Wikipedia - User contributions [en]

Cynthiana, Kentucky

2023-01-02T06:12:34Z

Kurt1111S: added noteriety

{{Infobox settlement
| name =
| official_name = Cynthiana, Kentucky
| website = {{URL|www.cynthianaky.com}}
| settlement_type = [[list of Kentucky cities|City]]
| image_skyline = Cynthiana Kentucky.png
| imagesize = 250px
| image_caption = City of Cynthiana at Sunset
| image_flag =
| image_seal =
| image_map = File:Harrison County Kentucky Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Cynthiana Highlighted 2119432.svg
| mapsize = 250px
| map_caption = Location of Cynthiana in Harrison County, Kentucky.
| image_map1 =
| mapsize1 =
| map_caption1 =
| subdivision_type = [[List of sovereign states|Country]]
| subdivision_type1 = [[U.S. state|State]]
| subdivision_type2 = [[List of counties in Kentucky|County]]
| subdivision_name = United States
| subdivision_name1 = [[Kentucky]]
| subdivision_name2 = [[Harrison County, Kentucky|Harrison]]
| government_type =
| leader_title = [[Mayor]]
| leader_name = James Smith
| established_date = 1793
| area_magnitude =
| area_total_km2 = 11.50
| area_total_sq_mi = 4.44
| area_land_km2 = 11.37
| area_land_sq_mi = 4.39
| area_water_km2 = 0.13
| area_water_sq_mi = 0.05
| population_as_of = [[2020 United States Census|2020]]
| population_total = 6333
| population_density_km2 = 556.99
| population_density_sq_mi = 1442.60
| population_metro =
| timezone = [[Eastern Standard Time Zone|EST]]
| utc_offset = −5
| timezone_DST = [[Eastern Daylight Time|EDT]]
| utc_offset_DST = −4
| coordinates = {{coord|38|23|18|N|84|17|49|W|region:US_type:city|display=inline,title}}
| elevation_m = 224
| elevation_ft = 735
| postal_code_type = [[ZIP Code]]
| postal_code = 41031
| area_code = [[Area code 859|859]]
| blank_name = [[Federal Information Processing Standard|FIPS code]]
| blank_info = 21-19432
| blank1_name = [[Geographic Names Information System|GNIS]] feature ID
| blank1_info = 0490519
| footnotes =
| pop_est_as_of =
| pop_est_footnotes =
| population_est =
| unit_pref = Imperial
|area_footnotes = <ref name="CenPopGazetteer2020">{{cite web|title=2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2020_Gazetteer/2020_gaz_place_21.txt|publisher=United States Census Bureau|accessdate=March 18, 2022}}</ref>
|population_footnotes =
}}
[[File:Harrison county kentucky courthouse.jpg|thumb|Harrison County Courthouse in Cynthiana]]

'''Cynthiana''' is a [[list of Kentucky cities|home rule-class city]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.klc.org/UserFiles/files/ClassificationReformFACT(3).pdf |title=Summary and Reference Guide to House Bill 331 City Classification Reform |publisher=Kentucky League of Cities |access-date=December 30, 2014}}</ref> in [[Harrison County, Kentucky|Harrison County]], [[Kentucky]], in the United States. The population was 6,402 at the [[2010 United States Census|2010 census]].<ref name="Census 2010">{{cite web| url=http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_DP/G001/1600000US2119432| title=Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Cynthiana city, Kentucky| publisher=U.S. Census Bureau| work=American Factfinder| access-date=June 29, 2017}}{{dead link|bot=medic|date=April 2020}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> It is the [[county seat|seat]] of its county.<ref name="GR6">{{cite web |url=http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx |access-date=2011-06-07 |title=Find a County |publisher=National Association of Counties |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110531210815/http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx |archive-date=2011-05-31 }}</ref> It is also notable for its role as the setting for ''The Walking Dead''.

==History==
The settlement developed on both sides of the South Fork of the [[Licking River (Kentucky)|Licking River]]. It was named after Cynthia and Anna Harrison,<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9V1IAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA98 | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=98}}</ref> daughters of Robert Harrison, who had donated land to establish the town center.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Lac2FUSj_oC&pg=PA77| title=Kentucky Place Names | publisher=University Press of Kentucky | year=1987 | access-date=2013-04-28 | author=Rennick, Robert M. | pages=77}}</ref> Harrison County, on the other hand, was named after Colonel Benjamin Harrison, an early settler in the area who had served as sheriff of [[Bourbon County, Kentucky|Bourbon County]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Collins|first=Lewis|title=History of Kentucky|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5FQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA321|year=1877|page=321}}</ref>

Two [[American Civil War|Civil War]] battles were fought in Cynthiana. The first on July 17, 1862, was part of a cavalry raid into Kentucky (which stayed in the Union) by Confederate General [[John Hunt Morgan]]; [[Battle of Cynthiana|the second]], on June 11 and 12, 1864, resulted in Union defeat of Confederate forces during Morgan's last raid into the state.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trailsrus.com/civilwar/region4/cynthian.html|title=Civil War in Kentucky|website=www.trailsrus.com|access-date=12 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Penn |first1=William A. |title=Kentucky Rebel Town: Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County |date=2016 |publisher=Univ. Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington |isbn=9780813167718 |pages=105, 175, 193, 205}}</ref>

On January 23, 1877, an [[LL chondrite]] [[meteorite]] fell in Cynthiana.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.meteoritehistory.info/FLIGHT/VIEWCD/CD200.HTM|title=A Chapter in the history of Meteorites by Walter Flight|website=www.meteoritehistory.info|access-date=12 April 2018}}</ref>

On March 2, 1997, the South Fork of the Licking River flooded, causing extensive damage in Cynthiana and neighboring communities.

In early March 2020, near the beginning of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] in the United States, Cynthiana was reported to have the first case of the disease diagnosed in Kentucky. Four more cases soon followed, and by March 12, most businesses, schools and churches closed in an effort to prevent further spread.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-small-town-takes-a-big-hit-after-coronavirus-is-confirmed-in-its-midst/2020/03/12/52b674bc-63da-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html|title=A small town takes a big hit after coronavirus is confirmed in its midst|date=March 12, 2020}}</ref>

==Geography==
Cynthiana is located in southern Harrison County at {{Coord|38|23|18|N|84|17|49|W|type:city}} (38.388292, -84.296841).<ref name="GR1">{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/gazetteer-files.html|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|access-date=2011-04-23|date=2011-02-12|title=US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990}}</ref> U.S. Routes [[U.S. Route 27|27]] and [[U.S. Route 62|62]] pass through the city, passing west of the downtown area. US 27 leads north {{convert|56|mi}} to [[Cincinnati]] and south {{convert|14|mi}} to [[Paris, Kentucky|Paris]], while US 62 leads northeast {{convert|46|mi}} to [[Maysville, Kentucky|Maysville]] and southwest {{convert|21|mi}} to [[Georgetown, Kentucky|Georgetown]]. [[Lexington, Kentucky|Lexington]] is {{convert|31|mi}} to the southwest via US 27 or {{convert|29|mi}} via [[Kentucky Route 353]].

According to the [[United States Census Bureau]], the city has a total area of {{convert|10.5|km2|order=flip}}, of which {{convert|10.4|sqkm|order=flip}} are land and {{convert|0.1|sqkm|order=flip|2}}, or 1.09%, are water.<ref name="Census 2010"/> The South Fork of the Licking River, a tributary of the [[Ohio River]], flows south to north through the city, passing west of the downtown area.

===Climate===
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the [[Köppen Climate Classification]] system, Cynthiana has a [[humid subtropical climate]], abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather-summary.php3?s=899151&cityname=Cynthiana,+Kentucky,+United+States+of+America&units=|title=Cynthiana, Kentucky Köppen Climate Classification (Weatherbase)|website=Weatherbase|access-date=12 April 2018}}</ref>

==Transportation==

===U.S. Highways===
*[[File:US 27.svg|28px]] [[U.S. Route 27|US 27]] is known otherwise as Paris Pike (going south from Cynthiana), and Falmouth Road (going north from Cynthiana).
*[[File:US 62.svg|28px]] [[U.S. Route 62|US 62]] is known otherwise as Leesburg Rd (going west from Cynthiana), and Oddville Pike (going east from Cynthiana).

===Kentucky state highways===
*[[File:Elongated circle 36.svg|28px]] [[KY 36]] is also known locally as Williamstown Road (west of Cynthiana) and Millersburg Pike (east of Cynthiana).
*[[File:Elongated circle 32.svg|28px]] [[KY 32]] is also known locally as Connersville Pike (southwest of Cynthiana) and Millersburg Pike (east of Cynthiana). KY 32 and KY 36 merge downtown and leave Cynthiana concurrently.
*[[File:Elongated circle 356.svg|28px]] [[KY 356]] is also known as White Oak Road.

==Education==
Cynthiana is served by the Harrison County School District with a total of seven public schools located within the county limits:

* High schools:
**Harrison County High School
* Technical Schools
**KY Tech Harrison Area Technology Center (ATC)
* Middle schools:
**Harrison County Middle School
* Elementary schools:
**Eastside Elementary
**Westside Elementary
**Northside Elementary
**Southside Elementary

Cynthiana has one private school:
*St. Edward School (Pre-k-5)

Maysville Community and Technical College has an extended campus located in Cynthiana
* Maysville Community and Technical College: Licking Valley Campus

Cynthiana has a public library, the Cynthiana-Harrison Public Library.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://kdla.ky.gov/librarians/pages/librarydirectory.aspx | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190111202017/https://kdla.ky.gov/librarians/pages/librarydirectory.aspx | url-status=dead | archive-date=11 January 2019 | title=Kentucky Public Library Directory | publisher=Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives | access-date=5 June 2019}}</ref>

==Demographics==
{{US Census population
|1800= 78
|1810= 369
|1830= 975
|1840= 798
|1860= 1237
|1870= 1771
|1880= 2101
|1890= 3016
|1900= 3257
|1910= 3603
|1920= 3857
|1930= 4386
|1940= 4840
|1950= 4847
|1960= 5641
|1970= 6356
|1980= 5881
|1990= 6497
|2000= 6258
|2010= 6402
|2020= 6333
|footnote=U.S. Decennial Census<ref name="DecennialCensus">{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html|title=Census of Population and Housing|publisher=Census.gov|access-date=June 4, 2015}}</ref>
}}

As of the [[census]]<ref name="GR2">{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]] |access-date=2008-01-31 |title=U.S. Census website }}</ref> of 2000, there were 6,258 people, 2,692 households, and 1,639 families residing in the city. The [[population density]] was 1,873.6 people per square mile (723.4/km2). There were 2,909 housing units at an average density of 870.9 per square mile (336.3/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 92.43% [[White (U.S. Census)|White]], 5.29% [[African American (U.S. Census)|Black]] or [[Race (United States Census)|African American]], 0.16% [[Native American (U.S. Census)|Native American]], 0.18% [[Asian (U.S. Census)|Asian]], 0.05% [[Pacific Islander (U.S. Census)|Pacific Islander]], 0.81% from [[Race (United States Census)|other races]], and 1.09% from two or more races. [[Hispanic (U.S. Census)|Hispanic]] or [[Latino (U.S. Census)|Latino]] of any race were 1.41% of the population.

There were 2,692 households, out of which 27.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.2% were [[Marriage|married couples]] living together, 14.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.1% were non-families. 36.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 18.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.24 and the average family size was 2.89.

In the city, the population was spread out, with 22.7% under the age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 26.3% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 20.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 80.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $28,519, and the median income for a family was $34,691. Males had a median income of $27,704 versus $20,659 for females. The [[per capita income]] for the city was $15,227. About 13.3% of families and 16.1% of the population were below the [[poverty line]], including 23.1% of those under age 18 and 11.7% of those age 65 or over.

==Economy==
[[3M]] established a factory in Cynthiana in 1969. [[Post-it note]]s were developed in 1972 by [[Arthur Fry]] and [[Spencer Silver]]. Until patents expired in the late 1990s, the 3M factory in Cynthiana was the only production site of Post-it notes worldwide. Today, it still accounts for nearly all of the world's production.<ref>{{cite news |title=KY Plant makes the most Post-It Notes in the world |url=https://www.wdrb.com/news/ky-plant-makes-the-most-post-it-notes-in-the/article_31ab1706-4dcd-5dcd-8e94-3645f3b2cb81.html |access-date=30 January 2019 |work=WRDB News |date=13 July 2014}}</ref>

==Media==

===Newspaper===

The Cynthiana Democrat, owned by Landmark Community Newspaper Inc.
Subscription-based weekly newspaper, printed every Thursday with in-home delivery.
Has been in print since 1868. Also is available at www.cynthianademocrat.com

===Radio===

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Call sign !! Frequency !! Format !! Description / Notes
|-
|[[WCYN (AM)|WCYN]]
|1400 kHz
|[[Classic hits]]
|
|}

==Notable people==
* [[William A. Welch]], civil engineer, environmentalist, and first general manager of the [[Palisades Interstate Park]] system
* [[Celia Ammerman]], model and star of [[America's Next Top Model (cycle 12)|''America's Next Top Model'' (cycle 12)]]
* [[William Tell Coleman]], founder of the [[Harmony Borax Works]], Death Valley, California
* [[Richard Gruelle]], painter and member of the [[Hoosier Group]]
* [[Joe B. Hall]], [[University of Kentucky]] men's basketball coach 1972–85; coached Wildcats to [[1978 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament|1978 national championship]]
* [[Robert Kirkman]], comic book writer, co-creator of ''[[The Walking Dead (comic book)|The Walking Dead]]''<ref name=rkirkman>{{cite news |url=http://www.kentucky.com/2010/10/28/1498836/kentuckians-zombie-comic-strip.html |title=Kentuckian's zombie comic strip leads to AMC series |newspaper=[[Lexington Herald-Leader]] |date=2010-10-28 |last=Sloan |first=Scott |access-date=2011-10-29}}</ref>
* [[William McKinney]], [[jazz]] drummer and bandleader
* [[Tony Moore (artist)|Tony Moore]], comic book artist
* [[Betty Pariso]], IFBB professional bodybuilder
* [[Fredrick G. Prahl]], Emeritus Professor of Organic Geochemistry at [[Oregon State University]]
* [[Lawrence Pressman]], actor
* [[Anna Rankin Riggs]] (1835–1908), social reformer
* [[Pythias Russ]], baseball player in the [[Negro league baseball|Negro leagues]]
* [[Walter E. Scott]], namesake of Death Valley National Park's [[Scotty's Castle]]
* [[Marcus A. Smith]], [[United States Senate|United States Senator]] from Arizona
* [[Chris Snopek]], [[Major League Baseball]] player
* [[Mac Swinford]], federal judge
* [[Phil Wagner]], retired American professional basketball player who spent one season (1968–69) in the American Basketball Association for the Indiana Pacers
* [[Justin Wells (musician)|Justin Wells]], [[country music|country]] and [[roots rock]] musician
* [[Caleb Walton West]], last governor of [[Utah Territory]]

==In popular culture==
*In the film ''[[Blues Brothers 2000]]'', The Blues Brothers band goes to Cynthiana Kentucky to perform a bluegrass concert, where they perform the song [[(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend | ''Ghost Riders in the Sky'']].
*In the comic book series [[The Walking Dead (comic book)|''The Walking Dead'']], the main character, Sheriff's Deputy [[Rick Grimes]], wakes up in a nearby abandoned hospital to discover that his hometown of Cynthiana has been overrun with [[zombie]]s and nearly the entire town's population has been killed or evacuated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/39066/the-walking-dead-set-visit-part-ii-zombies-invade-atl|title=The Walking Dead: Q&A with Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes); Another Clip from Episode 3.05 - Say The Word - Dread Central|website=www.dreadcentral.com|access-date=12 April 2018}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://www.cynthianaky.com/ City of Cynthiana official website]

{{Harrison County, Kentucky}}
{{Kentucky county seats}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Cynthiana, Kentucky|*]]
[[Category:Cities in Kentucky]]
[[Category:Cities in Harrison County, Kentucky]]
[[Category:County seats in Kentucky]]

Chesterton, Indiana

2023-01-02T06:10:05Z

Kurt1111S:

{{Infobox settlement
| official_name = Chesterton, Indiana
| settlement_type = [[Town]]
| nickname =
| mapsize = 250x200px
| image_skyline = Main Street Bldg Chesterton IN 2012.jpg
| imagesize =
| image_caption = Calumet Ave, Downtown
| image_map = File:Porter County Indiana Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Chesterton Highlighted 1812412.svg
| map_caption = Location of Chesterton in Porter County, Indiana.
| image_map1 =
| mapsize1 =
| map_caption1 =
| subdivision_type = [[List of sovereign states|Country]]
| subdivision_name = United States
| area_note =
| subdivision_type1 = [[U.S. state|State]]
| subdivision_name1 = [[Indiana]]
| subdivision_type2 = [[List of counties in Indiana|County]]
| subdivision_name2 = [[Porter County, Indiana|Porter]]
| subdivision_type3 = [[List of townships in Indiana|Townships]]
| subdivision_name3 = [[Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana|Westchester]], [[Jackson Township, Porter County, Indiana|Jackson]], [[Liberty Township, Porter County, Indiana|Liberty]], [[Pine Township, Porter County, Indiana|Pine]]
| established_title = Settled
| established_date = 1833
| established_title1 = {{nowrap|[[Platted]]}}
| established_date1 = 1852
| established_title2 = {{nowrap|[[Municipal corporation|Incorporated]] (town)}}
| established_date2 = May 4, 1899
| government_type = Town Council<ref>{{cite web|title=Town Council|url=http://www.chestertonin.org/217/Town-Council|website=Town of Chesterton, IN|access-date=22 April 2016}}</ref>
| leader_title = President
| leader_name = Sharon Darnell ([[Democratic Party (United States)|D]], 4th)<ref name="chestertonin.org">{{cite web | url=http://chestertonin.org/217/Town-Council | title=Town Council | Chesterton, IN - Official Website }}</ref>
| leader_title1 = Council Members
| leader_name1 = James Ton ([[Republican Party (United States)|R]], 1st) Lloyd Kitteridge ([[Republican Party (United States)|R]], 2nd) Dane Lafata ([[Democratic Party (United States)|D]], 3rd) Jennifer Fisher ([[Independent (United States)|I]], 5th)<ref name="chestertonin.org">{{cite web | url=http://chestertonin.org/217/Town-Council | title=Town Council | Chesterton, IN - Official Website }}</ref>
| leader_title2 = Clerk-Treasurer
| leader_name2 = Courtney Udvare ([[Democratic Party (United States)|D]]) <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://chestertonin.org/138/Clerk-Treasurer|title = Clerk-Treasurer | Chesterton, IN - Official Website}}</ref>
| population_footnotes =
| population_as_of = [[2020 United States Census|2020]]
| population_est =
| pop_est_as_of =
| population_note =
| population_total = 14241
| population_density_sq_mi = 1517.91
| population_density_km2 = 586.09
| timezone = [[North American Central Time Zone|CST]]
| utc_offset = -6
| timezone_DST = [[North American Central Time Zone|CDT]]
| utc_offset_DST = -5
| area_land_km2 = 24.30
| area_water_km2 = 0.29
| area_footnotes = <ref name="CenPopGazetteer2020">{{cite web|title=2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2020_Gazetteer/2020_gaz_place_18.txt|publisher=United States Census Bureau|accessdate=March 16, 2022}}</ref>
| area_total_km2 = 24.59
| area_total_sq_mi = 9.49
| area_land_sq_mi = 9.38
| area_water_sq_mi = 0.11
| elevation_footnotes = <ref name="GR3">{{cite web|url=http://geonames.usgs.gov|access-date=2008-01-31|title=US Board on Geographic Names|publisher=[[United States Geological Survey]]|date=2007-10-25}}</ref>
| elevation_m = 195
| elevation_ft = 640
| coordinates = {{coord|41|36|15|N|87|3|30|W|region:US_type:city|display=inline,title}}
| postal_code_type = [[ZIP code]]
| postal_code = 46304
| area_code = [[Area code 219|219]]
| blank_name = [[Federal Information Processing Standard|FIPS code]]
| blank_info = 18-12412<ref name="GR2">{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]] |access-date=2008-01-31 |title=U.S. Census website }}</ref>
| blank1_name = [[Geographic Names Information System|GNIS]] feature ID
| blank1_info = [http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:432457 432457]
| footnotes =
| website = http://www.chestertonin.org/
| pop_est_footnotes =
| unit_pref = Imperial
| name =
}}
'''Chesterton''' is a town in [[Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana|Westchester]], [[Jackson Township, Porter County, Indiana|Jackson]] and [[Liberty Township, Porter County, Indiana|Liberty]] townships in [[Porter County, Indiana|Porter County]], in the [[U.S. state]] of [[Indiana]].<ref>{{cite gnis|432457|Chesterton, Indiana|2017-04-02}}</ref> The population was 14,241 at the [[2020 United States census|2020 Census]]. The three towns of Chesterton, [[Burns Harbor, Indiana|Burns Harbor]], and [[Porter, Indiana|Porter]] are known as the [[Indiana Dunes|Duneland]] area.<ref>The cultural impact of a museum in a small community: The Hour Glass of Ogden Dunes. ''The Shouth Shore Journal'', 2, pp. 16–28.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://southshorejournal.org/index.php/issues/volume-2-2007/82-journals/vol-2-2007/104-the-cultural-impact-of-a-museum-in-a-small-community-the-hour-glass-in-ogend-dunes |title=South Shore Journal - the Cultural Impact of a Museum in a Small Community: The Hour Glass in Ogden Dunes |access-date=2014-07-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714172935/http://southshorejournal.org/index.php/issues/volume-2-2007/82-journals/vol-2-2007/104-the-cultural-impact-of-a-museum-in-a-small-community-the-hour-glass-in-ogend-dunes |archive-date=2014-07-14 }}</ref><ref>D Smith, S. & Mark, S. (2006). Alice Gray, Dorothy Buell, and Naomi Svihla:Preservationists of Ogden Dunes. The South Shore Journal, 1, 15-21</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.southshorejournal.org/index.php/issues/volume-1-2006/78-journals/vol-1-2006/117-alice-gray-dorothy-buell-and-naomi-svihla-preservationists-of-ogden-dunes |title=South Shore Journal - Alice Gray, Dorothy Buell, and Naomi Svihla: Preservationists of Ogden Dunes |access-date=2012-06-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120913013557/http://www.southshorejournal.org/index.php/issues/volume-1-2006/78-journals/vol-1-2006/117-alice-gray-dorothy-buell-and-naomi-svihla-preservationists-of-ogden-dunes |archive-date=2012-09-13 }}</ref>The township is also famous for being the setting of hit movie Over the Hedge, in which its unique suburbian aesthetic strongly contrasts larger and much more brutalist environments like that of Chicago.

