Pharmacist and settled in West Prussian Kulm (now Chełmno in Poland).

When Stirner turned 20, he attended the Hegel, who was to become a source of inspiration for his thinking.<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967.</ref> While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called "philosophy were members of this discussion group, including Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Arnold Ruge. For a lively account of Die Freien see "Red Room and White Beer" by Robert Hellman. While some of the Young Hegelians were eager subscribers to Hegel's dialectical method, and attempted to apply dialectical approaches to Hegel's conclusions, the left wing members of the Young Hegelians broke with Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.

Frequently the debates would take place at Hippel's, a Weinstube (thumb|right|Cover of ''Max Stirner - His Life and Work'' (English translation) by [[John Henry Mackay.]] The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory on the request of Stirner's biographer John Henry Mackay; however, a "Byronic" oil-painting of Stirner also exists, with the subject's legal name indicated on the back, rather than his better-known alias.

Stirner worked as a schoolteacher in a gymnasium for young girls owned by Madame Gropius <ref>The Encyclopedia of Philsosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967</ref> when he wrote his major work ''The Ego and Its Own'', which in part is a polemic against the leading Young Hegelians Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, but also against communists such as Wilhelm Weitling and the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. He resigned from his teaching position in anticipation of the controversy arising from his major work's publication in October 1844.

Stirner married twice; his first wife was a household servant, with whom he fell in love at an early age. Soon after their marriage, she died due to complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843 he married Catholicism and died in 1902 in London. One of the most curious events in those times was that Stirner planned and financed (with Marie's inheritance) an attempt by some Young Hegelians to own and operate a milk-shop on co-operative principles. This enterprise failed partly because the dairy farmers were suspicious of these well-dressed intellectuals. The milk shop was also so well decorated that most of the potential customers felt too poorly dressed to buy their milk there.

After ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner wrote a reply ''Stirner's Critics'' and translated Adam Smith's ''The Wealth of Nations'' and Jean-Baptiste Say's ''Traite d'Economie Politique'' into German, to little financial gain. He also wrote a compilation of texts titled ''History of Reaction'' in 1852. Stirner died in 1856 in Berlin from an infected insect bite; it is said that Bruno Bauer was the only Young Hegelian present at his funeral.

==Philosophy==

|thumb|right|Caricature of Max Stirner taken from a sketch by Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895) of the meetings of "Die Freien".
Stirner's claim that the state is an illegitimate institution has made him an influence upon the anarchist tradition; his thought is often seen as a form of individualist anarchism. Stirner however does not identify himself as an anarchist, and includes anarchists among the parties subject to his criticism.

Stirner mocks revolution in the traditional sense as tacitly statist. David Leopold's conclusion (in his introduction to the Cambridge University Press edition) is that Stirner "...saw humankind as 'fretted in dark superstition' but denied that he sought their enlightenment and welfare" (Ibidem, p. xxxii).

As with the Classical Skeptics Stirner's method of self-liberation is opposed to faith or belief; life is free from "dogmatic presuppositions" (p. 135, 309) or any "fixed standpoint" (p. 295). It is not merely Christian dogma but also a variety of European atheist ideologies that are condemned as crypto-Christian for putting ideas in an equivalent role.

What Stirner proposes is not that concepts should rule people, but that people should rule concepts. The denial of absolute truth is rooted in Stirner's the "nothingness" of the self. Stirner presents a detached life of non-dogmatic, open-minded engagement with the world "as it is" (unpolluted by "faith", humanist), coupled with the awareness that there is no soul, no personal essence of any kind.

===Hegel's influence===
Scholars such as Karl Löwith and Lawrence Stepelevich have argued that Hegel was a major influence on ''The Ego and Its Own''. Stepelevich argues that while ''The Ego and its Own'' evidently has an "un-Hegelian structure and tone to the work as a whole", as well as being fundamentally hostile to Hegel's conclusions about the self and the world, this does not mean that Hegel had no effect on Stirner.

To go beyond and against Hegel in true dialectical fashion is in some way continuing Hegel's project, and Stepelevich argues that this effort of Stirner's is, in fact, a completion of Hegel's project. Stepelevich concludes his argument referring to Jean Hyppolite, who in summing up the intention of Hegel's ''Phenomenology'', stated: "The history of the world is finished; all that is needed is for the specific individual to rediscover it in himself."

==Works==
===''The False Principle of our Education''===
In 1842 ''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung'' (''The false Principle of our Education'') or ''Humanism and Realism'', was published in Rheinische Zeitung, which was edited by Marx at the time.<ref>Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, The Macmillan company Press, New York, 1967</ref> Written as a reaction to Otto Friedrich Theodor Heinsius' treatise ''Humanism vs. Realism''. Stirner explains that education in either the classical humanist method or the practical realist method still lacks true value. Education is fulfilled in aiding the individual in becoming an individual.

===''Art and Religion''===
''Art and Religion'' was also Published in Rheinische Zeitung in 1842 while Marx was editor. It addresses Bauer and his publication against Hegel called ''Hegel's doctrine of religion and art judged from the standpoint of faith''.

===''The Ego and Its Own''===

Stirner's main work is ''The Ego and Its Own'' (org. 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'), which appeared in Leipzig in 1844.In ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner launches a radical anti-authoritarian and individualist critique of contemporary Prussian society, and modern western society as such. He offers an approach to human existence which depicts the self as a creative non-entity, beyond language and reality.
The book proclaims that all ideologies rest on empty legislation, the church, or the systems of education such as Universities.

Stirner's argument explores and extends the limits of ideologies', including nationalism, statism, liberalism, socialism, communism and humanism.

===''Stirner's Critics''===
''Recensenten Stirners'', published in September 1845 is an article in which Stirner replies to critics of ''The Ego and its Own'' including Feuerbach.

===''History of Reaction''===
''Geschichte der Reaction'' (''History of Reaction'') 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 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.

==Critical reception==
Stirner's work did not go unnoticed among his contemporaries. Stirner's attacks on ideology – in particular Feuerbach's humanism – forced Feuerbach into print. Moses Hess (at that time close to Marx) and Szeliga (pseudonym of Franz Zychlin von Zychlinski, an adherent of Bruno Bauer) also replied to Stirner. Stirner answered the criticism in a German periodical, in the article ''Stirner's Critics'' (org. ''Recensenten Stirners'', September 1845), which clarifies several points of interest to readers of the book - especially in relation to Feuerbach.