author
Max Stirner
1806–1856
Best known for the fiercely original book The Ego and Its Own, this 19th-century German thinker challenged every fixed idea he believed stood over the individual. His work was controversial in its own time and has continued to provoke readers interested in freedom, authority, and the self.
1 Audiobook
The Ego and His Own
by Max Stirner
About the author
Born Johann Kaspar Schmidt in Bayreuth in 1806, he later became known by the pen name Max Stirner. He studied in Berlin and moved in the circle of Young Hegelians, a group of writers and philosophers who debated religion, politics, and modern life with unusual intensity.
His reputation rests mainly on Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844), usually translated as The Ego and Its Own or The Unique and Its Property. In that book, he attacked abstract ideals and institutions when they demanded obedience from real people, arguing instead for a radical form of individual self-ownership.
Stirner died in Berlin in 1856, but his single major book traveled far beyond his lifetime. Later readers connected his ideas to anarchism, egoism, and broader debates about individuality and power, which is why he remains a striking and often surprising figure in the history of modern thought.