==Etymology==
The name Chesterton comes from [[Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana|its township]], with Chester deriving from Westchester and the -ton suffix denoting it as a town.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Westchester Township History Museum|url=https://wpl.lib.in.us/westchester-township-history-museum/|url-status=live|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=Westchester Public Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200518222650/https://wpl.lib.in.us/westchester-township-history-museum/ |archive-date=2020-05-18 }}</ref>

==History==
Chesterton was first settled under the name Coffee Creek in 1833, with its post office being established in 1835. The post office would eventually be renamed to Calumet in 1850, as which the town was [[plat]]ted when the railroad was extended to that point in 1852. Due to a town on the same railroad also being named Calumet, the name would finally be changed to Chesterton in 1870<ref>{{Cite web|title=Chesterton History|url=https://www.chestertonin.org/234/Chesterton-History|url-status=live|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=chestertonin.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150220074326/http://www.chestertonin.org:80/234/Chesterton-History |archive-date=2015-02-20 }}</ref> and it was reincorporated as a town in 1899 after a failed incorporation in 1869,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofporterc01lewi#page/376/mode/2up|title=History of Porter County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests|publisher=Lewis Publishing Company|year=1912|page=189}}</ref> with its population of 788 being the second-largest in Porter County at the time.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth J. Schoon|title=Calumet Beginnings: Ancient Shorelines and Settlements at the South End of Lake Michigan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TFYOkm6OIGIC&pg=PA189|year=2003|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-34218-X|page=189}}</ref>

In 1933, a [[United Airlines NC13304]] flight became the first known case of an attack against an aircraft. It was downed by a nitroglycerine bomb above Chesterton on October 10, 1933. All 7 people aboard the aircraft—four passengers and a crew of three—were killed in the crash.<ref>{{Cite news|title=1933 Crash of United Airlines Trip 23 Boeing 247 NC13304 Part 01 of 01|language=en-us|work=FBI|url=https://vault.fbi.gov/1993-crash-of-united-airlines-trip-23-boeing-247-nc13304/1933%20Crash%20of%20United%20Airlines%20Trip%2023%20Boeing%20247%20NC13304%20Part%2001%20of%2001/view|access-date=2017-12-21}}</ref>

In 1962, [[United Tractor]] moved to the town.<ref>{{cite news |title=Facts Given on Porter, Chesterton |url=http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/333435715 |access-date=23 July 2021 |work=Vidette-Messenger |date=30 March 1962 |page=31}}</ref>

==Geography==
Chesterton is located at {{Coord|41|36|15|N|87|3|30|W|type:city}} (41.604251, -87.058442)<ref name="GR1">{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/gazetteer-files.html|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|access-date=2011-04-23|date=2011-02-12|title=US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990}}</ref>

Just north of the town is [[Indiana Dunes State Park]] and [[Indiana Dunes National Park]]. Most of the town is flat. However, going south into the city on the Route 49 overpass, one can see the [[Valparaiso Moraine]] in the distance.

According to the 2010 census, Chesterton has a total area of {{convert|9.44|sqmi|sqkm|2}}, of which {{convert|9.33|sqmi|sqkm|2}} (or 98.83%) is land and {{convert|0.11|sqmi|sqkm|2}} (or 1.17%) is water.<ref name="census-g001">{{cite web
|url=http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_SF1/G001/1600000US1812412
|title=G001 - Geographic Identifiers - 2010 Census Summary File 1
|access-date=2015-07-14
|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]
|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200213054726/http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/DEC/10_SF1/G001/1600000US1812412
|archive-date=2020-02-13
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

===Climate===
{{Weather box
|location = Chesterton, Indiana ([[Indiana Dunes State Park]]) 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1989–present
|single line = Y
| Jan record high F = 66
| Feb record high F = 72
| Mar record high F = 85
| Apr record high F = 88
| May record high F = 95
| Jun record high F = 98
| Jul record high F = 102
| Aug record high F = 98
| Sep record high F = 96
| Oct record high F = 89
| Nov record high F = 77
| Dec record high F = 69
| year record high F = 102
| Jan high F = 32.1
| Feb high F = 35.5
| Mar high F = 45.6
| Apr high F = 57.2
| May high F = 68.4
| Jun high F = 77.5
| Jul high F = 81.6
| Aug high F = 80.0
| Sep high F = 74.3
| Oct high F = 62.3
| Nov high F = 48.7
| Dec high F = 37.4
| year high F = 58.4
| Jan mean F = 24.9
| Feb mean F = 28.3
| Mar mean F = 37.7
| Apr mean F = 48.4
| May mean F = 59.0
| Jun mean F = 68.5
| Jul mean F = 73.0
| Aug mean F = 71.6
| Sep mean F = 65.3
| Oct mean F = 53.5
| Nov mean F = 41.5
| Dec mean F = 30.8
| year mean F = 50.2
| Jan low F = 17.8
| Feb low F = 21.1
| Mar low F = 29.8
| Apr low F = 39.5
| May low F = 49.6
| Jun low F = 59.5
| Jul low F = 64.3
| Aug low F = 63.1
| Sep low F = 56.3
| Oct low F = 44.7
| Nov low F = 34.2
| Dec low F = 24.1
| year low F = 42.0
| Jan record low F = −22
| Feb record low F = −15
| Mar record low F = −4
| Apr record low F = 18
| May record low F = 31
| Jun record low F = 37
| Jul record low F = 45
| Aug record low F = 46
| Sep record low F = 35
| Oct record low F = 25
| Nov record low F = 9
| Dec record low F = −19
| year record low F = −22
| precipitation colour = green
| Jan precipitation inch = 2.21
| Feb precipitation inch = 1.97
| Mar precipitation inch = 2.34
| Apr precipitation inch = 3.55
| May precipitation inch = 4.27
| Jun precipitation inch = 4.31
| Jul precipitation inch = 3.98
| Aug precipitation inch = 4.08
| Sep precipitation inch = 3.65
| Oct precipitation inch = 3.75
| Nov precipitation inch = 2.76
| Dec precipitation inch = 2.29
| year precipitation inch = 39.16
| Jan snow inch = 16.0
| Feb snow inch = 9.7
| Mar snow inch = 6.0
| Apr snow inch = 0.6
| May snow inch = 0.0
| Jun snow inch = 0.0
| Jul snow inch = 0.0
| Aug snow inch = 0.0
| Sep snow inch = 0.0
| Oct snow inch = 0.0
| Nov snow inch = 0.7
| Dec snow inch = 7.3
| year snow inch = 40.3
| unit precipitation days = 0.01 in
| Jan precipitation days = 12.6
| Feb precipitation days = 9.0
| Mar precipitation days = 10.9
| Apr precipitation days = 11.3
| May precipitation days = 12.3
| Jun precipitation days = 11.7
| Jul precipitation days = 9.7
| Aug precipitation days = 9.9
| Sep precipitation days = 9.6
| Oct precipitation days = 11.5
| Nov precipitation days = 10.6
| Dec precipitation days = 11.9
| year precipitation days = 131.0
| unit snow days = 0.1 in
| Jan snow days = 8.4
| Feb snow days = 5.6
| Mar snow days = 3.4
| Apr snow days = 0.6
| May snow days = 0.0
| Jun snow days = 0.0
| Jul snow days = 0.0
| Aug snow days = 0.0
| Sep snow days = 0.0
| Oct snow days = 0.0
| Nov snow days = 1.0
| Dec snow days = 5.7
| year snow days = 24.7
| source 1 = [[NOAA]]<ref name=nws>
{{cite web
| url = https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=lot
| title = NowData – NOAA Online Weather Data
| publisher = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
| access-date = May 29, 2021}}</ref><ref name=NCEI>
{{cite web
| url = https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/services/data/v1?dataset=normals-monthly-1991-2020&startDate=0001-01-01&endDate=9996-12-31&stations=USC00124244&format=pdf
| publisher = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
| title = Station: Indian Dunes NL, IN
| work = U.S. Climate Normals 2020: U.S. Monthly Climate Normals (1991-2020)
| access-date = May 29, 2021}}</ref>
}}

==Demographics==
[[File:Chesterton Indiana Indian Boundary Development.JPG|thumb|right|Indian Boundary, where [[Indiana State Road 49|SR 49]] and [[Interstate 94 in Indiana|I-94]] meet.]]

{{US Census population
|1880= 488
|1890= 931
|1900= 788
|1910= 1400
|1920= 1604
|1930= 2231
|1940= 2470
|1950= 3175
|1960= 4335
|1970= 6177
|1980= 8531
|1990= 9124
|2000= 10488
|2010= 13068
|2020= 14241
|align-fn=center
|footnote=U.S. Decennial Census<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html|title=U.S. Decennial Census|publisher=Census.gov|access-date=June 6, 2013}}</ref>
}}

===2010 census===
As of the [[census]]<ref name="wwwcensusgov">{{cite web|title=U.S. Census website|url=https://www.census.gov|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]]|access-date=2012-12-11}}</ref> of 2010, there were 13,068 people, 5,029 households, and 3,554 families living in the town. The [[population density]] was {{convert|1400.6|PD/sqmi|PD/km2|1}}. There were 5,354 housing units at an average density of {{convert|573.8|/sqmi|/km2|1}}. The racial makeup of the town was 92.7% [[White (U.S. Census)|White]], 1.4% [[African American (U.S. Census)|African American]], 0.3% [[Native American (U.S. Census)|Native American]], 2.1% [[Asian (U.S. Census)|Asian]], 1.8% from [[Race (U.S. Census)|other races]], and 1.7% from two or more races. [[Hispanic (U.S. Census)|Hispanic]] or [[Latino (U.S. Census)|Latino]] of any race were 6.9% of the population.

There were 5,029 households, of which 37.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.1% were [[Marriage|married couples]] living together, 11.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 29.3% were non-families. 23.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.07.

The median age in the town was 37.8 years. 26.5% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.1% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 27.5% were from 25 to 44; 27.5% were from 45 to 64; and 11.3% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 48.7% male and 51.3% female.

===2000 census===
As of the [[census]]<ref name="GR2"/> of 2000, there were 10,488 people, 4,039 households, and 2,879 families living in the town. The population density was {{convert|1,232.0|PD/sqmi|PD/km2|sp=us|adj=off}}. There were 4,212 housing units at an average density of {{convert|494.8|/sqmi|/km2|sp=us|adj=off}}. The racial makeup of the town was 96.29% [[White (U.S. Census)|White]], 0.44% [[African American (U.S. Census)|African American]], 0.21% [[Native American (U.S. Census)|Native American]], 1.37% [[Asian (U.S. Census)|Asian]], 0.02% [[Pacific Islander (U.S. Census)|Pacific Islander]], 0.51% from [[Race (United States Census)|other races]], and 1.16% from two or more races. [[Hispanic (U.S. Census)|Hispanic]] or [[Latino (U.S. Census)|Latino]] of any race were 3.31% of the population.

There were 4,039 households, out of which 36.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.3% were [[Marriage|married couples]] living together, 9.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.7% were non-families. 23.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.06.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 26.8% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 29.6% from 25 to 44, 24.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $55,530, and the median income for a family was $66,239. Males had a median income of $50,599 versus $28,300 for females. The [[per capita income]] for the town was $26,539. About 3.1% of families and 4.3% of the population were below the [[poverty line]], including 6.5% of those under age 18 and 4.2% of those age 65 or over.

==Education==
[[Chesterton High School]], or CHS, serves the tri-town area. Chesterton High School operates Chesterton's only local radio station, [[WDSO]] 88.3.

Two private schools also operate in Chesterton: St. Patrick Catholic Elementary School and Fairhaven Baptist Academy.

In Chesterton, there are 5 public elementary schools. These are Liberty Elementary School, Bailly Elementary School, Yost Elementary School, Jackson Elementary School, and Brummitt Elementary School. These schools serve grades K-4. After 4th grade, students from Jackson and Liberty will move to Liberty Intermediate School for 5th and 6th grade. Students from Bailly, Yost, and Brummitt will move to Westchester Intermediate School for 5th and 6th grades.
After the 6th grade, all students from Liberty and Westchester will go to Chesterton Middle School for 7th and 8th grades. After 8th, students will move to Chesterton High School for their Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years.

The town has a lending library, the Westchester Public Library.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.in.gov/library/files/countyindex13.pdf | title=Indiana public library directory | publisher=Indiana State Library | access-date=14 March 2018}}</ref>

==Media==
Chesterton has a local newspaper, the ''[[Chesterton Tribune]]'', which was first established in 1882 before shortly going out of business and later being resurrected in 1884. It had been published daily since 1961 before ceasing operations on December 30, 2020.<ref>{{cite news | last = Pete | first = Joseph S. | date = December 16, 2020 | title = Chesterton Tribune to Cease Print Newspaper After 136 Years | url = https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/chesterton-tribune-to-cease-print-newspaper-after-136-years/article_a483054f-765e-5e99-a25d-f55f03cd1356.html | work = NWI Times}}</ref> However, it was purchased by Hometown Media Inc. on March, 10th, 2021, becoming a twice-weekly, full color paper.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pete|first=Joseph S.|title=New owner to revive the 137-year-old Chesterton Tribune|url=https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/new-owner-to-revive-the-137-year-old-chesterton-tribune/article_98ed5f87-8f89-5e75-9da4-4694026d446d.html|access-date=2021-03-16|website=nwitimes.com|language=en}}</ref> The town also is serviced by Chesterton's high school radio station, [[WDSO]], which provides local news in addition to its regular music programming.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://chestertontribune.com/Local%20History/46119%20going_daily_citizenship_and_comm.htm |title=Going Daily Citizenship and community delivered every day |publisher=Chestertontribune.com |access-date=2019-04-13}}</ref>

==Transportation==
The [[South Shore Line (NICTD)|South Shore Line]], operated by the Northwest Indiana Commuter Transportation District, is headquartered in Chesterton.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Contact|url=https://www.mysouthshoreline.com/contact|url-status=live|access-date=August 12, 2021|website=South Shore Line|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160912174028/http://www.mysouthshoreline.com:80/contact |archive-date=2016-09-12 }}</ref> The South Shore Line stops north of Chesterton at the [[Dune Park (NICTD)|Dune Park station]] with multiple trains per day to Chicago and South Bend. [[V-Line (bus)|V-Line]]'s Orange Line route stops near the South Shore station, indirectly connecting Chesterton to [[Valparaiso University]] on weekends.

==Culture==

===Festivals===
Chesterton was home to the annual Wizard of Oz Festival, which is the largest and most famous of its kind.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ozfestivalchesterton.com}}</ref> In 2006, former organizers Lakeshore Festivals and Events moved the event to the Porter County Expo Center in [[Valparaiso, Indiana]]. After 3 years, LFE discontinued the festival and it was brought home to Chesterton by the Duneland Business Initiative Group in 2009. The Duneland Business Initiative later rescinded their support of the festival in 2013.

==Notable people==
{{Main|List of people from Chesterton, Indiana}}
*[[Jim Gaffigan]], standup comedian and actor
*[[Ron Kittle]], former Major League Baseball player
*[[Mitch McGary]], University of Michigan basketball player, June 2014 1st round NBA draft pick with the 21st selection overall of the Oklahoma City Thunder
*[[Mickey Morandini]], former Major League Baseball player
*[[Zack Novak]], former NCAA (University of Michigan) and professional basketball player (Landstede Basketball)
*[[Matt Nover]], former professional basketball player and actor
*[[Blake Pieroni]], Gold medalist swimmer and current Indiana University swimmer
*[[Eddie Wineland]], professional MMA fighter (Bantamweight)
* [[Taylor Zakhar Perez]], actor

==Environmental amenities==

===Parkland===
Chesterton's park system includes several large public parks downtown and sports fields. The town is also served by the Porter County Park District and the nearby [[Indiana Dunes State Park]]. Several trails connect Chesterton with [[Porter, Indiana|Porter]] and [[Indiana Dunes National Park]] (which is connected to Indiana Dunes State Park).

===Coffee Creek===
Coffee Creek flows through an area that includes downtown Chesterton. The Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve includes a restored section of the creek and its associated wetland.

==Historic Preservation==
* [[Chesterton Commercial Historic District]]
* [[Chesterton Residential Historic District]]
* [[George Brown Mansion]]
* [[Norris and Harriet Coambs Lustron House]]
* [[New York Central Railroad Passenger Depot, Chesterton, Indiana]]
* [[Martin Young House]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Chesterton, Indiana}}
* [http://www.chestertonin.org/ Town of Chesterton, Indiana website]
* [http://chestertontribune.com/#Chesterton Chesterton Tribune daily newspaper]
* [http://www.wdso.org/#Chesterton Chesterton's Radio Station]

{{Porter County, Indiana}}
{{Indiana}}
{{Chicagoland}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Chicago metropolitan area]]
[[Category:Northwest Indiana]]
[[Category:Towns in Indiana]]
[[Category:Towns in Porter County, Indiana]]
[[Category:Populated places established in 1833]]
[[Category:1852 establishments in Indiana]]

Aegomorphus itatiayensis

2023-01-02T06:01:57Z

Kurt1111S:

{{short description|Species of beetle}}

{{Speciesbox
| taxon = Aegomorphus itatiayensis
| authority = (Melzer, 1935)
| display_parents = 2
| synonyms = *''Acanthoderes itatiayensis'' Melzer, 1935
*''Psapharochrus itatiayensis'' (Melzer, 1935)
}}

'''''Aegomorphus itatiayensis''''' is a species of [[beetle]] in the family [[Cerambycidae]]. It was described by Melzer in 1935.<ref>Bezark, Larry G. [http://bezbycids.com/byciddb/wdetails.asp?id=10488&w=n A Photographic Catalog of the Cerambycidae of the World]. Retrieved on 12 October 2020.</ref> It is Brown.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Taxonbar|from=Q14801458}}

[[Category:Aegomorphus]]
[[Category:Beetles described in 1935]]

{{Aegomorphus-stub}}

John Henry Mackay

2023-01-02T05:49:34Z

Kurt1111S: Added Work and Relation to major contemperary political movments

{{Short description|German anarchist writer (1864–1933)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}
{{Infobox writer 
| name = John Henry Mackay
| image = John Henry Mackay.gif
| imagesize =
| caption =
| pseudonym = Sagitta
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1864|2|6}}
| birth_place = [[Greenock]], Scotland
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1933|5|16|1864|2|6}}
| death_place = [[Stahnsdorf]], Germany
| occupation = Writer, philosopher, pedophile
| nationality = dual British/German
| period =
| genre = Non-fiction, fiction, poetry
| subject = [[Political philosophy]]
| movement = [[Naturalism (literature)|Naturalism]]
| notableworks = ''[[Die Anarchisten]]'' (The Anarchists) ''Der Freiheitsucher'' (The Freedomseeker)
| signature =
}}
'''John Henry Mackay''', also known by the pseudonym '''Sagitta''', (6 February 1864 – 16 May 1933) was an [[egoist anarchist]], thinker and writer. Furthermore, he was a profound and active advocate for the so-called "Man Boy Love" movement, which advocated the moral validity of sexual relations between adult men and young boys. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of ''[[Die Anarchisten]]'' (The Anarchists, 1891) and ''Der Freiheitsucher'' (The Searcher for Freedom, 1921).

