Through my recent readings of Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism, I came across a section pertaining to Max Stirner since Stirner himself was a Hegelian who wrote news articles along with Marx in the early 19th century. Anyways, I have read Ego and Its Own in the past but Kolakowski brought up an interesting point concerning Stirner’s extreme egocentrism. Stirner supposedly opposed anything beyond the ego which would include ‘law’ ‘truth’ and anything of objective or general ideal. He believed that anything outside of the ego was a transgression or threat. Now I know we have a few followers of Stirner’s work on the forums. I would ask how they deal with the implied contradiction between propounding the ultimacy of the ego and the universal laws of praxeology which are universally and objectively true.
Is that seriously what stirner believes? That has to be a strawman, otherwise I can’t see why anyone would take stirner seriously at all, considering the whole entirety of his work would either be an attempt at domination over others by his own terms, or just something amounting to lame poetry, asserting nothing true nor false.
I am no expert on Stirner, I have only read Ego and its Own once. However, based on my understanding you are setting up a strawman. Nowhere does Stirner oppose law, truth, or ideals. What he opposes are all obligations or normative principles that would subject himself to them. It was a popular ideal among academics and intellectuals (then and now) that truth is the highest value and that man ought to be subject to it, that man must be rational and seek truth or be considered sick and depraved. This is what he was rejecting.
Again, it wasn’t truth, law or principle that he rejects, but the notion that he has a sacred duty to uphold them.
But truth is a force beyond the Ego. Truth is not something that you make up through egotism. Such is also law for if the ego is not making law as it goes then it bound by some exterior code or inference concerning human behavior.
Laughing Man:
See above.
I think the beginning point would be establishing whose ego is being referred to in each instance above.
Your passage above seems to refer to a transcendent “objective” ego; “the ego.” (an ego without a human subject)
I would argue that something similar applies to your closing statement.
There is a subtle difference between how you conceive the laws of praxeology, and how the laws of praxeology may be conceived by a theoretical subjectivist:
“The a priori sciences—logic, mathematics, and praxeology—aim at a knowledge unconditionally valid for all beings endowed with the logical structure of the human mind.” (HA, 3rd rev. p.57)
This is subtly different from your conception.
Mises relates the laws of praxeology to the mind of the acting subject. In your conception, you remove reference to the acting subject, similar to what you have done with “the ego” above.
Well according to Stirner there is nothing higher then the individual. Yet praxeology is apodictically certain meaning that no matter what there are actions that the ego are constrained from doing which establishes that the ego is subject to objective laws outside of itself.
There are physical constraints on action that I’m sure Stirner was aware of and accepted.
There are also logical constrains which are binding to the extent that you are logical, or accept the axioms of logic. I don’t doubt that Stirner was aware of this.
There are also normative constraints, including epistemological constraints, and these are the ones that Stirner rejects.
You are confusing the third with the first two.
One can be constrained by both physical and logical rules while rejecting all normative claims, and this was the position that Stirner held.
Physical constrains I think he would accept. I mean Stirner wasn’t dumb. However, the logic portion I am not so sure about in terms of apply general laws that are not brought about through egocentric means. I mean what would Stirner say to the individual who is so inclined to defy logic because his ego wishes it?
I don’t think that’s what Stirner is saying. I think he’s merely pointing out that ideologies are constructs of the mind, not externally existing laws. He doesn’t consider the ego superior to these laws, he avoids a value judgment on the issue. He concedes the point that there are laws that seem to be undefiable, such as man’s inability to fly, or to breathe underwater. He states that beyond these constraints, there is no reason for an individual to limit his action; that is, he posits that the “laws” that are deniable and defiable, are illusions.
To be more precise, I think Stirner was an anti-essentialist. He opposed the use of the concept of “truth”, “law”, “justice”, “humanity”, etc., as things in themselves, and as “fixed ideas” with which one confuses one’s identity with and becomes ideologically bound to in contradiction to pragmatism. Stirner’s sense of self cannot be encapsulated in the formal structures of language - hence he is a “creative nothing”. What he was challenging was the fixation on what Rand would have called “floating abstractions” - except from Stirner’s standpoint, Rand’s “man qua man” would be one as well. Much of Stirner’s implied epistemology has to do with the power of ideas. Stirner’s concept of egoism is more along the lines of consumption - you consume ideas to the extent that they are useful to you, but the point at which they become a fixation, a madness, a formal ideology, you abandon them. I roughly interpret Stirner as a sort of proto-existentialist that is more radical than Neitzsche.
Laughing Man:
Regarding this passage for example:
“Stirner supposedly opposed anything beyond the ego which would include ‘law’ ‘truth’ and anything of objective or general ideal.”
My point is that if we substitute “his ego” for “the ego,” then the nature of our present inquiry would change significantly. The inquiry would proceed differently if we made that substitution… It might point the way to a solution of the apparent paradox.
I’m trying to show that if we begin to assign egos to individual actors, and if we conceive the laws of praxeology as applying to acting beings, then we may be able to see how the apparent paradoxes you are noting can be explained.
On the other hand, if we conceive an ego as something not attached to an individual actor, and if we conceive the laws of praxeology as applicable outside of or independent of the mind of a “praxeological being,” then those paradoxes may persist.
Something similar to “the” value of gold versus “the” value of bread.
Thank you for continually posting stimulating topics.
Adam
Good analysis, brainpolice. Angurse has an interesting angle on the dichotomy between ideology and self interest (essentially, he states the dichotomy is a construct by Stirner himsef), which I’m still considering. I’d like to know what you’d have to say about that.
But with Sitrner’s extreme egocentrism, there is nothing external to the individual.
But again that presupposes an environment which is necessary for the individual to act. It means that that is something higher then the individual. I’m going to grab my book and write down the highlighted portion that lead me to creating this topic.
Well I understood the distinction of self-interest actions which Kolakowski brought up. I mean a follower of Stirner could submit to praxeological laws if they served his self interest. However, praxeological laws apply whether or not you accept them. It doesn’t require your consent.
I’m not sure. I’d have to see the exact argument. You could say that, in some sense, Stirner’s egoism is an ideology, but it’s an anti-ideology ideology. Things can get mighty confusing in philosophy when we run into these sort of things. I suspect that it’s a language issue.
I don’t think he explicitly states this. It’s the laws of action external to the individual that Stirner specifically disregards as illusory.
Again, I don’t think Stirner necessarily disregards an external reality, just external laws of conduct.
Why did you choose the word “higher” here? Unless you meant the sky? But I don’t think you meant the sky. Couldn’t you also say compatible?
Here is the beginning of the lengthy debate between us, it begins around 2/3rds down the page. It ended up boiling down to semantics, so you called it.
Ok, I’m just going to write down the highlighted sections because Stirner actually has two chapters devoted to him due to the German Ideology. Anyways this is all from Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism: Volume I - The Founders
Well compatible supposes that they are on level playing field. An individual cannot act outside the bounds of praxeological laws, therefore the ego is subservient to a praxeological environment. It is not supreme.