Max Stirner: the first proto Austrian

You may have guessed I have a bit of a man crush on St. Max.

It’s probable Kant could be called the 1st proto Austrian, but I prefer my man crushes on real men, men who don’t wear whigs, so Kant is out

. Some of these brief ramblings may not make sense to anyone, as they are just personal notes and a very early attempt to “dehomogonize” some of my thoughts. Don’t read too much into this.

I’m not here to make an argument or anything - this is mostly just to organize my thoughts on a few things. This is actually almost a brain storm, just so I can attempt to get some sleep tonight. These are put in public because I thought it best to do it this way

Things I wish to note about Stirner

  1. His use of a dialectic as anti-psychologism/ the scope of psychology when dealing with self and when dealing with the talk of an external environment

  2. Putting the human mind in proper context (think Aquinas, Witt

  3. His distrust, though not denial, of macroscopic entities

  4. the unverifiability / unfalsifiability of “de enzige”

  5. his focus on ownership and property, not freedom

  6. comparsions of Wittgensteins ladder, and the “theraputic” nature aproach to philosophy

  7. The Unique One as a “non-thing”, think market as process as well as dialectic as process that “shows reality”

  8. radical subjectivism

  9. the egoistic / unique imperative to act (and how that relates to subsidies, the market mindset, and that a market - anarchist outlook is a mere consequence of imperative actions in a social context

  10. calculation and knowledge in an ever changig, unequalibrating world; this may focus way more on calculation than knowledge (not sure)

  11. How the Egoistic dialectic shows, not proves imperatives - it is not “rationalistic” in that regard

  12. Creative - Destruction concepts of Stirner

  13. The futilness of “scientism” on “der willie zer macht” / uniquness - “render unto Ceaser”

  14. The dangers of idealizing language (also Witt Language games, dialectic and heuristic thinking?)

  15. How radical subjectivist thinking (der wille zur, market as process, de eizige, irrational forces, a market mentality in general) preceedes, presupposes, and is neccesarry for man to construct a biological theory of evolution that is to make any sense - not the other way around. Biology can not insert itself on the social sciences in such a way.

  16. Lachmann and the dialogical nature of the social sciences

  17. anti-skeptical approach (ex: Stirner contra Hume)

  18. “wholeness of being” - there is no sepration of man and mind - attempts to turn man into an “unthinking actor/animal with neurons” are just as wrong as Platonists. Intellectualism and thinking are things, no more or less than anything else you wish to name

LOL, definitely seems like a brainstorm…

Stirner’s exposition of all of the reifications of abstractions I’ve been conditioned to view as “real” was one of the single most important moments in my intellectual life…

Also, the actions of people become so much more reasonable, when viewed from an egoist’s perspective.

I also love the idea of the “creative nothing” Stirner holds as his ultimate goal. I find the parallels between his thinking and Buddhism rather remarkable.

No way is Stirner the first proto-Austrian. Turgot was definitely a proto-Austrian, and Cantillon and the School of Salamanca could be regarded as such also.

Yea, Cantillon is a super proto-Austrian. I’ve also wondered why no one talks about Nassau Senior. From what I can tell his method was very similar to praxeology