==Biography==
Mackay was born in [[Greenock]], [[Scotland]], on 6 February 1864. His mother came from a prosperous [[Hamburg]] family. His father was a Scottish marine insurance broker who died when Mackay was less than two years old. Mother and son then returned to Germany, where Mackay grew up.<ref name=glbtq>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/mackay_jh.html |title=Mackay, John Henry (1864–1933) |encyclopedia=glbtq: an encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, & queer culture |publisher=[[glbtq.com]] |access-date=25 August 2011 |last=Kennedy |first=Hubert |author-link=Hubert Kennedy |year=2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629120245/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/mackay_jh.html |archive-date=19 June 2022 }}</ref>

He gained fame as a poet and author of naturalist novels. Some of his earliest poems attracted the attention of censors for their socialist sentiments, so Mackay republished them in Switzerland.<ref name=fahnders>{{cite book | access-date=19 June 2022| page = 311 | title= Lexikon sozialistischer Literatur: Ihre Geschichte in Deutschland bis 1945 | first = Walter | last = Fahnders | chapter = Mackay, John Henry (Ps Sagitta) |chapter-url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lexikon_sozialistischer_Literatur/2Ty3DQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Kasarnowski+mackay&pg=PA311&printsec=frontcover | publisher= J.B. Metzler | editor-first1= Dieter | editor-last1= Schiller | editor-first2= Silvia |editor-last2= Schlenstedt |editor-first3= Simone | editor-last3= Barck | editor-first4= Tanja |editor-last4=Bürgel |editor-first5= Volker |editor-last5= Giel | display-editors=1 | language = de | date = 2016| isbn = 9783476035486 }}</ref>

During a one-year stay in London (1887/88), he discovered the works of [[Max Stirner]], whose book {{lang|de|Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum}} (''[[The Ego and its Own]]'') had nearly been forgotten in the second half of the 19th century. Stirner soon became his life's topic. When an English translation of Stirner's work was published in 1907, [[James Huneker]] wrote: "To Mackay's labors we owe all we know of a man who was as absolutely swallowed up by the years as if he had never existed."<ref>{{cite news| work = New York Times | access-date=18 June 2022| date = 20 April 1907 | url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/04/20/106749296.html | title= Ideas of Max Stirner | first = James | last = Huneker}}</ref>

The publication of the novel {{lang|de|Die Anarchisten: Kulturgemälde aus dem Ende des XIX Jahrhunderts}} in Zurich in 1891 and in an English translation as ''The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century'' the same year brought him far wider fame.<ref name=glbtq/> The novel "tirelessly championed" the ideas of Stirner.<ref name=fahnders/> He further lifted this 19th century philosopher from obscurity by writing the biography ''Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk'' (1898).

His novel {{lang|de|Der Schwimmer: Die Geschichte einer Leidenschaft}} (''The Swimmer: The Story of a Passion'') (1901), was one of the first sports novels, set in the world of competitive swimming and diving. Mackay described himself as "always a passionate swimmer" thought not a sport for him. He dedicated the book to "my beloved art of swimming".<ref>{{cite book | access-date=19 June 2022 | page=53 | url = https://www.google.com/books/edition/John_Henry_Mackay/XGjSOibUYb4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA53 | title= John Henry Mackay: Autobiographical Writings | translator= Hubert Kennedy | date = 2001| publisher= Xlibris US | author= John Henry Mackay | isbn=9781465321480 }}</ref> The novel describes "the rise and fall of an individual who prides himself on his individuality, but who finally comes to see that individuality by itself is not enough to sustain him".<ref>{{cite book | title = The Swimmer | contributor = Hubert Kennedy | contribution = Preface | date = 2001 | author=John Henry Mackay | publisher = Xlibris Corporation | isbn = 9781465321473 | url= https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Swimmer/eGN5eiU1WKwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=swimmer+%22john+henry+mackay%22&printsec=frontcover | access-date= 19 June 2022}}</ref>

Starting soon after that, he embarked on a literary project to argue on behalf on sexual relations between men, particularly between men and boys as young as teenagers. He himself was attracted to boys aged 14 to 17.<ref>{{cite book | access-date=19 June 2022 | page=53 | url = https://www.google.com/books/edition/John_Henry_Mackay/XGjSOibUYb4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA117 | contribution = Introduction | contributor= Hubert Kennedy | title= John Henry Mackay: Autobiographical Writings | translator= Hubert Kennedy | author= John Henry Mackay |date = 2001| publisher= Xlibris US | isbn=9781465321480 }}</ref> He planned to publish several volumes under the pseudonym "Sagitta", but government authorities had the early ones banned for indecency in 1909. His publisher never revealed Mackay's identity, though he was subject to fines, which Mackay paid on his behalf. Mackay published these works and additional material as ''Die Buecher der namelosen Liebe von Sagitta'' (Sagitta's Books of the Love without a Name). Included was ''Fenny Skaller'', an autobiographical account of his own love interests.<ref name=glbtq/> The series was conceived in 1905 and completed in 1913. One of his themes was the variability of sexual identity and expression. He attacked the medical establishment's attempt to create categories and lebels: "For physicians, people are only valuable when they are sick."<ref name=tobin>{{cite book |title = The Making of the Humanities | volume= III: The Modern Humanities |editor1= Rens Bod |editor2=Jaap Maat |editor3=Thijs Weststeijn | publisher = University of Amsterdam Press | date = 2014 | chapter = Discovering Sexuality: The Status of Literature as Evidence | first= Robert Deam | last= Tobin | pages= 583–596 |jstor = j.ctt12877vs.41 | isbn= 9789089645166 }}</ref>

He published the novel ''Der Freiheitsucher'' (''The Freedom Seeker''), a sequel to ''Die Anarchisten'', in 1920. It failed to achieve the earlier volume's success and Mackay was ruined financially by the inflation of the early Weimar years.

He nevertheless published his seventh Sagitta novel in 1926, {{lang|de|Der Puppenjunge}} (''The Hustler'').<ref name=hustler>{{cite book | author= John Henry Mackay | title = The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love from Friedrich Street| date = 1985 | translator = [[Hubert Kennedy]] | isbn= 0932870589 | page= 293 }}</ref>{{efn|The title was a misspelled form of a contemporary Berlin slang term for "male prostitute". [[Hubert Kennedy]], translator of ''Der Puppenjunge'', notes that Mackay uses the word ''Pupenjunge''–note the spelling–repeatedly in the novel. That was the contemporary slang expression for "hustler", derived from the words ''pupen'', to fart, and ''Junge'', boy. It was too crude a term to use for the title, so the novel's title uses the invented word ''Puppenjunge'', a compound of "doll" and "boy", "so as not to offend the public".<ref name=hustler/>}} Providing a blurb for the 1985 English translation, [[Christopher Isherwood]] wrote that the novel "gives a picture of the Berlin sexual underworld early in this century which I know, from my own experience, to be authentic."<ref>{{cite book | title =The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the 1930s | date = 2019 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UPq1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 | page= 181 | access-date = 19 June 2022 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | first = Glyn | last = Salton-Cox | chapter = The Queer 1930s | isbn = 9781108481083 |editor-first = James | editor-last = Smith }}</ref> It depicted the social world of "young men who prostitute themselves in Berlin, without much concern for their own sexual identity or that of their clients".<ref name=tobin/> In the course of a year centered on his 16th birthday, Gunther learns to survive in Berlin, selling himself and socializing with his peers, living the narrowest of lives, without plans beyond surviving another day. His counterpart Hermann, six or seven years older, "tedious and ineffectual" in one critic's view,<ref>{{cite book | title = Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years | first = Norman | last =Page |date=2000 |page =83, 91–3 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ct69CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA83 | access-date = 30 June 2022 |publisher =Palgrave Macmillan | isbn= 9780230598980}}</ref> arrives to take a job in a publishing house and is destroyed by his infatuation with Gunther. In the closing pages, a new character argues for the decriminalization of same-sex relations and tells Hermann his love for Gunther was certain to end as Gunther became a man, asserting Mackay's particular sexual interest and undercutting Hermann's sentimental vision.<ref>{{cite book | title =Reconsidering the Emergence of the Gay Novel in English and German | first = James P. | last = Wilper | date = 15 February 2016 | pages = 6, 70, et passim | isbn = 9781612494210 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hl7yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA70 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |pages= 278ff | title = Unerlaubte Gleichheit: Homosexualität und mann-männliches Begehren in Kulturgeschichte und Kulturvergleich| first = Benedikt | last =Wolf | date = 2021 | chapter = Von heißen Küssen, besudelten Betten und beischlafähnlichen Handlungen | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MXEjEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA278 | editor1= Michael Navratil | editor2=Florian Remele | publisher = transcript Verlag | isbn = 9783839453568| language = de }}</ref>

He published his last novel {{lang|de|Der Unschuldige: Die Geschichte Einer Wandlung}} (''The Innocent: The Story of a Transformation'') in 1931; it was the first work published under his own name to include homosexual characters.<ref name=glbtq/>

A volume of his selected works was published in a single volume in 1928.<ref>{{cite book| title= John Henry Mackay's Werke in einem Band| trans-title= John Henry Mackay's Works in One Volume | editor= Leo Kasarnowski| location = Berlin| publisher= Stirner Verlag |date= 1928}}</ref>

Mackay died in [[Stahnsdorf]], a town not far from Berlin, on 16 May 1933.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0masjfeO6isC&pg=PA600 | title=Kräm – Marp | isbn=9783110220490 | last1=Kühlmann | first1=Wilhelm | date=29 September 2010 }}</ref> His will asked for his manuscripts and letters to be destroyed, and for one of his creditors to receive his unsold books.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Riley |first1=Thomas A. |title=New England Anarchism in Germany |journal=The New England Quarterly |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=25–38 |date=1945 |doi=10.2307/361389 |issn=0028-4866 |jstor=361389 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> His will specified that any new printings of the Sagitta novels should be published under his own name.<ref name=glbtq/>

A brief notice of his death in the ''[[New York Times]]'' noted he became famous in the 1890s for ''Anarchists'' and ''Storm'' (his poetry collection) and said that in Germany he was called "an anarchistic lyricist".<ref>{{cite news| work = New York Times | access-date = 19 June 2022 | date= 23 May 1933 |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/05/23/99910435.html | title= John Henry Mackay}}</ref>

Mackay lived in Berlin from 1896 onwards and became a friend of [[Benedict Friedlaender]], a scientist and the co-founder of the ''Gemeinschaft der Eigenen''.

Mackay was published in the United States in his friend [[Benjamin Tucker]]'s magazine, ''[[Liberty (1881-1908)|Liberty]]''.

;Adaptations
[[Max Reger]] set a Mackay poem as "Morgen" (Op. 66 No. 10).<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XBMiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA609 | page= 609 | title =Index to Poetry in Music | first = Carol June | last = Bradley | publisher = Routledge | date = 2014| isbn= 9781135381202 | access-date = 27 June 2022 }}</ref>

[[Richard Strauss]] set two of Mackay's poems to music in his ''Vier Lieder'' for high voice and piano (Op. 27), a wedding gift to his wife in 1894, "[[Morgen!]]" and "[[Heimliche Aufforderung]]". Other settings of Mackay's poems by Strauss include "Verführung" for voice and orchestra in 1896 (Op. 33 No. 1) and "In der Campagna" for voice and piano in 1899 (Op. 41 No. 2).<ref>{{cite book | access-date = 18 June 2022 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=p_88AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA258 | pages = 258–9 | title = Richard Strauss: A Chronicle of the Early Years 1864-1898 | first = Willi | last = Schuh | date= 1982 | publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn=9780521241045 }}</ref>

[[Arnold Schoenberg]] set Mackay’s poem "Am Wegrand" to music, his Op. 6 No. 6.<ref>{{cite book | title = The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893–1908 | first = Walter | last = Frisch | url = https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5t1nb3gn&chunk.id=d0e10481&toc.depth=100&toc.id=d0e8676&brand=ucpress | access-date = 18 June 2022 | date = 1997 | publisher = University of California Press | quote = The poem, by John Henry Mackay, which communicates alienation and despair ... called forth an equally powerful response from Schoenberg.}}</ref>

==Works (incomplete)==
*Kinder des Hochlands (1885)
**Children of the Highlands
*Anna Hermsdorf (1885)
*Sturm (1888), poetry collection, the first of several editions with additions
*Die Anarchisten (1891)
**The Anarchists
*Albert Schnells Untergang. Schluß der Geschichte ohne Handlung: Die letzte Pflicht (1895)
**Albert Schnell's Downfall. End of the Story without Plot: The Last Duty
*Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk (1898)
**Max Stirner, his Life and Work
*Der Schwimmer (1900)
**The Swimmer
*Der Sybarit (1903)
**The Sybarites
*Hans, mein Freund und Die Wasserratte (1910)
**Hans, my friend and the water rat
*Der Freiheitsucher. Psychologie einer Entwicklung (ca. 1920)
**The Freedom Seeker. psychology of development
*Der Puppenjunge (1926)
**The Hustler
*Die Namenlose Liebe, seven volumes (1906–1926)
**The Love without a Name
*Der Unschuldige (1936)
**The Innocent

==See also==
{{Portal|LGBT|Poetry}}
*[[Individualist anarchism in Europe]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

;Additional sources
* {{cite book | author = Hubert Kennedy | url = https://archive.org/details/AnarchistOfLoveTheSecretLifeOfJohnHenryMackay | title = Anarchist of Love: The Secret Life of John Henry Mackay | edition = 2nd | date=2002}}
* {{cite journal | author = J. Edgar Bauer | title = On the Nameless Love and Infinite Sexualities: John Henry Mackay, Magnus Hirschfeld and the Origins of the Sexual Emancipation Movement | journal = Journal of Homosexuality | volume = 50 | issue= 1 | date =2005 | pages= 1–26| doi = 10.1300/J082v50n01_01 | pmid = 16368662 | s2cid = 6809243 }}

==External links==
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=mackay&GSfn=john&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GScntry=8&GSob=n&GRid=134843340&df=all& John Henry Mackay (1864–1933) Find A Grave memorial]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Mackay,+John+Henry | name=John Henry Mackay}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Henry Mackay |sopt=t}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4697}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackay, John Henry}}
[[Category:1864 births]]
[[Category:1933 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century LGBT people]]
[[Category:Anarchist theorists]]
[[Category:Anarchist writers]]
[[Category:British anti-fascists]]
[[Category:Burials in Berlin by place]]
[[Category:Egoist anarchists]]
[[Category:Free love advocates]]
[[Category:British gay writers]]
[[Category:German anarchists]]
[[Category:German anti-fascists]]
[[Category:German biographers]]
[[Category:German-language writers]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:German male novelists]]
[[Category:German male poets]]
[[Category:German people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:German political writers]]
[[Category:Individualist anarchists]]
[[Category:Scottish LGBT novelists]]
[[Category:LGBT rights activists from Germany]]
[[Category:German LGBT poets]]
[[Category:Male biographers]]
[[Category:People from Greenock]]
[[Category:Scottish anarchists]]
[[Category:Scottish biographers]]
[[Category:Scottish expatriates in Germany]]
[[Category:Scottish male poets]]
[[Category:Scottish non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Scottish male novelists]]
[[Category:Scottish political writers]]
[[Category:20th-century LGBT people]]

Max Stirner

2022-06-28T12:23:56Z

Kurt1111S: removed referances to Cosmic Nihlism and Nominalism, Does not accuretly describe Stirners Position, citation does not support this theory. Nominalism may be a defendable position, but requires much more of a source then just the definitons of nihilism

{{Short description|German philosopher (1806–1856)}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| name = Max Stirner
| image = MaxStirner1.svg
| image_size = 150
| caption = Max Stirner as portrayed by [[Friedrich Engels]]
| birth_name = Johann Kaspar Schmidt
| birth_date = {{birth date|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Bayreuth]], [[Kingdom of Bavaria]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1856|6|26|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Berlin]], [[Prussia]], [[German Confederation]]
| education = {{plainlist|
* {{interlanguage link multi|Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|de|3=Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|lt=Gymnasium illustre zu Bayreuth}}
* [[University of Berlin]] (no degree)
* [[University of Erlangen]] (no degree)
}}
| era = [[19th-century philosophy]]
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| school_tradition = {{plainlist|
* [[Continental philosophy]]
* [[Egoism]]
* [[Anti-foundationalism]]
* [[The Ego and Its Own|Dialectical Egoism]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism|first=John F.|last=Welsh|year=2010|publisher=Lexington Books}}</ref>
* [[Egoist anarchism]] (''post-mortem'')
* [[Post-Hegelianism]]
* [[Young Hegelians]] (early)
}}
| main_interests = [[Egoism]], [[ethics]], [[ontology]], [[pedagogy]], [[philosophy of history]], [[philosophy of religion]], [[philosophy of education]],<ref>https://archive.org/details/sparrowsnest-10358/mode/2up The False Principle of our Education
by Stirner, Max; Publication date 1967</ref> [[property theory]], [[psychology]], [[value theory]], [[philosophy of love]], [[dialectic]]
| notable_ideas = {{plainlist|
* [[The False Principle of Our Education|Personalism]] (education)
* {{lang|de|Eigenheit}} ({{translation|ownness}})
* creative nothing
* self-forgetfulness
* insurrection
* Der Einzige (The Unique)
* "Property-worlds"
* [[Union of egoists]]
}}
| influences = {{flatlist|
* [[Yang Zhu|Yang]]<ref>Wolfi Landstreicher. ''[https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf The Unique and Its Property] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625040124/https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf |date=25 June 2020 }}''</ref>
* [[Diogenes]]
* [[Epicurus]]
* [[Adam Smith|Smith]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say|Say]]
* [[Marquis de Sade|Sade]]<ref>Iwan Bloch. ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ Der Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413035949/https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ |date=13 April 2021 }}''</ref>
* [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]]
* [[Friedrich Schleiermacher|Schleiermacher]]<ref>Jason McQuinn. ''[https://calpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Stirners-Critics-introduction-only-version-8-04-13.pdf Clarifying the Unique and Its Self-Creation: An introduction to “Stirner’s Critics” and “The Philosophical Reactionaries”] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109042414/https://calpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Stirners-Critics-introduction-only-version-8-04-13.pdf |date= 31 December 2012 }}''</ref>
* [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]]
* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]<ref>The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967.</ref>
* [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]]
* [[Bruno Bauer|Bauer]]
* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|Proudhon]]
* [[Eugène Sue|Sue]]
* [[Wilhelm Weitling|Weitling]]
}}
| influenced = {{flatlist|
* [[Max Adler (Marxist)|Adler]]
* [[Émile Armand|Armand]]
* [[Enrico Arrigoni|Arrigoni]]
* [[Julius Bahnsen|Bahnsen]]<ref>[[Frederick C. Beiser|Beiser, Frederick C.]] ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 233.</ref>
* [[Bob Black|Black]]
* [[Adolf Brand|Brand]]
* [[Ray Brassier|Brassier]]
* [[Steven T. Byington|Byington]]
* [[Albert Camus|Camus]]
* [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]]
* [[Julius Evola|Evola]]
* [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]
* [[Emma Goldman|Goldman]]
* [[Otto Gross|Gross]]<ref>Bernd A. Laska. ''[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html Otto Gross zwischen Max Stirner und Wilhelm Reich] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200111/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html |date=4 March 2016 }}'', In: Raimund Dehmlow and Gottfried Heuer, eds.: 3. Internationaler Otto-Gross-Kongress, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München. Marburg, 2003, pp. 125–162, {{ISBN|3-936134-06-5}} [http://literaturwissenschaft.de/ LiteraturWissenschaft.de] .</ref>
* [[Miguel Giménez Igualada|Igualada]]
* [[Ernst Jünger|Jünger]]
* [[Gustav Landauer|Landauer]]
* [[John Henry Mackay|Mackay]]
* [[Philipp Mainländer|Mainländer]]
* [[Dora Marsden|Marsden]]
* [[Karl Marx|Marx]]
* [[H. L. Mencken|Mencken]]
* [[Erich Mühsam|Mühsam]]
* [[Saul Newman|Newman]]
* [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]]
* [[Renzo Novatore|Novatore]]
* [[Dmitry Pisarev|Pisarev]]
* [[Herbert Read|Read]]
* [[Wilhelm Reich|Reich]]
* [[Carl Schmitt|Schmitt]]
* [[Rudolf Steiner|Steiner]]
* [[Benjamin Tucker|Tucker]]
* [[Robert Anton Wilson|Wilson]]
* [[Raoul Vaneigem|Vaneigem]]<ref>Raoul Vaneigem. ''[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life The Revolution of Everyday Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516040629/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life |date=16 May 2020 }}''.</ref>
}}
}}

'''Johann Kaspar Schmidt''' (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as '''Max Stirner''', was a German [[post-Hegelian]] philosopher, dealing mainly with the [[Hegelian]] notion of [[social alienation]] and [[self-consciousness]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Stepelevich|first=Lawrence|date=1985|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|url=https://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|access-date=2 October 2020|archive-date=27 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027162935/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|url-status=live|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|volume=46|issue=4|pages=597–614|doi=10.2307/2709548|jstor=2709548}}</ref> Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]], [[psychoanalytic theory]], [[postmodernism]] and [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner">{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner|last=Leopold|first=David|date=4 August 2006}}</ref><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99">Goodway, David. [[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]. Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 99.</ref>

Stirner's main work, ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' ({{lang-de|Der Einzige und sein Eigentum}}), was first published in 1844 in [[Leipzig]] and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''A Ready Reference to Philosophy East and West''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230222119/https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=30 December 2019 }}.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229172353/https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=29 December 2019 }}.</ref>

== Biography ==
[[File:MaxStirner'sbirthplace.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Stirner's birthplace in Bayreuth]]
Stirner was born in [[Bayreuth]], [[Bavaria]]. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the 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 the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778–1839), who were [[Lutheranism|Lutherans]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leopold|first=David|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Stirner_The_Ego_and_its_Own/wdXLCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=max+stirner+lutheran&pg=PR12&printsec=frontcover=frontcover|title=Stirner: The Ego and Its Own, 1995|year=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1316583654}}</ref> His father died of [[tuberculosis]] on 19 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"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109232842/http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/bio/sein_leben/ |date=9 November 2016 }}. p. 28.</ref> In 1809, his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt (a [[pharmacist]]) and settled in [[West Prussia]]n Kulm (now [[Chełmno]], Poland). When Stirner turned 20, he attended the [[University of Berlin]],<ref name="seinleben"/> where he studied [[philology]]. He attended the lectures of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 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> He attended Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of religion and the subjective spirit. Stirner then moved to the [[University of Erlangen]], which he attended at the same time as [[Ludwig Feuerbach]].{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985|p=602}}

Stirner returned to Berlin and obtained a teaching certificate, but he was unable to obtain a full-time teaching post from the Prussian government.<ref>{{cite book|last=Marshall|first=Peter|title=Demanding the Impossible|title-link=Demanding the Impossible|year=1992|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=0002178559|page=221}}</ref> While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called ''[[Die Freien]]'' (The Free Ones), whom historians have subsequently categorized as the [[Young Hegelians]]. Some of the best known names in 19th century literature and [[19th century philosophy|philosophy]] were involved with this group, including [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Bruno Bauer]] and [[Arnold Ruge]]. 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 group broke with Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.
[[File:Die_Freien_by_Friedrich_Engels.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Stirner, here depicted smoking and laying a hand on a table, was a member of the short-lived
[[Young Hegelians|Young Hegelian]] group known as ''Die Freien'']]
Frequently the debates would take place at Hippel's, a [[wine bar]] in [[Friedrichstraße]], attended by among others Marx and Engels, who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the time. Stirner met with Engels many times and Engels even recalled that they were "great friends,"<ref name="autogenerated2">Lawrence L Stepelevich. ''The Revival of Max Stirner''.</ref> but it is still unclear whether Marx and Stirner ever met. It does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener.<ref>Gide, Charles and Rist, Charles. ''A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day''. Harrap 1956, p. 612.</ref> The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory at biographer Mackay's request. It is highly likely that this and the group sketch of ''Die Freien'' at Hippel's are the only firsthand images of Stirner. Stirner worked as a teacher in a school for young girls owned by Madame Gropius<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', vol. 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 Feuerbach and Bauer, but also against [[communists]] such as [[Wilhelm Weitling]] and the [[anarchist]] [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]. He resigned from his teaching position in anticipation of controversy from this work's publication in October 1844.

Stirner married twice. His first wife was Agnes Burtz (1815–1838), the daughter of his landlady, whom he married on 12 December 1837. However, she died from complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843, he married [[Marie Dähnhardt]], an intellectual associated with ''Die Freien''. Their ''[[ad hoc]]'' wedding took place at Stirner's apartment, during which the participants were notably [[Casual wear|dressed casually]], used copper rings as they had forgotten to buy [[wedding rings]], and needed to search the whole neighborhood for a [[Bible]] as they did not have their own. Using Marie's inheritance, Stirner opened a [[Dairy (store)|dairy shop]] that handled the distribution of [[milk]] from [[Dairy farming|dairy farmers]] into the city, but was unable to solicit the customers needed to keep the business afloat. It quickly failed and drove a wedge between him and Marie, leading to their separation in 1847.<ref>{{cite book|title=Anarchism in Germany. Volume I: The Early Movement|first=Andrew R.|last=Carlson|chapter=II: Max Stirner (1806-1856)|url=https://libcom.org/history/anarchism-germany-volume-1-early-movement-andrew-r-carlson|chapter-url=https://libcom.org/library/chapter-ii-max-stirner-1806-1856|pages=55–56|year=1972|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield|Scarecrow Press]]|location=[[Metuchen, New Jersey]]|isbn=0-8108-0484-0|oclc=490643062}}</ref> ''The Ego and Its Own'' was dedicated "to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt." Marie later converted to [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]] and died in 1902 in London.

After ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner wrote ''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.<ref name="SEP-Stirner" /> Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians present at his funeral,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stepelevich |first1=Lawrence S. |title=Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1978 |volume=39 |issue=3 |page=452 |doi=10.2307/2709388 |jstor=2709388 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/2709388 |access-date=1 July 2021 |issn=0022-5037 |quote=Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians at his funeral.}}</ref> held at the [[Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin]].

== Philosophy ==
{{see also|Egoism|Egoist anarchism}}
Stirner, whose main philosophical work was ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'', is credited as a major influence in the development of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]] and [[post-modernism]] as well as [[individualist anarchism]], [[post-anarchism]] and [[post-left anarchy]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner"/><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99"/> Although Stirner was opposed to [[communism]] for the same reasons he opposed [[capitalism]], [[humanism]], [[liberalism]], [[property rights]] and [[nationalism]], seeing them as forms of authority over the individual and as purveyors of ideologies he could not reconcile himself with, he has influenced many [[anarcho-communists]] and [[post-left anarchists]]. The writers of ''[[An Anarchist FAQ]]'' report that "many in the anarchist movement in Glasgow, Scotland, took Stirner's 'Union of egoists' literally as the basis for their [[anarcho-syndicalist]] organising in the 1940s and beyond." Similarly, the noted anarchist historian [[Max Nettlau]] states that "[o]n reading Stirner, I maintain that he cannot be interpreted except in a socialist sense." Stirner was [[anti-capitalist]] and [[pro-labour]], attacking "the division of labour resulting from private property for its deadening effects on the ego and individuality of the worker" and writing that free competition "is not 'free,' because I lack the things for competition. [...] Under the regime of the commonality the labourers always fall into the hands of the possessors of the capitalists [...]. The labourer cannot realise on his labour to the extent of the value that it has for the customer. [...] The state rests on the slavery of labour. If labour becomes free, the state is lost."<ref name="McKay 2012">{{cite book |title=An Anarchist FAQ |publisher=AK Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1849351225 |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |volume=II |location=Stirling |pages=1561–1573 |chapter=What are the ideas of Max Stirner?}}</ref> For Stirner, "Labor has an egoistic character; the laborer is the egoist."<ref name="Paul 1975">Thomas, Paul (May 1975). "Karl Marx and Max Stirner". ''Political Theory''. Sage Publications. '''3''' (2): 159–179. {{jstor|190930}}.</ref>

Stirner did not personally oppose the struggles carried out by certain ideologies, such as [[socialism]], [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s humanism or the advocacy of [[human rights]]. Rather, he opposed their legal and ideal abstractness, a fact that made him different from the [[liberal individualists]], including the [[anarcho-capitalists]] and [[right-libertarians]], but also from the ''[[Übermensch]]'' theories of [[fascism]], as he placed the individual and not the sacred collective at the center. About socialism, Stirner wrote in a letter to [[Moses Hess]] that "I am not at all against socialism, but against consecrated socialism; my selfishness is not opposed to love [...] nor is it an enemy of sacrifice, nor of self-denial [...] and least of all of socialism [...]—in short, it is not an enemy of true interests; it rebels not against love, but against sacred love, not against thought, but against sacred thought, not against socialists, but against sacred socialism."<ref>Roudine, Victor. ''The Workers Struggle According to Max Stirner''. p. 12.</ref>

=== Egoism ===
{{individualism sidebar}}
Stirner's [[Egoist anarchism|egoism]] argues that individuals are impossible to fully comprehend, as no understanding of [[the self]] can adequately describe the fullness of experience. Stirner has been broadly understood as containing traits of both [[psychological egoism]] and [[rational egoism]]. Unlike the self-interest described by [[Ayn Rand]], Stirner did not address individual self-interest, selfishness, or prescriptions for how one should act. He urged individuals to decide for themselves and fulfill their own egoism.<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

He believed that everyone was propelled by their own egoism and desires and that those who accepted this—as willing egoists—could freely live their individual desires, while those who did not—as unwilling egoists—will falsely believe they are fulfilling another cause while they are secretly fulfilling their own desires for happiness and security. The willing egoist would see that they could act freely, unbound from obedience to sacred but artificial truths like law, rights, morality, and religion. Power is the method of Stirner's egoism and the only justified method of gaining [[Property (philosophy)|philosophical property]]. Stirner did not believe in the one-track pursuit of greed, which as only one aspect of the ego would lead to being possessed by a cause other than the full ego. He did not believe in [[natural rights]] to property and encouraged insurrection against all forms of authority, including disrespect for property.<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

=== Anarchism ===
[[File:Benjamin R Tucker.jpg|thumb|180px|Three pioneers of individualist anarchism]] Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of [[State (polity)|state]], [[Property#Property in philosophy|property as a right]], [[natural rights]] in general and the very notion of [[society]]—were mere illusions, "spooks" or ghosts in the mind.<ref>Heider, Ulrike. ''Anarchism: Left, Right and Green'', San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95–96.</ref> He advocated egoism and a form of [[amoralism]] in which individuals would unite in [[Union of egoists|Unions of egoists]] only when it was in their self-interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might, saying: "Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him belongs [property]. [...] What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." He adds that "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!"<ref name="Stirner, Max p. 248">Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 248.</ref> Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint and that rights do not exist in regard to objects and people at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality."<ref name="Moggach, Douglas p. 194">Moggach, Douglas. ''The New Hegelians''. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 194.</ref>

Despite being labeled as anarchist, Stirner was not necessarily one. Separation of Stirner and egoism from anarchism was first done in 1914 by [[Dora Marsden]] in her debate with [[Benjamin Tucker]] in her journals ''The New Freewoman'' and ''The Egoist''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|title=Dora Marsden & Benjamin R. Tucker – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180445/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|url-status=live}}</ref> The idea of egoist anarchism was also expounded by various other egoists, mainly [[Malfew Seklew]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|title=The Gospel According to Malfew Seklew|access-date=13 December 2019|archive-date=13 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191213073901/https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sidney E. Parker]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|title=Archists, Anarchists and Egoists – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180444/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Communism ====
Stirner suggested that communism was tainted with the same idealism as [[Christianity]] and infused with superstitious ideas like morality and justice.<ref>Newman, S. (2013). ''[https://research.gold.ac.uk/17024/1/Stirner%20Political%20Theology.pdf Stirner's Radical Atheism and the Critique of Political Theology]''. p. 10, [[Goldsmiths, University of London|Goldsmiths: University of London]]</ref> Stirner's principle critique of socialism and communism was that they ignored the individual; they aimed to hand ownership over to the abstraction society, which meant that no existing person actually owned anything.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Thomas |first=Matty |date=10 January 2017 |title=The Relevance of Max Stirner to Anarcho-Communists |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/matty-thomas-the-relevance-of-max-stirner-to-anarcho-communists |access-date= |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> The [[An Anarchist FAQ|Anarchist FAQ]] writes that "[w]hile some may object to our attempt to place egoism and communism together, it is worth pointing out that Stirner rejected 'communism'. Stirner did not subscribe to libertarian communism, because it did not exist when he was writing and so he was directing his critique against the various forms of state communism which did. Moreover, this does not mean that anarcho-communists and others may not find his work of use to them. And Stirner would have approved, for nothing could be more foreign to his ideas than to limit what an individual considers to be in their best interest."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In summarizing Stirner's main arguments, the writers "indicate why social anarchists have been, and should be, interested in his ideas, saying that, John P. Clark presents a sympathetic and useful social anarchist critique of his work in ''Max Stirner's Egoism''."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

[[Daniel Guérin]] wrote that "Stirner accepted many of the premises of communism but with the following qualification: the profession of communist faith is a first step toward total emancipation of the victims of our society, but they will become completely 'disalienated,' and truly able to develop their individuality, only by advancing beyond communism."<ref>Guérin, Daniel (1970). ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''. Monthly Review Press. pp. 70–71. {{ISBN|978-0853451280}}.</ref> According to author Renzo Connors, "red prophets [attempt] to re-brand and turn Stirner into a system similar to Marx".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Connors |first=Renzo |date=9 September 2020 |title=Max Stirner, Individualist Anarchy, and A Critical Look at Egoist Communism |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/individualist-anarchy |access-date= |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> He concludes that "the relevance of Max Stirner to anarcho-communism was to drop the communism part".<ref name=":0" />

==== Revolution ====
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of [[revolution]], arguing that [[social movement]]s aimed at overturning established ideals are tacitly idealist because they are implicitly aimed at the establishment of a new ideal thereafter. "Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or status, the State or society, and is accordingly a political or social act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on 'institutions'. It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes into decay."

==== Union of egoists ====
{{main|Union of egoists}}
Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in ''The Ego and Its Own''. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the [[Sovereign state|state]].<ref name=karl>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Paul|title=Karl Marx and the Anarchists|publisher=[[Routledge]]/[[Kegan Paul]]|location=London|year=1985|isbn=0-7102-0685-2|page=142}}</ref> Unlike a "community" in which individuals are obliged to participate, Stirner's suggested Union would be voluntary and instrumental under which individuals would freely associate insofar as others within the Union remain useful to each constituent individual.<ref name=Cohn>{{Cite journal |last1=Cohn |first1=Jesse |title=What is Postanarchism 'Post'? |journal=[[Postmodern Culture]] |volume=13 |issue=1 |date=September 2002 |url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |language=en |doi=10.1353/pmc.2002.0028 |s2cid=145475500 |issn=1053-1920 |via=[[Project MUSE]] |access-date=2 December 2018 |archive-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925231231/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Union relation between egoists is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.<ref name="nonserviam">{{cite journal|url=http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf#page=13|title=The union of egoists|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|first=Svein Olav|last=Nyberg|pages=13–14|location=Oslo, Norway|oclc=47758413|access-date=1 September 2012|publisher=Svein Olav Nyberg|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207042220/http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf|archive-date=7 December 2010}}</ref> Some such as Svein Olav Nyberg argue that the Union requires that all parties participate out of a [[Selfishness|conscious egoism]] while others such as [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sydney E. Parker]] regard the union as a "change of attitude," rejecting its previous conception as an institution.<ref>{{cite web|title=Non Serviam, No. 18, page 6, "Union of Egoists – Comment" by S.E. Parker.|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153648/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Response to Hegelianism ===
[[File:Stirner02.jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Max Stirner taken from a sketch by [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820–1895) of the meetings of ''[[Die Freien]]'']]
Scholar [[Lawrence Stepelevich]] states that [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]] was a major influence on ''The Ego and Its Own''. While the latter has an "un-Hegelian structure and tone" on the whole and is hostile to Hegel's conclusions about the self and the world, Stepelevich states that Stirner's work is best understood as answering Hegel's question of the role of consciousness after it has contemplated "untrue knowledge" and become "absolute knowledge." Stepelevich concludes that Stirner presents the consequences of the rediscovering one's self-consciousness after realizing self-determination.{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985}}

Scholars such as [[Douglas Moggach]] and Widukind De Ridder have stated that Stirner was obviously a student of Hegel, like his contemporaries [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] and [[Bruno Bauer]], but this does not necessarily make him an Hegelian. Contrary to the Young Hegelians, Stirner scorned all attempts at an immanent critique of Hegel and the Enlightenment and renounced Bauer and Feuerbach's emancipatory claims as well. Contrary to Hegel, who considered the given as an inadequate embodiment of rational, Stirner leaves the given intact by considering it a mere object, not of transformation, but of enjoyment and consumption ("His Own").<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83">Moggach, Douglas and De Ridder, Widukind. "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 82–83.</ref>

According to Moggach, Stirner does not go beyond Hegel, but he in fact leaves the domain of philosophy in its entirety, stating:
{{blockquote|Stirner refused to conceptualize the human self, and rendered it devoid of any reference to rationality or universal standards. The self was moreover considered a field of action, a "never-being I." The "I" had no essence to realize and life itself was a process of self-dissolution. Far from accepting, like the humanist Hegelians, a construal of subjectivity endowed with a universal and ethical mission, Stirner's notion of "the Unique" (''Der Einzige'') distances itself from any conceptualization whatsoever: "There is no development of the concept of the Unique. No philosophical system can be built out of it, as it can out of Being, or Thinking, or the I. Rather, with it, all development of the concept ceases. The person who views it as a principle thinks that he can treat it philosophically or theoretically and necessarily wastes his breath arguing against it."<ref>"Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought.", In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 75.</ref>}}

== Works ==
=== ''The False Principle of Our Education'' ===
{{main|The False Principle of Our Education}}
In 1842, ''[[The False Principle of Our Education]]'' (''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung'') was published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'', which was edited by Marx at the time.<ref>''Encyclopaedia of Philosophy'' (1967). The Macmillan Company and The Free Press: New York.</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 therefore fulfilled in aiding the individual in becoming an individual.

=== ''Art and Religion'' ===
''Art and Religion'' (''Kunst und Religion'') was also published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'' on 14 June 1842. It addresses Bruno Bauer and his publication against Hegel called ''Hegel's Doctrine of Religion and Art Judged From the Standpoint of Faith''. Bauer had inverted Hegel's relation between "Art" and "Religion" by claiming that "Art" was much more closely related to "Philosophy" than to "Religion", based on their shared determinacy and clarity, and a common ethical root. However, Stirner went beyond both Hegel and Bauer's criticism by asserting that "Art" rather created an object for "Religion" and could thus by no means be related to what Stirner considered—in opposition with Hegel and Bauer—to be "Philosophy", stating:
{{blockquote|[Philosophy] neither stands opposed to an Object, as Religion, nor makes one, as Art, but rather places its pulverizing hand upon all the business of making Objects as well as the whole of objectivity itself, and so breathes the air of freedom. Reason, the spirit of Philosophy, concerns itself only with itself, and troubles itself over no Object.<ref>''Art and Religion'', p. 110.</ref>}}

Stirner deliberately left "Philosophy" out of the dialectical triad (Art–Religion–Philosophy) by claiming that "Philosophy" does not "bother itself with objects" (Religion), nor does it "make an object" (Art). In Stirner's account, "Philosophy" was in fact indifferent towards both "Art" and "Religion." Stirner thus mocked and radicalised Bauer's criticism of religion.<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83"/>

=== ''The Ego and Its Own'' ===
{{main|The Ego and Its Own}}
Stirner's main work, ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum''), appeared in [[Leipzig]] in October 1844, with as year of publication mentioned 1845. In ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner launches a radical [[anti-authoritarian]] and [[individualist]] critique of contemporary [[Prussia]]n society and modern western society as such. He offers an approach to human existence in which he depicts himself as "the unique one", a "creative nothing", beyond the ability of language to fully express, stating that "[i]f I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me".<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 324.</ref>

The book proclaims that all religions and ideologies rest on empty concepts. The same holds true for society's institutions that claim authority over the individual, be it the state, legislation, the church, or the systems of education such as universities. Stirner's argument explores and extends the limits of criticism, aiming his critique especially at those of his contemporaries, particularly Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, also at popular ideologies, including [[communism]], [[humanism]] (which he regarded as analogous to religion with the abstract Man or humanity as the supreme being), [[liberalism]], and [[nationalism]] as well as [[capitalism]], [[religion]] and [[statism]], arguing:
{{blockquote|In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies—an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 17.</ref>}}

=== ''Stirner's Critics'' ===
[[File:Portrait of Max Stirner.svg|thumb|Woodblock print of Max Stirner, taken from [[Clifford Harper]]'s ''Anarchy: A Graphic Guide''.]]
''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners'') was published in September 1845 in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''. It is a response, in which Stirner refers to himself in the third-person, to three critical reviews of ''The Ego and its Own'' by [[Moses Hess]] in ''Die letzten Philosophen'' (''The Last Philosophers''), by a certain Szeliga (alias of an adherent of [[Bruno Bauer]]) in an article in the journal ''Norddeutsche Blätter'', and by [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] anonymously in an article called ''On 'The Essence of Christianity' in Relation to Stirner's 'The Ego and its Own''' (''Über 'Das Wesen des Christentums' in Beziehung auf Stirners 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum{{'}}'') in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''.

=== ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' ===
''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' (''Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'') was published in 1847 in ''Die Epigonen'', a journal edited by Otto Wigand from Leipzig. At the time, Wigand had already published ''The Ego and Its Own'' and was about to finish the publication of Stirner's translations of [[Adam Smith]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]. As the subtitle indicates, ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' was written in response to a 1847 article by [[Kuno Fischer]] (1824–1907) entitled ''The Modern Sophists'' (''Die Moderne Sophisten''). The article was signed G. Edward and its authorship has been disputed ever since John Henry Mackay "cautiously" attributed it to Stirner and included it in his collection of Stirner's lesser writings. It was first translated into English in 2011 by Widukind De Ridder and the introductory note explains:
{{blockquote|Mackay based his attribution of this text to Stirner on Kuno Fischer's subsequent reply to it, in which the latter, 'with such determination', identified G. Edward as Max Stirner. The article was entitled 'Ein Apologet der Sophistik und "ein Philosophischer Reactionäre"' and was published alongside 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. Moreover, it seems rather odd that Otto Wigand would have published 'Edward's' piece back-to-back with an article that falsely attributed it to one of his personal associates at the time. And, indeed, as Mackay went on to argue, Stirner never refuted this attribution. This remains, however, a slim basis on which to firmly identify Stirner as the author. This circumstantial evidence has led some scholars to cast doubts over Stirner's authorship, based on both the style and content of 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. One should, however, bear in mind that it was written almost three years after ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'', at a time when Young Hegelianism had withered away.<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer. Translated and introduced by Widukind De Ridder", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 90 (2011).</ref>}}

The majority of the text deals with Kuno Fischer's definition of sophism. With much wit, the self-contradictory nature of Fischer's criticism of sophism is exposed. Fischer had made a sharp distinction between sophism and philosophy while at the same time considering it as the "mirror image of philosophy". The sophists breathe "philosophical air" and were "dialectically inspired to a formal volubility". Stirner's answer is striking:
{{blockquote|Have you philosophers really no clue that you have been beaten with your own weapons? Only one clue. What can your common sense reply when I dissolve dialectically what you have merely posited dialectically? You have showed me with what kind of 'volubility' one can turn everything to nothing and nothing to everything, black into white and white into black. What do you have against me, when I return to you your pure art?<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 99 (2011).</ref>}}

Looking back on ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner claims that "Stirner himself has described his book as, in part, a clumsy expression of what he wanted to say. It is the arduous work of the best years of his life, and yet he calls it, in part, 'clumsy'. That is how hard he struggled with a language that was ruined by philosophers, abused by state-, religious- and other believers, and enabled a boundless confusion of ideas".<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 104 (2011).</ref>

=== ''History of Reaction'' ===
''History of Reaction'' (''Geschichte der Reaktion'') 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 [[revolutions of 1848 in the German states|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, who answered the criticism in a German periodical in the September 1845 article ''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners''), which clarifies several points of interest to readers of the book—especially in relation to Feuerbach.

While Marx's ''Saint Max'' (''Sankt Max''), a large part of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' (''Die Deutsche Ideologie''), was not published until 1932 and thus assured ''The Ego and Its Own'' a place of curious interest among [[Marxist]] readers, Marx's ridicule of Stirner has played a significant role in the preservation of Stirner's work in popular and academic discourse despite lacking mainstream popularity.<ref name="Paul 1975"/><ref name="Lobkowicz 1970"/><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002"/><ref name="Alexander"/>

=== Comments by contemporaries ===
Twenty years after the appearance of Stirner's book, the author [[Friedrich Albert Lange]] wrote the following:
{{blockquote|Stirner went so far in his notorious work, 'Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum' (1845), as to reject all moral ideas. Everything that in any way, whether it be external force, belief, or mere idea, places itself above the individual and his caprice, Stirner rejects as a hateful limitation of himself. What a pity that to this book—the extremest that we know anywhere—a second positive part was not added. It would have been easier than in the case of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Schelling]]'s philosophy; for out of the unlimited Ego I can again beget every kind of [[Idealism]] as ''my'' [[Will (philosophy)|will]] and ''my'' [[idea]]. Stirner lays so much stress upon the will, in fact, that it appears as the root force of human nature. It may remind us of [[Schopenhauer]].<ref>''[[History of Materialism]]'', ii. 256 (1865).</ref>}}

Some people believe that in a sense a "second positive part" was soon to be added, though not by Stirner, but by [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. The [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner|relationship between Nietzsche and Stirner]] seems to be much more complicated.<ref>See [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, Fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref> According to George J. Stack's ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Nietzsche read Lange's ''History of Materialism'' "again and again" and was therefore very familiar with the passage regarding Stirner.<ref>George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1983, p. 12, {{ISBN|978-3-11-008866-3}}.</ref>

== Influence ==
While ''Der Einzige'' was a critical success and attracted much reaction from famous philosophers after publication, it was out of print and the notoriety that it had provoked had faded many years before Stirner's death.<ref name=sep>{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner |title=Max Stirner}}</ref> However, since his death, it has seen a revival in publication in multiple languages.<ref name=sep>{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner |title=Max Stirner}}</ref> Stirner had a destructive impact on [[left-Hegelianism]], but [[Philosophy of Max Stirner|his philosophy]] was a significant influence on Marx and his magnum opus became a founding text of [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name=sep/> [[Edmund Husserl]] once warned a small audience about the "seducing power" of ''Der Einzige'', but he never mentioned it in his writing.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident – in a nutshell"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060518155939/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html |date=18 May 2006 }}.</ref> As the art critic and Stirner admirer [[Herbert Read]] observed, the book has remained "stuck in the gizzard" of Western culture since it first appeared.<ref>Quoted in Read's book, "The Contrary Experience", Faber and Faber, 1963.</ref>

Many thinkers have read and been affected by ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' in their youth including [[Rudolf Steiner]], [[Gustav Landauer]], [[Victor Serge]],<ref>See ''[[Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941]]'' by Victor Serge. Publisher Oxford U.P., 1967.</ref> [[Carl Schmitt]] and [[Jürgen Habermas]]. Few openly admit any influence on their own thinking.<ref>See Bernd A. Laska: ''Ein dauerhafter Dissident.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> [[Ernst Jünger]]'s book ''[[Eumeswil]]'', had the character of the [[Anarch (sovereign individual)|Anarch]], based on Stirner's Einzige.<ref>Bernd A. Laska: ''Katechon und Anarch.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1997 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> Some have tried to use Stirner’s ideas to defend [[capitalism]] while others have used them to argue for [[anarcho-syndicalism]].<ref name="McKay 2012" />

Several other authors, philosophers and artists have cited, quoted or otherwise referred to Max Stirner. They include [[Albert Camus]] in ''[[The Rebel (book)|The Rebel]]'' (the section on Stirner is omitted from the majority of English editions including [[Penguin books|Penguin]]'s), [[Benjamin Tucker]], [[James Huneker]],<ref>Huneker's book ''Egoists, a Book of Supermen'' (1909)contains an essay on Stirner.</ref> [[Dora Marsden]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[Emma Goldman]],<ref>See Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, p. 50.</ref> [[Georg Brandes]], [[John Cowper Powys]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=A. N.|date=1 November 2004|title=World of books|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/01/do0106.xml|url-status=dead|access-date=12 May 2010|archive-date=20 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220062510/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/}}</ref> [[Martin Buber]],<ref>''Between Man and Man'' by Martin Buber, Beacon Press, 1955.</ref> [[Sidney Hook]],<ref>From Hegel to Marx by Sidney Hook, London, 1936.</ref> [[Robert Anton Wilson]], [[Horst Matthai Quelle|Horst Matthai]], [[Enrico Arrigoni|Frank Brand]], [[Marcel Duchamp]], several writers of the [[Situationist International]] including [[Raoul Vaneigem]]<ref>"The long revolution is preparing to write works in the ink of action whose unknown or nameless authors will flock to join Sade, Fourier, Babeuf, Marx, Lacenaire, Stirner, Lautréamont, L'hautier, Vaillant, Henry, Villa, Zapata, Makhno, the Communards, the insurrectionaries of Hamburg, Kiel, Kronstadt, Asturias—all those who have not yet played their last card in a game which we have only just joined: the great gamble whose stake is freedom". [[Raoul Vaneigem]]. ''[[The Revolution of Everyday Life]]''.</ref> and [[Max Ernst]]. [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Soul of Man Under Socialism]]'' has caused some historians to speculate that Wilde (who could read German) was familiar with the book.<ref>[[David Goodway]], ''[[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]'', Liverpool University Press, 2006. p. 75.</ref>

=== Anarchist movement ===
{{anarchism sidebar|people}}
{{main|Egoist anarchism|Individualist anarchism}}
Stirner's philosophy was important in the development of modern anarchist thought, particularly [[individualist anarchism]] and [[egoist anarchism]]. Although Stirner is usually associated with [[individualist anarchism]], he was influential to many [[social anarchism|social anarchists]] such as [[anarcha-feminist]]s [[Emma Goldman]] and [[Federica Montseny]]. In [[European individualist anarchism]], he influenced its major proponents after him such as [[Émile Armand]], [[Han Ryner]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[John Henry Mackay]], [[Miguel Giménez Igualada]] and [[Lev Chernyi]].

In [[American individualist anarchism]], he found adherence in [[Benjamin Tucker]] and his magazine ''[[Liberty (1881–1908)|Liberty]]'' while these abandoned [[natural right]]s positions for egoism.<ref name="mcelroy">"Only the influence of the German philosopher of egoism, Max Stirner (né Johann Kaspar Schmidt, 1806–1856), as expressed through The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum) compared with that of Proudhon. In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886), Tucker rejected natural rights which had long been considered the foundation of libertarianism. This rejection galvanized the movement into fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself. So bitter was the conflict that a number of natural rights proponents withdrew from the pages of Liberty in protest even though they had hitherto been among its frequent contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed egoism although its general content did not change significantly". Wendy Mcelroy. [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 "Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, & Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524105129/http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 |date=24 May 2011 }}.</ref> Several periodicals "were undoubtedly influenced by ''Liberty'''s presentation of egoism". They included ''I'', published by [[Clarence Lee Swartz]] and edited by William Walstein Gordak and [[J. William Lloyd]] (all associates of ''Liberty''); and ''The Ego and The Egoist'', both of which were edited by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed, there were the German ''[[Der Eigene]]'', edited by [[Adolf Brand]]; and ''The Eagle and The Serpent'', issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle ''A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology''.<ref name="mcelroy"/> Other American egoist anarchists around the early 20th century include [[James L. Walker]], George Schumm, [[John Beverley Robinson (anarchist)|John Beverley Robinson]], [[Steven T. Byington]].<ref name="mcelroy"/>

In the United Kingdom, [[Herbert Read]] was influenced by Stirner and noted the closeness of Stirner's egoism to [[existentialism]] (see [[existentialist anarchism]]). Later in the 1960s, [[Daniel Guérin]] says in ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice'' that Stirner "rehabilitated the individual at a time when the philosophical field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism and most reformers in the social field had been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism to stress its opposite" and pointed to "the boldness and scope of his thought".<ref name="Guerin">[[Daniel Guérin]],''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''</ref> In the 1970s, an American [[Situationist International|Situationist]] collective called For Ourselves published a book called ''[[The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything]]'' in which they advocate a "communist egoism" basing themselves on Stirner.<ref>[http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything "Four Ourselves, The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622062115/http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything|date=22 June 2013}}</ref>

Later in the United States, it emerged the tendency of [[post-left anarchy]] which was influenced profoundly by Stirner in aspects such as the critique of ideology. [[Jason McQuinn]] says that "when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist philosophy of Max Stirner".<ref name="Cuchuflito">"What is Ideology?" by [[Jason McQuinn]].</ref> [[Bob Black]] and Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. In the hybrid of [[post-structuralism]] and anarchism called [[post-anarchism]], [[Saul Newman]] has written on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism. [[Insurrectionary anarchism]] also has an important relationship with Stirner as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher and [[Alfredo Bonanno]] who has also written on him in works such as ''Max Stirner'' and ''Max Stirner and Anarchism''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bonanno |first1=Alfredo M. |title=Max Stirner und der Anarchismus |date=1996 |publisher=Anares |location=Bern |isbn=3-905052-61-X }}</ref>

==== Free love, homosexuals and feminists ====
{{See also|Anarchism and issues related to love and sex}}
German Stirnerist [[Adolf Brand]] produced the homosexual periodical ''[[Der Eigene]]'' in 1896. This was the first ongoing homosexual publication in the world<ref>[[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]] had begun a journal called ''Prometheus'' in 1870, but only one issue was published. Kennedy, Hubert, ''Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality'', In: 'Science and Homosexualities', ed. Vernon Rosario. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 26–45.</ref> and ran until 1931. The name was taken from the writings of Stirner (who had greatly influenced the young Brand) and refers to Stirner's concept of "[[self-ownership]]" of the individual. Another early homosexual activist influenced by Stirner was [[John Henry Mackay]]. Mackay also used the works of Stirner to justify 'man-boy love" and the abolition of the age of consent.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kinna |first=Ruth |date=2011 |title=The Mirror of Anarchy: The Egoism of John Henry Mackay and Dora Marsden |url=https://libcom.org/files/Newman_Max_Stirner.pdf |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=46}}</ref> Feminists influenced by Stirner include anarchist [[Emma Goldman]], as well as [[Dora Marsden]] who founded the journals ''[[The Freewoman]], [[The New Freewoman]]'', and [[The Egoist (periodical)|''The Egoist'']]. Stirner also influenced [[free love]] and [[polyamory]] propagandist [[Émile Armand]] in the context of [[Individualist anarchism in Europe#France|French individualist anarchism]] of the early 20th century which is known for "[t]he call of nudist [[naturism]], the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of "[[union of egoists|unions of egoists]]" with the sole justification of sexual practices".<ref name="frenchexperimentation">Xavier Diez. [http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 "La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la dictadura y la Segunda República"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220143610/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 |date=20 December 2019 }}.</ref>

==== Post-structuralism ====
{{see also|Post-anarchism|Post-structuralism}}
In his book ''[[Specters of Marx]]'', influential French poststructuralist thinker [[Jacques Derrida]] dealt with Stirner and his relationship with Marx while also analysing Stirner's concept of "specters" or "spooks".<ref>[[Jacques Derrida]]. ''[[Specters of Marx]]''. Routledge. 1994.</ref> [[Gilles Deleuze]], another key thinker associated with post-structuralism, mentions Stirner briefly in his book ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''.<ref>"Human or divine, as Stirner said, the predicates are the same whether they belong analytically to the divine being, or whether they are synthetically bound to the human form" (Gilles Deleuze. ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''. Continuum. 2004). p. 122.</ref> [[Saul Newman]] calls Stirner a proto-[[Post-structuralism|poststructuralist]] who on the one hand had essentially anticipated modern post-structuralists such as [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]], Deleuze and Derrida, but on the other had already transcended them, thus providing what they were unable to—i.e. a ground for a [[non-essentialist]] critique of present liberal capitalist society. This is particularly evident in Stirner's identification of the self with a "creative nothing", a thing that cannot be bound by ideology, inaccessible to representation in language.

=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ===
[[File:Skiz-hegel.png|thumb|Caricature by Engels of the meetings of ''Die Freien'']]
[[Friedrich Engels]] commented on Stirner in poetry at the time of ''[[Die Freien]]'':
{{poem quote|Look at Stirner, look at him, the peaceful enemy of all constraint.
For the moment, he is still drinking beer,
Soon he will be drinking blood as though it were water.
When others cry savagely "down with the kings"
Stirner immediately supplements "down with the laws also."
Stirner full of dignity proclaims;
You bend your willpower and you dare to call yourselves free.
You become accustomed to slavery
Down with dogmatism, down with law.<ref>Henri Arvon, Aux sources de 1'existentialisme Max Stirner (Paris, 1954), p. 14.</ref>}}

Engels once even recalled at how they were "great friends" (''Duzbrüder'').<ref name="autogenerated2" /> In November 1844, Engels wrote a letter to [[Karl Marx]] in which he first reported a visit to Moses Hess in [[Cologne]] and then went on to note that during this visit Hess had given him a press copy of a new book by Stirner, ''The Ego and Its Own''. In his letter to Marx, Engels promised to send a copy of the book to him, for it certainly deserved their attention as Stirner "had obviously, among the 'Free Ones', the most talent, independence and diligence."<ref name="autogenerated2"/> To begin with, Engels was enthusiastic about the book and expressed his opinions freely in letters to Marx:
{{blockquote|But what is true in his principle, we, too, must accept. And what is true is that before we can be active in any cause we must make it our own, egoistic cause—and that in this sense, quite aside from any material expectations, we are communists in virtue of our egoism, that out of egoism we want to be human beings and not merely individuals.<ref>Zwischen 18 and 25, pp. 237–238.</ref>}}

Later, Marx and Engels wrote a major criticism of Stirner's work. The number of pages Marx and Engels devote to attacking Stirner in the unexpurgated text of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' exceeds the total of Stirner's written works.<ref>[http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max "Chapter ''Sankt Max'' in ''Die deutsche Ideologie''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929113759/http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max |date=29 September 2011 }}.</ref> In the book Stirner is derided as ''Sankt Max'' (Saint Max) and as ''Sancho'' (a reference to Cervantes’ [[Sancho Panza]]). As [[Isaiah Berlin]] has described it, Stirner "is pursued through five hundred pages of heavy-handed mockery and insult."<ref>I. Berlin, Karl Marx (New York, 1963), 143.</ref> The book was written in 1845–1846, but it was not published until 1932. Marx's lengthy ferocious [[polemic]] against Stirner has since been considered an important turning point in Marx's intellectual development from [[idealism]] to [[materialism]]. It has been argued that [[historical materialism]] was Marx's method of reconciling communism with a Stirnerite rejection of morality.<ref name="Lobkowicz 1970">{{cite book|last=Lobkowicz|first=Nicolas|year=1970|chapter=Karl Marx and Max Stirner|title=Demythologizing Marxism|pages=64–95|edition=illustrated|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Springer Netherlands|isbn=978-9024702121 |doi=10.1007/978-94-010-3185-1_3}}</ref><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002">Stedman-Jones, Gareth (2002). "Introduction". In Engels, Friedrich; Marx, Karl. ''The Communist Manifesto'' (illustrated, reprinted, revised ed.). London: Penguin Adult. {{ISBN|978-0140447576}}.</ref><ref name="Alexander">{{cite journal|last=Alexander|first=Green|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|title=Stirner & Marx – Max Stirner: A Biographical Sketch|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|issue=23|pages=5–42|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153640/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Possible influence on Friedrich Nietzsche ===
{{main|Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner}}
The ideas of Stirner and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] have often been compared and many authors have discussed apparent similarities in their writings, sometimes raising the question of influence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904; Robert Schellwien, ''Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1892; H.L. Mencken, ''The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1908; K. Löwith, From Hegel To Nietzsche New York, 1964, p. 187; R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37; T. A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in ''PMLA'', Vol. 62, No. 3, September 1947, pp. 828–843; Seth Taylor, ''Left Wing Nietzscheans, The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920'', p. 144, 1990, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York; Gilles Deleuze, ''Nietzsche et la Philosophy'', Presses Universitaires de France, 1962; R. C. Solomon and K. M. Higgins, ''The Age of German Idealism'', p. 300, Routledge, 1993.</ref> During the early years of Nietzsche's emergence as a well-known figure in Germany, the only thinker discussed in connection with his ideas more often than Stirner was [[Arthur Schopenhauer]].<ref>While discussion of possible influence has never ceased entirely, the period of most intense discussion occurred between 1892 and 1900 in the German-speaking world. During this time, the most comprehensive account of Nietzsche's reception in the German language, the 4-volume work of Richard Frank Krummel called ''Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist'', indicates 83 entries discussing Stirner and Nietzsche. The only thinker more frequently discussed in connection with Nietzsche during this time is Schopenhauer, with about twice the number of entries. Discussion steadily declines thereafter, but it is still significant. Nietzsche and Stirner show 58 entries between 1901 and 1918. From 1919 to 1945, there are 28 entries regarding Nietzsche and Stirner.</ref> It is certain that Nietzsche read about ''The Ego and Its Own'', which was mentioned in [[Friedrich Albert Lange|Friedrich Albert Lange's]] ''History of Materialism'' and [[Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann]]'s ''Philosophy of the Unconscious'', both of which Nietzsche knew well.<ref>"Apart from the information which can be gained from the annotations, the library (and the books Nietzsche read) shows us the extent, and the bias, of Nietzsche's knowledge of many fields, such as evolution and cosmology. Still more obvious, the library shows us the extent and the bias of Nietzsche's knowledge about many persons to whom he so often refers with ad hominem statements in his works. This includes not only such important figures as Mill, Kant, and Pascal but also such minor ones (for Nietzsche) as Max Stirner and William James who are both discussed in books Nietzsche read". T. H. Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library", 1885–1889, in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 663–693; Stack believes it is doubtful that Nietzsche read Stirner, but notes "he was familiar with the summary of his theory he found in Lange's history." George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 276.</ref> However, there is no indication that he actually read it as no mention of Stirner is known to exist anywhere in Nietzsche's publications, papers or correspondence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904.</ref> In 2002, a biographical discovery revealed it is probable that Nietzsche had encountered Stirner's ideas before he read Hartmann and Lange in October 1865, when he met with Eduard Mushacke, an old friend of Stirner's during the 1840s.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref>

As soon as Nietzsche's work began to reach a wider audience, the question of whether he owed a debt of influence to Stirner was raised. As early as 1891 when Nietzsche was still alive, though incapacitated by mental illness, Hartmann went so far as to suggest that he had plagiarized Stirner.<ref>Eduard von Hartmann, Nietzsches "neue Moral", in ''Preussische Jahrbücher'', 67. Jg., Heft 5, May 1891, S. 501–521; augmented version with more express reproach of plagiarism in: ''Ethische Studien'', Leipzig, Haacke 1898, pp. 34–69.</ref> By the turn of the century, the belief that Nietzsche had been influenced by Stirner was so widespread that it became something of a commonplace at least in Germany, prompting one observer to note in 1907 that "Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy."<ref>This author believes that one should be careful in comparing the two men. However, he notes: "It is this intensive nuance of individualism that appeared to point from Nietzsche to Max Stirner, the author of the remarkable work ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum''. Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy." O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 17, No. 4, July 1908, pp. 400–426.</ref>

From the beginning of what was characterized as "great debate"<ref>[in the last years of the nineteenth century] "The question of whether Nietzsche had read Stirner was the subject of great debate" R.A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 29–30.</ref> regarding Stirner's possible positive influence on Nietzsche, serious problems with the idea were nonetheless noted.<ref>Levy pointed out in 1904 that the similarities in the writing of the two men appeared superficial. Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904</ref> By the middle of the 20th century, if Stirner was mentioned at all in works on Nietzsche, the idea of influence was often dismissed outright or abandoned as unanswerable.<ref>R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37.</ref> However, the idea that Nietzsche was influenced in some way by Stirner continues to attract a significant minority, perhaps because it seems necessary to explain the oft-noted (though arguably superficial) similarities in their writings.<ref>"Stirner, like Nietzsche, who was clearly influenced by him, has been interpreted in many different ways," [[Saul Newman]], ''[[From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power]]'', Lexington Books, 2001, p. 56; "We do not even know for sure that Nietzsche had read Stirner. Yet, the similarities are too striking to be explained away." R. A. Samek, ''The Meta Phenomenon'', p. 70, New York, 1981; Tom Goyens, (referring to Stirner's book ''The Ego and His Own'') "The book influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, and even Marx and Engels devoted some attention to it." T. Goyens, ''[[Beer and Revolution|Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement In New York City]]'', p. 197, Illinois, 2007.</ref> In any case, the most significant problems with the theory of possible Stirner influence on Nietzsche are not limited to the difficulty in establishing whether the one man knew of or read the other. They also consist in determining if Stirner in particular might have been a meaningful influence on a man as widely read as Nietzsche.<ref>"We have every reason to suppose that Nietzsche had a profound knowledge of the Hegelian movement, from Hegel to Stirner himself. The philosophical learning of an author is not assessed by the number of quotations, nor by the always fanciful and conjectural check lists of libraries, but by the apologetic or polemical directions of his work itself." Gilles Deleuze (translated by Hugh Tomlinson), ''[[Nietzsche and Philosophy]]'', 1962 (2006 reprint, pp. 153–154).</ref>

=== Rudolf Steiner ===
The individualist anarchist orientation of [[Rudolf Steiner]]'s early philosophy—before he turned to [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]] around 1900—has strong parallels to and was admittedly influenced by Stirner's conception of the ego, for which Steiner claimed to have provided a philosophical foundation.<ref>Guido Giacomo Preparata, "Perishable Money in a Threefold Commonwealth: Rudolf Steiner and the Social Economics of an Anarchist Utopia". ''Review of Radical Economics'' 38/4 (Fall 2006). pp. 619–648.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Alterity]]
* [[Antihumanism]]
* [[Difference (philosophy)]]
* [[Différance]]
* [[Egoist anarchism]]
* [[Enlightened self-interest]]
* [[Hauntology]]
* [[Individualist anarchism in Europe]]
* [[Other (philosophy)]]
* [[Philosophy of Max Stirner]]
* [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== References ==
* Stirner, Max: ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'' (1845 [October 1844]). Stuttgart: Reclam-Verlag, 1972ff; English translation ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (1907), ed. David Leopold, Cambridge/ New York: CUP 1995.
* Stirner, Max: "Recensenten Stirners" (September 1845). In: ''Parerga, Kritiken, Repliken'', Bernd A. Laska, ed., Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag, 1986; English translation ''Stirner's Critics'' (abridged), see below.
* [http://www.panarchy.org/stirner/liberalism.html Max Stirner, Political Liberalism] (1845).

== Further reading ==
* Max Stirner's 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum' im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen deutschen Kritik. Eine Textauswahl (1844–1856). Hg. Kurt W. Fleming. Leipzig: Verlag Max-Stirner-Archiv 2001 ([http://www.max-stirner-archiv-leipzig.de/stirneriana.html#stirneriana20 Stirneriana]).
* Arena, Leonardo V., Note ai margini del nulla, ebook, 2013.
* Arvon, Henri, Aux Sources de l'existentialisme, Paris: P.U.F. 1954.
* Essbach, Wolfgang, Gegenzüge. Der Materialismus des Selbst. Eine Studie über die Kontroverse zwischen Max Stirner und Karl Marx. Frankfurt: Materialis 1982.
* {{cite journal|last1=Feiten|first1=Elmo|title=Would the Real Max Stirner Please Stand Up?|journal=Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies|date=2013|issue=1|url=https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/article/view/17141|issn=1923-5615}}
* Helms, Hans G, Die Ideologie der anonymen Gesellschaft. Max Stirner 'Einziger' und der Fortschritt des demokratischen Selbstbewusstseins vom Vormärz bis zur Bundesrepublik, Köln: Du Mont Schauberg, 1966.
* Koch, Andrew M., "Max Stirner: The Last Hegelian or the First Poststructuralist". In: Anarchist Studies, vol. 5 (1997) pp. 95–108.
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein dauerhafter Dissident. Eine Wirkungsgeschichte des Einzigen, Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 TOC, index]).
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein heimlicher Hit. Editionsgeschichte des "Einzigen". Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1994 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss1 abstract]).
* [[Peter Marshall (author)|Marshall, Peter H.]] "Max Stirner" in "[[Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism]] "(London: HarperCollins, 1992).
* Moggach, Douglas; De Ridder, Widukind, "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: Herzog, Lisa (ed.): Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 71–92 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=CdnRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT5&dq=hegel%27s+thought+in+europe&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=7Sg2VbOjFoTV7QbM8oFQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hegel%27s%20thought%20in%20europe&f=false Google Books]).
* [[Saul Newman|Newman, Saul]] (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 ([https://libcom.org/files/Newman_Max_Stirner.pdf#ss1 full book]).
* Newman, Saul, Power and Politics in Poststructural Thought. London and New York: Routledge 2005.
* Parvulescu, C. [https://www.academia.edu/38180363/The_Individualist_Anarchism_of_Early_Interwar_Germany "The Individualist Anarchist Discourse of Early Interwar Germany"]. Cluj University Press, 2018 (full book).
* Paterson, R. W. K., The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1971.
* Spiessens, Jeff. ''The Radicalism of Departure. A Reassessment of Max Stirner's Hegelianism'', Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018.
* {{cite journal|last1=Stepelevich|first1=Lawrence S.|author-link=Lawrence Stepelevich|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]]|volume=46|issue=4|pages=597–614|date=1985a|doi=10.2307/2709548|issn=0022-5037|jstor=2709548}}
* Stepelevich, Lawrence S., Ein Menschenleben. Hegel and Stirner". In: Moggach, Douglas (ed.): The New Hegelians. Philosophy and Politics in the Hegelian School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 166–176.
* Welsh, John F. ''Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation.'' Lexington Books. 2010.
* {{cite encyclopedia|last=Wilkinson|first=Will|author-link=Will Wilkinson|editor-first=Ronald|editor-last=Hamowy|editor-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|chapter=Stirner, Max (1806–1856)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008|publisher=[[SAGE Publications|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]]|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n300|isbn=978-1412965804|oclc=750831024|lccn= 2008009151|pages=493–494}}
* Di Mascio, Carlo, ''Stirner Giuspositivista. Rileggendo l'Unico e la sua proprietà'', 2 ed., Edizioni Del Faro, Trento, 2015, p. 253, {{ISBN|978-88-6537-378-1}}.

== External links ==
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{commons-inline}}

=== General ===
* {{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner}}, an extensive introduction
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160408143140/http://i-studies.com/ Svein Olav Nybergs website on Max Stirner], with extensive links to texts and references
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/en.html Max Stirner within the LSR project (English section)]
* [http://www.projektmaxstirner.de/project.htm Max Stirner Project] by H. Ibrahim Türkdogan
* [http://consciousegoism.6te.net/ Library of Egoism], an extensive depisitory of free books, essays and journals concerning egoism

=== Relationship with other philosophers ===
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident – in a nutshell – 'How Marx and Nietzsche suppressed their colleague Max Stirner and why he has intellectually survived them']
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03d.htm#c.1.5 ''Stirner Delighted in His Construction''] – "loves miracles, but can only perform a logical miracle", by Karl Marx
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Nietzsche's initial crisis] due to an encounter with Stirner's "The Ego", by Bernd A. Laska (2002)
* "At the End of the Path of Doubt: Max Stirner", By Lawrence S. Stepelevich (Owl of Minerva 41:1–2 (2009–2010) pp. 85–106)

=== Texts ===
* {{Gutenberg author|id=Stirner,+Max|name=Max Stirner}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Max Stirner}}
* {{Librivox author|id=2520}}
* [http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Stirner,+Max/Der+Einzige+und+sein+Eigentum Online book ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msee.html The complete original text in German of ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051217135357/http://tmh.floonet.net/teaho/theego0.html The complete English edition of "The Ego and his Own"], in the translation of Steven T. Byington.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110712234811/http://i-studies.com/library/articles/shorter.shtml Some of Stirner's illuminating "Shorter Essays"], translated into English
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161117035609/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/enrec.html Recensenten Stirners / Stirner's Critics] bilingual: full text in German / abridged text in English (trans. Frederick M. Gordon)
* [http://calpress.org/2013/08/04/stirners-critics-book-project/ Stirner's Critics by Max Stirner translated by Wolfi Landstreicher, with an introduction by Jason McQuinn] (2013 revision of the only full-text English translation of both "Stirner's Critics" and "The Philosophical Reactionaries" by Wolfi Landstreicher published by CAL Press)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=21 Archive of texts on Stirner at RevoltLib]

{{Stirner}}
{{Social and political philosophy}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stirner, Max}}
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Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

2022-06-28T12:16:06Z

Kurt1111S: Gramer

{{Short description|Negotiations during hostilities for peace between Ukraine and Russia}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Campaignbox 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}
{{Campaignbox Russo-Ukrainian War}}

[[Peace]] negotiations between Russia and Ukraine after [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|the former's invasion of the latter]] on 24 February 2022 took place on 28 February,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hopkins |first=Valerie |date=2022-02-28 |title=Initial talks between Russia and Ukraine yield no resolution. |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-talks-belarus.html |access-date=2022-03-16 |issn=0362-4331| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220314231723/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-talks-belarus.html | archive-date = 2022-03-14 | url-status = live}}</ref> 3 March,<ref>{{Cite news |last1 = Reevell | first1 = Patrick | last2 = Hutchinson | first2 = Bill | date = 2022-03-02 | title = 2nd round of talks between Russia and Ukraine end with no cease-fire |url=https://abcnews.go.com/International/2nd-round-talks-russia-ukraine-end-cease-fire/story?id=83226054 |access-date=2022-03-15 |work=ABC News | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220314224621/https://abcnews.go.com/International/2nd-round-talks-russia-ukraine-end-cease-fire/story?id=83226054 | archive-date = 2022-03-14 | url-status = live }}</ref> and 7 March 2022,<ref name="DW-2022-03-07">{{Cite news | author =  |title=Ukraine and Russia hold third round of talks | date = 2022-03-07 | url = https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-and-russia-hold-third-round-of-talks/a-61039008 | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[Deutsche Welle]] | agency = [[Reuters]], [[Agence France-Presse]], [[Deutsche Presse-Agentur]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220314110854/https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-and-russia-hold-third-round-of-talks/a-61039008 | archive-date = 2022-03-14 | url-status = live}}</ref> on the [[Belarus–Ukraine border]], in an undisclosed location in the [[Gomel Region|Gomel region]] of Belarus,<ref>{{Cite news | last = Roshchina | first = Olena | date = 2022-02-28 | script-title = uk:Переговори делегацій України та Росії почалися |trans-title=Negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia began | url = https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/02/28/7326809/ |access-date=2022-03-07 |script-work=uk:Українська правда | trans-work = [[Ukrayinska Pravda]] |language=uk | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220314012254/https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/02/28/7326809/ | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live | script-quote = uk:Деталі: Переговори відбуваються на Гомельщині на березі річки Прип'ять. Із міркувань безпеки точне місце організатори переговорів не називають. | trans-quote = Details: Negotiations are taking place in the Gomel region on the banks of the Pripyat River. For security reasons, the organizers of the talks did not name the exact location.}}</ref> with further talks held on 10 March in Turkey prior to a fourth round of negotiations which began on 14 March.<ref name="ADF"/><ref name="4thRound"/> Peace talks and stability of international borders were further discussed in parliament during the week of 9 May. During these meetings Sweden and Finland applied to become full members of NATO.<ref name="Tanner">{{cite news |title=Finland's leaders call for NATO membership 'without delay' |first=Jari |last=Tanner |work=[[Associated Press]] |date=12 May 2022 |access-date=2 June 2022 |url=https://apnews.com/article/sweden-finland-sauli-niinisto-4ede1942b679dd15bd3021f9b194cbec}}</ref>

==Background==
{{Main|2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}
On 24 February 2022, Russian president [[Vladimir Putin]] announced a "special military operation" in eastern Ukraine.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | date = 2022-02-23 | title = Putin announces formal start of Russia's invasion in eastern Ukraine |url = https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/02/24/putin-announces-start-of-military-operation-in-eastern-ukraine | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[Meduza]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220313234843/https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/02/24/putin-announces-start-of-military-operation-in-eastern-ukraine | archive-date = 2022-03-13 | url-status = live}}</ref> Soon after, Russian forces crossed into the Ukrainian border and began to fight against Ukrainian troops.<ref>{{Cite news | first1 = Nathan | last1 = Hodge | first2 = Tim | last2 = Lister | first3 = Ivana | last3 = Kottasová | first4 = Helen | last4 = Regan | title = Russia launches military attack on Ukraine with reports of explosions and troops crossing border | url = https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23/europe/russia-ukraine-putin-military-operation-donbas-intl-hnk/index.html | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[CNN]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220314172304/https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23/europe/russia-ukraine-putin-military-operation-donbas-intl-hnk/index.html | archive-date = 2022-03-14 | url-status = live | quote = Russian forces have begun an attack on Ukraine, with reports of troops crossing the border to the north and south, explosions in multiple cities including the capital Kyiv and warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin of bloodshed unless Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.}}</ref>

During a conversation between Ukrainian president [[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]] and Belarusian president [[Alexander Lukashenko]] on 27 February, it was agreed that a Ukrainian delegation would meet with Russia on the Belarusian border, near the [[Pripyat (river)|Priypat River]], without preconditions.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Zinets | first1 = Natalia | last2 = Williams | first2 = Matthias | editor-last = Williams | editor-first = Alison |date=2022-02-27 |title=Ukraine and Russia agree to talks without preconditions, Zelenskiy says |work=[[Reuters]] |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-agree-talks-without-preconditions-zelenskiy-says-2022-02-27/ |access-date=2022-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220313030704/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-agree-talks-without-preconditions-zelenskiy-says-2022-02-27/ | archive-date = 2022-03-13 | url-status = live }}</ref> It was reported that Lukashenko assured Zelenskyy that all planes, helicopters, and missiles on Belarusian territory would remain on the ground during the negotiations.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | date = 2022-02-27 | title = Ukrainians agree to meet for talks with Russia on Belarus border | url = https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainians-agree-to-meet-for-talks-with-russia-on-belarus-border/ | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[The Times of Israel]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220310020923/https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainians-agree-to-meet-for-talks-with-russia-on-belarus-border/ | archive-date = 2022-03-10 | url-status = live | oclc = 969749342 | df = dmy-all}}</ref>

By 16 March, [[Mykhailo Podoliak]] was assigned as the chief negotiator for the Ukrainian peace delegation, who indicated that peace negotiations of a 15-point plan would involve the retraction of Russian forces from their advanced positions in Ukraine, along with international guarantees for military support and alliance in case of renewed Russian military action, in return for Ukraine not pursuing further affiliation with NATO.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | title = What could a Ukraine-Russia peace agreement look like? | work = [[TRT World]] | date = 2022-03-18 | url = https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/what-could-a-ukraine-russia-peace-agreement-look-like-55615 | url-status = live | access-date = 2022-03-29 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220321181930/https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/what-could-a-ukraine-russia-peace-agreement-look-like-55615 | archive-date = 2022-03-21 | df = dmy-all }}</ref>

==Negotiations==
=== Peace talks: First phase of invasion (24 February to 7 April) ===
====First round (28 February)====
The first round of talks began on 28 February, near the Belarusian border. The Ukrainian president's office said that the main goals were to call for an immediate ceasefire, and for Russian troops to be withdrawn from Ukraine.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | date = 2022-02-28 | title = Ukraine and Russia finish the first round of peace talks at Belarusian border, next round to be held in days | work = [[ABC News (Australia)]] | agency = [[Reuters]], [[Associated Press]] | url = https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-belarus-border/100869782 | access-date = 2022-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220309180415/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-belarus-border/100869782 | archive-date = 2022-03-09 | url-status = live }}</ref> It concluded with no immediate agreements.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | date = 2022-02-28| title = No breakthrough at Ukraine talks as Russian assault continues | url = https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/russia-ukraine-talks-to-continue-putin-aide | access-date = 2022-03-15 |work = [[Al Jazeera]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315012049/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/russia-ukraine-talks-to-continue-putin-aide | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live }}</ref>

====Second round (3 March)====
On 3 March, the second round of peace talks began. Both sides agreed to open humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians.<ref>{{Cite news |last = Lawler | first = Dave | date = 2022-03-03 | title = Russia agreed to open "humanitarian corridors" for fleeing civilians: Ukraine official | url = https://www.axios.com/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-belarus-938faa52-5f99-41a3-aae1-1dcd42c9583c.html | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[Axios (website)|Axios]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220312042128/https://www.axios.com/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-belarus-938faa52-5f99-41a3-aae1-1dcd42c9583c.html | archive-date = 2022-03-12 | url-status = live }}</ref> Russia's demands were Ukraine's recognition of Russian-occupied [[Crimea]], independence for separatist-controlled [[Luhansk People's Republic|Luhansk]] and [[Donetsk People's Republic|Donetsk]], and "de-militarisation" and "de-Nazification". Ukrainian Foreign Minister [[Dmytro Kuleba]] stated that while his country was ready for talks to resume, Russia's demands had not changed.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  | date = 2022-03-03 | title = Ukrainian and Russian delegates leave latest peace talks feeling 'great regret' | work = [[ABC News (Australia)]] | url = https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/ukraine-and-russia-meet-for-second-round-of-peace-talks/100880588 | access-date = 2022-03-08 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315115657/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/ukraine-and-russia-meet-for-second-round-of-peace-talks/100880588 | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | last = Aris | first = Ben | date = 2022-03-04 | title = Second round of Russia, Ukraine peace talks ends with no progress, assault on Kyiv looms | url = https://www.intellinews.com/second-round-of-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-ends-with-no-progress-assault-on-kyiv-looms-236977/ | url-access = limited | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[bne IntelliNews]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220308005454/https://www.intellinews.com/second-round-of-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-ends-with-no-progress-assault-on-kyiv-looms-236977/ | archive-date = 2022-03-08 | url-status = live }}</ref>

It was reported on 28 March that three members of the Ukrainian negotiating team, including Russian billionaire [[Roman Abramovich]] and Ukrainian politician [[Rustem Umerov]], were suffering from suspected poisoning.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Trofimov |first1=Yaroslav | author-link1 = Yaroslav Trofimov |last2=Colchester |first2=Max |date=2022-03-28 |title=Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Symptoms of Suspected Poisoning |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffer-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-11648480493?mod=e2tw |url-status=live | url-access = subscription |access-date=2022-03-28 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220328200947/https://www.wsj.com/articles/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffer-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-11648480493?mod=e2tw | archive-date = 2022-03-28 | eissn = 1042-9840 | issn = 0099-9660 | oclc = 781541372 | df = dmy-all}}</ref> According to the independent newspaper ''[[Meduza]]'', prior to the alleged poisoning, Umerov was accused by [[the Kremlin]] and [[Mass media in Russia|Russian state-controlled media]] of being an American spy, and that he was deliberately prolonging the negotiations to Ukraine's advantage.<ref>{{cite news |script-title=ru:«Агентство»: один из представителей украинской делегации на переговорах с Россией был отравлен, другой — убит по «недоразумению» |trans-title="Agency": one of the Ukrainian delegation's representatives at talks with Russia was poisoned, another killed by "misunderstanding" |language=ru |date=28 March 2022 |work=[[Meduza]] |url=https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/28/agentstvo-odin-iz-predstaviteley-ukrainskoy-delegatsii-na-peregovorah-s-rossiey-byl-otravlen-drugoy-ubit-po-nedorazumeniyu |access-date=30 March 2022}}</ref> Umerov later wrote on [[Facebook]] that he was "fine", calling for people to not trust "unverified information".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Walker |first1=Shaun |last2=Sauer |first2=Pjotr |title=Abramovich and Ukrainian MP may have been poisoned this month |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/28/abramovich-and-ukrainian-mp-may-have-been-poisoned-this-month |access-date=30 March 2022 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=28 March 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Abramovich suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning: Reports |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/28/russias-abramovich-suffered-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-reports |access-date=30 March 2022 |work=[[Al Jazeera]] |date=28 March 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Everything we know about the alleged poisoning on March 3 According to Bellingcat, the BBC, and the Wall Street Journal, Roman Abramovich and two other negotiators suffered symptoms that point to chemical attacks. |url=https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/03/30/everything-we-know-about-the-alleged-poisoning-on-march-3 |access-date=30 March 2022 |work=[[Meduza]] |date=30 March 2022}}</ref>

====Third round (7 March)====
A third round of negotiations began on 7 March, amidst ongoing fighting and bombing.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Patteson |first=Callie |date=2022-03-07 |title=Little progress in new peace talks — as Russia unleashes 'medieval siege warfare' |url=https://nypost.com/2022/03/07/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-third-round-makes-little-progress/ |access-date=2022-03-08 |work = [[New York Post]] | issn = 1090-3321 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220308134609/https://nypost.com/2022/03/07/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-third-round-makes-little-progress/ | archive-date = 2022-03-08 | url-status = live }}</ref> Although a deal had not been reached yet, Ukrainian negotiator and advisor to the president [[Mykhailo Podoliak]] tweeted that "there were some small positive shifts regarding logistics of humanitarian corridors."<ref name="DW-2022-03-07" /><ref>{{cite news |last=Karmanau |first=Yuras |date=2022-03-07 |title=3rd round of peace talks wrap up as Ukrainian civilians continue to flee Russian shelling |work=[[Global News]] |agency=[[Associated Press]] |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/8663437/ceasefire-humanitarian-corridors-russia-shelling-ukraine/ |access-date=2022-03-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309034936/https://globalnews.ca/news/8663437/ceasefire-humanitarian-corridors-russia-shelling-ukraine/ |archive-date=2022-03-09}}</ref> However, the day before, a Ukrainian negotiator was shot amid claims of spying for Russia.<ref>{{cite news |last=Waterfield |first=Bruno |date=2022-03-07 |title=Ukrainians 'kill negotiator as suspected enemy spy' |location=London |work=[[The Times]] |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrainians-kill-negotiator-as-suspected-enemy-spy-bflgkmk8d}}</ref>

====Antalya Diplomacy Forum (10 March)====
On 10 March, Russian foreign Minister [[Sergey Lavrov]] and his Ukrainian counterpart [[Dmytro Kuleba]] met for talks in [[Antalya]], [[Turkey]] with Turkish Foreign Minister [[Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu]] as mediator, in the first high-level contact between the two sides since the beginning of the invasion.<ref name="ADF">{{Cite news | title = 'No progress' as top Russia, Ukraine diplomats talk in Turkey | date = 2022-03-10 | url = https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/10/top-russia-ukraine-diplomats-arrive-in-turkey-for-talks | access-date = 2022-03-15 | work = [[Al Jazeera]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315053421/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/10/top-russia-ukraine-diplomats-arrive-in-turkey-for-talks | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live }}</ref> Ukraine had attempted to negotiate a 24-hour ceasefire to provide aid and evacuation to civilians, especially in [[Mariupol]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-03-10 |title=Ukraine war: No progress on ceasefire after Kyiv-Moscow talks |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60687203 |access-date=2022-03-16 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315190748/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60687203 | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live}}</ref> After two hours of talks, no agreement was reached.<ref>{{Cite news |last = Ellyatt | first = Holly | date = 2022-03-10 | title = Russia-Ukraine talks fail with no progress on cease-fire, safe passage for civilians | url = https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/10/russia-and-ukraine-peace-talks-in-turkey-what-you-need-to-know.html | access-date = 2022-03-16 | work = [[CNBC]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315124708/https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/10/russia-and-ukraine-peace-talks-in-turkey-what-you-need-to-know.html | archive-date = 2022-03-15 | url-status = live }}</ref> Airstrikes on the port city continued.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Brown |first=Lee |date=2022-03-10 |title=Ukraine-Russia peace talks fail to make progress as airstrikes continue on Mariupol |url=https://nypost.com/2022/03/10/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-fail-to-make-progress/ |access-date=2022-03-16 |work=[[New York Post]] | issn = 1090-3321 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220313061250/https://nypost.com/2022/03/10/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-fail-to-make-progress/ | archive-date = 2022-03-13 | url-status = live }}</ref>

====Fourth round (14–17 March)====
[[File:Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the heads of governments of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia in Kyiv. (51941194944).jpg|thumb|In the first government delegation to Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on 15 March 2022.<ref>{{cite news |title=Poland's Kaczynski calls for peacekeeping mission in Ukraine |editor-last=Oatis |editor-first=Jonathan |work=Reuters |date=15 March 2022 |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-kaczynski-calls-peacekeeping-mission-ukraine-2022-03-15/ |access-date=29 March 2022}}</ref>]]
A fourth round of negotiations began on 14 March via video conference. The talks lasted a few hours and ended without a breakthrough. The two sides resumed talks on 15 March,<ref name="4thRound">{{Cite news |last=Karmanau |first=Yuras |date=14 March 2022 |title=Russia keeps up attacks in Ukraine as two sides hold talks |work=[[Associated Press]] |url=https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-5229ea0b8bb56c10462ee0e00df61116 |access-date = 2022-03-16 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220316014229/https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-5229ea0b8bb56c10462ee0e00df61116 | archive-date = 2022-03-16 | url-status = live }}</ref> after which Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the talks as beginning to "sound more realistic".<ref name="15MarSummary">{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60746557?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=62312ce1ec502b53cd48252f%26Zelensky%3A%20Peace%20talks%20%27sound%20more%20realistic%27%262022-03-16T00%3A41%3A58.699Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:386adada-afe1-4a88-9447-86882c7cb18d&pinned_post_asset_id=62312ce1ec502b53cd48252f&pinned_post_type=share |title=Zelensky: Peace talks 'sound more realistic' |work= [[BBC News]] |date=16 March 2022 |access-date=16 March 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220316132902/https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60746557?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=62312ce1ec502b53cd48252f%26Zelensky%3A+Peace+talks+%27sound+more+realistic%27%262022-03-16T00%3A45%3A05%2B00%3A00&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn%3Aasset%3A386adada-afe1-4a88-9447-86882c7cb18d&pinned_post_asset_id=62312ce1ec502b53cd48252f&pinned_post_type=share%2A | archive-date = 2022-03-16 | url-status = live}}</ref>

The two sides again resumed talks on 16 March.<ref name="15MarSummary"/> Later that day, the ''[[Financial Times]]'' reported that a 15-point plan, first discussed on 14 March, negotiated with the Russians was being identified by Zelenskyy as more realistic for ending the war.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Reed |first1=John |last2=Olearchyk |first2=Roman |last3=Shotter |first3=James |last4=Schwartz |first4=Felicia |title=Zelensky says Ukrainian and Russian positions becoming more 'realistic' |url=https://www.ft.com/content/7b341e46-d375-4817-be67-802b7fa77ef1 |access-date= 2022-03-25 |work=[[Financial Times]] |date=16 March 2022 | issn = 0307-1766 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220325132245/https://www.ft.com/content/7b341e46-d375-4817-be67-802b7fa77ef1 | archive-date = 2022-03-25 | url-status = live | df = dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/16/zelenskyy-says-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-more-realistic | title = Russia-Ukraine peace talks 'sounding more realistic': Zelenskyy | work = [[Al Jazeera]] | date = 2022-03-16 |access-date = 2022-03-29 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220323142019/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/16/zelenskyy-says-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-more-realistic | archive-date = 2022-03-23 | url-status = live | df = dmy-all }}</ref> After the fourth day of talks on 17 March, Russia said an agreement has not been reached.<ref>

{{Cite news | last1=Mackenzie |first1=James |last2=Zinets |first2=Natalia |last3=Kozhukhar |first3=Oleksandr |date=2022-03-17 |title=Scant progress in peace talks as Ukrainian cities pounded in more Russian attacks |editor1-last=Graff |editor1-first=Peter |editor2-last=MacSwan |editor2-first=Angus |editor3-last=Janowski |editor3-first=Tomasz |editor4-last=Jones |editor4-first=Gareth |work=[[Reuters]] |url=https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/scant-progress-peace-talks-ukrainian-cities-pounded-more-russian-attacks-2022-03-17/ |access-date=2022-03-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321025500/https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/scant-progress-peace-talks-ukrainian-cities-pounded-more-russian-attacks-2022-03-17/ |archive-date=2022-03-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> Following the talks, French Foreign Minister [[Jean-Yves Le Drian]] warned that Russia was only "pretending to negotiate", in line with a strategy it has used elsewhere.<ref name="RFI-2022-03-17">{{cite news |author=RFI |date=17 March 2022 |title=French Foreign Minister says Russia is 'pretending to negotiate' in Ukraine talks |work=[[Radio France Internationale]] |agency=[[Agence France-Presse|AFP]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220325051939/https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20220317-french-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-pretending-to-negotiate-in-ukraine-talks |access-date=2022-03-25 |url-status=live |archive-date=2022-03-25 |url=https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20220317-french-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-pretending-to-negotiate-in-ukraine-talks}}</ref>

On 20 March Turkey's Foreign Minister [[Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu]], mediator of the talks, described them as "making progress". Referring to his role as "an honest mediator and facilitator", he gave little further detail.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60802572/page/2 |title = Ukraine and Russia make progress on negotiations - Turkey |work=[[BBC News]] |date = 2022-03-20 |access-date = 2022-03-28 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220320215939/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60802572/page/2 | archive-date = 2022-03-20 | df = dmy-all }}</ref>

Following his address to the Israeli parliament, Zelenskyy said that Israel was also trying to encourage peace talks.<ref>{{cite news | first1 = Ron | last1 = Popeski | first2 = Lidia | last2 = Kelly | first3 = Oleksandr | last3 = Kozhukhar |editor-last = Coates |editor-first = Stephan | url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-israel-good-place-holding-talks-with-russia-2022-03-21/|title=Zelenskiy suggests Israel as good place to hold talks with Russia |work= [[Reuters]] |date= 2022-03-28 |access-date = 2022-03-28 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220327044814/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-israel-good-place-holding-talks-with-russia-2022-03-21/ | archive-date = 2022-03-27 | url-status = live}}</ref>

==== Fifth round (21 March) ====
The fifth round of talks, on 21 March, failed to achieve a breakthrough. Zelenskyy called for direct talks with Putin to end the war.<ref>{{Cite news | last = Dutta | first = Prabhash K. | date = 2022-03-22 | title = Why Russia, Ukraine don't agree in peace talks to end war | work =[[India Today]] | url = https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-war-vladimir-putin-zelenskyy-1928095-2022-03-22 | access-date = 2022-03-29 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220326073450/https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-war-vladimir-putin-zelenskyy-1928095-2022-03-22 | archive-date = 2022-03-26 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> Sergey Lavrov said direct talks between the two presidents would only go ahead once both sides are closer to reaching a settlement.<ref>{{Cite news | author =  |date=2022-03-28 |title=Putin-Zelenskiy meeting needed once sides closer on key issues, Lavrov says |work=[[Reuters]] |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-zelenskiy-meeting-needed-once-sides-closer-key-issues-russias-lavrov-2022-03-28/ |access-date=2022-03-28 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220329015513/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-zelenskiy-meeting-needed-once-sides-closer-key-issues-russias-lavrov-2022-03-28/ | archive-date = 2022-03-29 | url-status = live | df = dmy-all}}</ref>

====Renewal of peace talks: 29–30 March====
On 28 March, Zelenskyy confirmed that a renewal of peace talk negotiations with Russia would start in Istanbul on 29 March, with the intention of discussing Ukrainian neutrality, along with the repudiation of any claims for Ukrainian NATO membership in the future.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/28/zelenskiy-hails-upcoming-ukraine-russia-peace-talks-amid-fallout-from-biden-comments-on-putin |title=Zelenskiy says Ukraine willing to discuss neutrality at Russia talks |first1=Samantha |last1=Lock |first2=Daniel |last2=Boffey |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=28 March 2022 |access-date=28 March 2022 |location=Lviv}}</ref> On 29 March, Estonian Prime Minister, [[Kaja Kallas]], indicated in agreement with French minister Le Drian that any Russian offers of peaceful negotiation about Ukraine, or withdrawal from Kyiv, should be regarded with diplomatic skepticism, based on a history of Russian unreliability in similar peace negotiations with other countries.<ref>{{cite interview |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/estonian-prime-minister-kaja-kallas-on-war-in-ukraine-and-the-russian-threat |title=Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on war in Ukraine and the Russian threat |interviewer=[[Judy Woodruff]] |first=Kaja |last=Kallas |subject-link=Kaja Kallas |work=[[PBS NewsHour]] |date=29 March 2022 |access-date=30 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220330063707/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/estonian-prime-minister-kaja-kallas-on-war-in-ukraine-and-the-russian-threat |archive-date=30 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="RFI-2022-03-17" />

=== Peace talks: Second phase of invasion (7 April to present) ===

{{Update|part=The [[#April 2022|April 2022]] section and follow-on material|date=May 2022}}

==== April 2022 ====
On 7 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister [[Sergey Lavrov]] said that the peace deal [[Ukraine]] drafted and presented to the [[Government of Russia|Russian government]] contained "unacceptable" elements. Lavrov said that the proposal diverged from the terms negotiators had agreed on. [[Mykhailo Podolyak|Mykhaylo Podolyak]], a negotiator for Ukraine, said that the comments from Lavrov are a tactic to draw attention away from the [[War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|war crime accusations]] against Russian forces. Lastly, Lavrov stated, "Despite all the provocations, the Russian delegation will continue with the negotiation process, pressing for our own draft agreement that clearly and fully outlines our initial and key positions and requirements."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Reuters |date=2022-04-07 |title=Russia says Ukraine presented 'unacceptable' draft peace deal |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-presented-unacceptable-draft-peace-deal-2022-04-07/ |access-date=2022-04-07}}</ref>

On 11 April, the Chancellor of Austria, [[Karl Nehammer]], visited and spoke with Putin in Moscow in 'very direct, open and hard' talks which were skeptical of the short term peaceful resolution of the invasion.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Nadine Schmidt, Nic Robertson and Rob Picheta |title=Austria's leader says his face-to-face meeting with Putin was 'not a friendly visit' |url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/11/europe/austria-nehammer-putin-meeting-russia-ukraine-intl/index.html |access-date=2022-04-28 |website=CNN}}</ref> By 26 April, the Secretary General of the United Nations [[Antonio Guterres]] visited Russia for the purpose of speaking with Putin and Lavrov in separate meetings, and after the meetings with them indicating skepticism as to any short term resolution of differences between Russia and Ukraine largely due to very different respective perspectives on the circumstances of the invasion presently being adopted by each of the two nations.<ref>{{Cite web |title=U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres signals little hope for peace in Ukraine before meeting Putin in Moscow |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-war-russia-united-nations-putin-moscow-meeting/ |access-date=2022-04-28 |website=www.cbsnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

==== May 2022 ====
At the start of May, Lavrov stated that his belief (with a preface that he could be wrong) is that that Hitler was of part Jewish extraction; the claim was met with outrage from Israel's government officials.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-05-02 |title=Israel outrage at Sergei Lavrov's claim that Hitler was part Jewish |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-61296682 |access-date=2022-05-13}}</ref> On 5 May, Putin retracted and apologized to Israel's prime minister for Lavrov's comment, who accepted the apology during discussions with Putin about Ukraine.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Welle (www.dw.com) |first=Deutsche |title=Ukraine: Putin 'apologizes' to Israeli PM over Russia's Holocaust remarks — as it happened {{!}} DW {{!}} 05.05.2022 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-putin-apologizes-to-israeli-pm-over-russias-holocaust-remarks-as-it-happened/a-61688699 |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=DW.COM |language=en-GB}}</ref> Peace talks and stability of international borders were further discussed in the Ukrainian parliament during the week of 9 May.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}} In the same week both Sweden and Finland applied to become full members of NATO.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-05-12 |title=Finland's leaders call for NATO membership 'without delay' |url=https://apnews.com/article/sweden-finland-sauli-niinisto-4ede1942b679dd15bd3021f9b194cbec |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=AP NEWS |language=en}}</ref>

Peace talks and stability of international borders were further discussed in parliament during the week of 9 May within both Sweden and Finland for application to become full members of NATO.<ref name="Tanner"/> On 13 May, U.S. Secretary of Defense [[Lloyd Austin]] initiated a telephone conversation with Russian Minister of Defense [[Sergei Shoigu]], the first call since 18 February, before the invasion. The call lasted about an hour with Austin urging an immediate ceasefire.<ref name=thehill-20220513>{{cite news |url=https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3487612-austin-speaks-with-russian-counterpart-for-first-time-since-start-of-war-in-ukraine/ |title=Austin speaks with Russian counterpart for first time since start of war in Ukraine |last=Mitchell |first=Ellen |website=The Hill |location=Washington DC |date=13 May 2022 |access-date=15 May 2022}}</ref><ref name=dod-20220513>{{cite web |url=https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3030753/readout-of-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iiis-call-with-russian-minister/ |title=Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Call With Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu |publisher=Department of Defense |date=13 May 2022 |access-date=15 May 2022}}</ref>

On 15 May, Putin convened the [[Collective Security Treaty Organization]], consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Belarus, to discuss issues of peace and border security related to Ukraine and NATO.<ref>{{cite news |title=Will 'Putin's Nato' follow Warsaw Pact into obscurity? |publisher=EU Observer |first=David A. |last=Merkel |date=15 May 2022 |access-date=2 June 2022 |url=https://euobserver.com/opinion/154937}}</ref> In response to perceived instability of Russia's border with Finland following the application of Finland and Sweden for NATO membership, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Russia would deploy and station 12 divisions of troops on Russia's border with Finland.<ref>{{Cite news |date=20 May 2022 |title=Russia vows 'countermeasures' as NATO looks set to expand |agency=[[Reuters]] |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/20/russia-vows-countermeasures-to-finland-sweden-bid-to-join-nato |url-status=live |access-date=28 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520124102/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/20/russia-vows-countermeasures-to-finland-sweden-bid-to-join-nato |archive-date=20 May 2022}}</ref> On 22 May, while visiting in Japan to discuss cooperative efforts between Japan and the US to assist peaceful resolutions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden stated that current US treaties with Taiwan would see the US providing direct military support to Taiwan in the event of diplomatic or military pressure exerted by China, in contrast to the limits of its financial support of Ukraine resisting Russian military operations.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Liptak |first1=Kevin |last2=Judd |first2=Donald |last3=Gan |first3=Nectar |date=23 May 2022 |title=Biden says US would respond 'militarily' if China attacked Taiwan, but White House insists there's no policy change |work=[[CNN]] |url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/23/politics/biden-taiwan-china-japan-intl-hnk/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=27 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523072733/https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/23/politics/biden-taiwan-china-japan-intl-hnk/index.html |archive-date=23 May 2022}}</ref>

Zelenskyy denounced suggestions by former US diplomat [[Henry Kissinger]] that Ukraine should [[List of national border changes (1914–present)|cede control of Crimea and Donbas]] to Russia in exchange for peace.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bostock |first=Bill |date=26 May 2022 |title=Zelenskyy slams Henry Kissinger for emerging 'from the deep past' to suggest Ukraine cede territory to Russia |work=[[Business Insider]] |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-slams-henry-kissinger-suggestion-ukraine-cede-territory-russia-2022-5 |url-status=live |access-date=29 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526093426/https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-slams-henry-kissinger-suggestion-ukraine-cede-territory-russia-2022-5 |archive-date=26 May 2022}}</ref> On 25 May, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would not agree to peace until Russia agreed to return Crimea and the Donbas region to Ukraine.<ref>{{cite news |title=Zelenskyy rejects Kissinger plan to concede territory to Russia; Ukraine hero alive, in Russian custody: Live updates |url=https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/25/ukraine-russia-invasion-live-updates/9916925002/ |work=[[USA Today]] |date=25 May 2022}}</ref>

== See also ==
* {{ill|1918 Russia–Ukraine negotiations|uk|Мирні переговори між Українською Державою та РСФРР (1918)}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Overview}}
{{Russia–Ukraine relations}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:2022 Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations}}
[[Category:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|peace negotiations]]
[[Category:Peace processes|Russia-Ukraine]]
[[Category:Russia–Ukraine relations]]

The False Principle of Our Education

2022-02-17T18:59:41Z

Kurt1111S: Minor language and spelling Changes. Makes Stiner's position more clear

{{No footnotes|date=December 2021}}

"'''The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism'''" ({{lang-de|Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung, oder: Humanismus und Realismus}}) is an article written by [[Max Stirner]] and published in the ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'' in April 1842.

== Content ==
Stirner begins by stressing the importance of education, saying that "the school question is a life question". He then sketches a brief history of education from the [[Reformation]]. For him, the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] introduced a new principle behind education to challenge the classical humanist principle. Where education had taught the few "to talk about everything", the Enlightenment saw the rise of the realist "demand for a practical finishing education". Stirner concludes: "Henceforth, knowledge was to be lived".

Stirner saw contemporary educational theory as a conflict between the two parties: humanists, grasping the past; and realists, seizing the present. He criticized both as seeking power over the "transitory" and viewing education as a "struggle towards mastery in the handling of material". Stirner supports the realist criticism that the humanists seek knowledge for its own sake, but asks whether the realists do any better. As Stirner observes, the realists merely supply the individual with the tools to achieve his will, without reforming that will, they fail to achieve what Stirner calls "freedom of will". They fail to reach self-understanding (a concept Stirner took from [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] and altered in ''[[The Ego and its Own]]''). Resultantly they "fall in the abyss of their own emptiness".

According to Stirner, if the failures of the humanists and realists are to be overcome, "the final goal of education can no longer be knowledge". Asserting that "only the spirit which understands itself is eternal", Stirner calls for a shift in the principle of education from making us "masters of things" to making us "free natures". Until one knows oneself, one has not mastered one's own will, and one is merely subservient.

Stirner names his educational principle "personalist", explaining that self-understanding consists in hourly self-creation. For Stirner, education is to create "free men, sovereign characters", by which he means "eternal characters [...] who are therefore eternal because they form themselves each moment".

== References ==
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=1093 "The False Principle of Our Education"]. RevoltLib.
* [http://www.dreigliederung.de/download/stirnererziehung.pdf ''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung''] (PDF). Institut of Social Threefolding.

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:False Principle of our Education}}
[[Category:Education theory]]
[[Category:Anarchism and education]]
[[Category:Works published under a pseudonym]]
[[Category:Max Stirner]]
[[Category:1842 essays]]
{{Stirner}}

Alain Badiou

2022-02-08T18:29:15Z

Kurt1111S: Added Saul Newman to influenced author

{{Short description|French writer and philosopher (born 1937)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
| image = Alain Badiou-2.jpg
| caption = Alain Badiou, 2012
| name = Alain Badiou
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1937|1|17}}
| birth_place = [[Rabat]], [[French Morocco]]
| education = [[École Normale Supérieure]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]], [[Master of Arts|M.A.]])
| institutions = [[University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne|University of Reims]] [[University of Paris VIII]] [[École Normale Supérieure|École normale supérieure]]
| school_tradition = [[Continental philosophy]] [[Maoism]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Alain Badiou: "Mao thinks in an almost infinite way"|url=https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2033-alain-badiou-mao-thinks-in-an-almost-infinite-way|access-date=2021-11-19|website=Versobooks.com}}</ref> [[Marxism]] [[Modern Platonism]]<ref>Sean Bowden, ''Badiou and Philosophy'', Edinburgh University Press, 2012, p. 63.</ref>
| main_interests = [[Set theory]], [[philosophy of mathematics]], [[metapolitics]], [[ontology]], [[psychoanalysis]]
| notable_ideas = [[Event (philosophy)|Event]], ontology of the multiple, [[Mathematicism|ontology is mathematics]], the [[Henology|One]] is not, count-as-one, [[metapolitics]]
| influences = [[Karl Marx]]{{•}} [[Louis Althusser]]{{•}} [[Plato]]{{•}} [[Jacques Lacan]]{{•}} [[Gilles Deleuze]]{{•}} [[Vladimir Lenin]]{{•}} [[Georg Cantor]]{{•}} [[Mao Zedong]]{{•}} [[Paul Cohen (mathematician)|Paul Cohen]]{{•}} [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]{{•}} [[Jean-François Lyotard]]{{•}} [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]]{{•}} [[Stéphane Mallarmé]]{{•}} [[Samuel Beckett]]{{•}} [[Fernando Pessoa]]{{•}} [[Sylvain Lazarus]]{{•}} [[Jean Hyppolite]]{{•}} [[Georges Canguilhem]] {{•}} [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]
| influenced = [[Slavoj Žižek]]{{•}} [[François Laruelle]]{{•}} [[Peter Hallward]]{{•}} [[Simon Critchley]]{{•}} [[Mehdi Belhaj Kacem]]{{•}} [[Ray Brassier]]{{•}} [[Sylvain Lazarus]]{{•}} [[Quentin Meillassoux]]{{•}} [[Alberto Toscano]]{{•}} [[Oliver Feltham]]{{•}} [[Justin Clemens]]{{•}} [[Nina Power]]{{•}} [[Jason Barker]]{{•}} [[Tristan Garcia]]{{•}} [[Saul Newman]]
| signature =
}}

'''Alain Badiou''' ({{IPAc-en|b|ɑː|ˈ|d|j|uː}}; {{IPA-fr|alɛ̃ badju|lang}} {{audio|Fr-Alain Badiou.oga|(listen)}}; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the [[École Normale Supérieure|École normale supérieure]] (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the [[Université de Paris VIII]] with [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Jean-François Lyotard]]. Badiou has written about the concepts of [[being]], [[truth]], [[Event (philosophy)|event]] and the [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]] in a way that, he claims, is neither [[postmodern]] nor simply a repetition of [[Age of Enlightenment|modernity]]. Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events. Badiou argues for a return of [[communism]] as a political force.<ref>{{cite book|title=Philosophy and the Idea of Communism|last1=Badiou|first1=Alain|last2=Engelmann|first2=Peter|date=27 March 2015|publisher=Polity Press|isbn=978-0745688367|language=en}}</ref>

==Biography==
Badiou is the son of the mathematician [[:fr:Raymond Badiou|Raymond Badiou]] (1905–1996), who was a working member of the [[French Resistance|Resistance]] in France during [[World War II]]. Alain Badiou was a student at the [[Lycée Louis-Le-Grand]] and then the [[École Normale Supérieure]] (1955–1960).<ref>Tzuchien Tho, Giuseppe Bianco, ''Badiou and the Philosophers: Interrogating 1960s French Philosophy'', A&C Black, 2013, pp. xvii.</ref> In 1960, he wrote his ''{{Interlanguage link multi|diplôme d'études supérieures|fr}}'' (roughly equivalent to an [[Master of Arts|MA]] thesis) on [[Baruch Spinoza|Spinoza]] for [[Georges Canguilhem]] (the topic was "Demonstrative Structures in the First Two Books of Spinoza's [[Ethics (Spinoza)|Ethics]]", "Structures démonstratives dans les deux premiers livres de l'Éthique de Spinoza").<ref>Tzuchien Tho, Giuseppe Bianco, ''Badiou and the Philosophers: Interrogating 1960s French Philosophy'', A&C Black, 2013, pp. xviii–xix.</ref> He taught at the lycée in [[Reims]] from 1963 where he became a close friend of fellow playwright (and philosopher) [[François Regnault]],<ref name="cahiers">[http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/cahiers/names/regnault.html François Regnault Homepage at Cahiers pour l'Analyse] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818130430/http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/cahiers/names/regnault.html |date=18 August 2010 }}</ref> and published a couple of novels before moving first to the faculty of letters of the [[University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne|University of Reims]] (the ''collège littéraire universitaire'')<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://alain-badiou.jimdo.com/|title=La chronobiographie|website=alain-badiou|language=fr-FR|access-date=2018-02-24}}</ref> and then to the [[University of Paris VIII]] (Vincennes-Saint Denis) in 1969.<ref name="www.web.mdx.ac.uk">[http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/cahiers/names/badiou.html Badiou Homepage at Concept and Form: The Cahiers pour l'Analyse and Contemporary French Thought] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100417154037/http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/cahiers/names/badiou.html |date=17 April 2010 }}</ref> Badiou was politically active very early on, and was one of the founding members of the [[Unified Socialist Party (France)|Unified Socialist Party]] (PSU). The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the [[decolonization]] of Algeria. He wrote his first novel, ''Almagestes'', in 1964. In 1967 he joined a study group organized by [[Louis Althusser]], became increasingly influenced by [[Jacques Lacan]] and became a member of the editorial board of ''[[Cahiers pour l'Analyse]]''.<ref name="www.web.mdx.ac.uk"/> By then he "already had a solid grounding in mathematics and logic (along with [[Lacanianism|Lacanian theory]])",<ref name="www.web.mdx.ac.uk"/> and his own two contributions to the pages of ''Cahiers'' "anticipate many of the distinctive concerns of his later philosophy".<ref name="www.web.mdx.ac.uk"/>

The [[May 1968 in France|student uprisings of May 1968]] reinforced Badiou's commitment to the far Left, and he participated in increasingly militant groups, such as the [[:fr:Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste|Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste]] (UCFml). To quote Badiou himself, the UCFml is "the [[Maoist]] organization established in late 1969 by [[Natacha Michel]], [[Sylvain Lazarus]], myself and a fair number of young people".<ref>{{cite book |last=Badiou |first=Alain |others=translated by David Macey and Steve Corcoran |title=The Communist Hypothesis |year=2010 |type=pbk |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-84467-600-2 |page=58 |chapter=Part I: "We Are Still the Contemporaries of May '68"}}</ref> During this time, Badiou joined the faculty of the newly founded University of Paris VIII/Vincennes-Saint Denis which was a bastion of counter-cultural thought. There he engaged in fierce intellectual debates with fellow professors [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Jean-François Lyotard]], whose philosophical works he considered unhealthy deviations from the Althusserian program of a scientific [[Marxism]].

In the 1980s, as both Althusserian [[structural Marxism]] and [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]] went into decline (after Lacan died and Althusser was committed to a psychiatric hospital), Badiou published more technical and [[abstraction|abstract]] philosophical works, such as ''Théorie du sujet'' (1982), and his magnum opus, ''Being and Event'' (1988). Nonetheless, Badiou has never renounced Althusser or Lacan, and sympathetic references to Marxism and psychoanalysis are not uncommon in his more recent works (most notably ''Petit panthéon portatif'' / ''Pocket Pantheon'').<ref name="Pantheon _Lacan">Badiou, Alain. "Jacques Lacan." ''Pocket Pantheon.'' Trans. David Macey. London: Verso, 2009</ref><ref name="Pantheon_Althusser">Badiou, Alain. "Louis Althusser." ''Pocket Pantheon.'' Trans. David Macey. London: Verso, 2009</ref>

He took up his current position at the ENS in 1999. He is also associated with a number of other institutions, such as the [[Collège International de Philosophie]]. He was a member of [[:fr:Organisation politique|"L'Organisation Politique"]] which, as mentioned above, he founded in 1985 with some comrades from the Maoist UCFml. This organization disbanded in 2007, according to the French Wikipedia article (linked to in the previous sentence). In 2002, he was a co-founder of the Centre International d'Etude de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine, alongside [[Yves Duroux]] and his former student [[Quentin Meillassoux]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ciepfc.fr/spip.php?article83|access-date=24 January 2014|title=Quentin Meillassoux|publisher=CIEFPC|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908155453/http://www.ciepfc.fr/spip.php?article83|archive-date=8 September 2011}}</ref> Badiou has also enjoyed success as a dramatist with plays such as ''Ahmed le Subtil''.

In the last decade, an increasing number of Badiou's works have been translated into English, such as ''Ethics'', ''Deleuze'', ''Manifesto for Philosophy'', ''Metapolitics'', and ''Being and Event''. Short pieces by Badiou have likewise appeared in American and English periodicals, such as ''[[Lacanian Ink]]'', ''[[New Left Review]]'', ''[[Radical Philosophy]]'', ''[[Cosmos and History]]'' and ''Parrhesia''. Unusually for a contemporary European philosopher his work is increasingly being taken up by militants in countries like India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.{{Citation needed|date=December 2014}}

In 2014–15, Badiou had the role of Honorary President at [[The Global Center for Advanced Studies]].<ref name="gcas">{{cite web |url=https://globalcenterforadvancedstudies.org/member/alain-badiou/ |title=Alain Badiou. Member Page. |publisher=The Global Center for Advanced Studies |access-date=23 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328072024/https://globalcenterforadvancedstudies.org/member/alain-badiou/ |archive-date=28 March 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Anti-Semitism accusation and response==
In 2005, a fierce controversy in Parisian intellectual life erupted after the publication of Badiou's ''Circonstances 3: Portées du mot 'juif''' ("The Uses of the Word 'Jew'").<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lacan.com/badword.htm |title=Alain Badiou – Uses of the Word "Jew" |publisher=Lacan.com |access-date=18 June 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110525014305/http://www.lacan.com/badword.htm| archive-date= 25 May 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref> This book generated a strong response, and the wrangling became a ''cause célèbre'' with articles going back and forth in the French newspaper ''[[Le Monde]]'' and in the cultural journal ''[[Les Temps modernes]]''. Linguist and Lacanian philosopher [[Jean-Claude Milner]], a past president of [[Collège international de philosophie]], accused Badiou of [[anti-Semitism]].<ref>On that subject, see articles against Badiou by:
* Roger-Pol Droit ("Le Monde des livres", 25 November 2005) and Frédéric Nef ("Le Monde des livres", 23 December 2005), and in defense of Badiou by: Daniel Bensaid ("Le Monde des Livres", 26 January 2006);
against Badiou by:
* Claude Lanzmann, Jean-Claude Milner and Eric Marty ("Les Temps modernes", Nov.-December 2005/January 2006), and Meir Waintrater "L'Arche" February 2006: [http://www.col.fr/arche/article.php3?id_article=540 "Alain Badiou et les Juifs: Une violence insoutenable"], and the answers by Alain Badiou and Cécile Winter followed by rejoinders by Claude Lanzmann and Eric Marty ("Les Temps modernes", March–June 2006). See also [http://www.lacan.com/badword.htm Badiou's response to Eric Marty]</ref>

Badiou forcefully rebutted this charge, declaring that his accusers often conflate a nation-state with religious preference and will label as anti-Semitic anyone who objects to this tendency: "It is wholly intolerable to be accused of anti-Semitism by anyone for the sole reason that, from the fact of the [[Holocaust|extermination]], one does not conclude as to the predicate "Jew" and its religious and communitarian dimension that it receive some singular valorization — a transcendent annunciation! — nor that [[Politics of Israel|Israeli exactions]], whose colonial nature is patent and banal, be specially tolerated. I propose that nobody any longer accept, publicly or privately, this type of political blackmail."<ref name="Corcoran">Alain Badiou, ''[https://www.lacan.com/badword.htm Circonstances 3: Portées du mot 'juif']'', Paris: Leo Schéer, 2005 (The Uses of the Word 'Jew'), translated by Steve Corcoran. Accessed 22 November 2019.</ref>

Badiou characterizes the state of Israel as "neither more nor less impure than all states", but objects to "its exclusive identitarian claim to be a Jewish state, and the way it draws incessant privileges from this claim, especially when it comes to trampling underfoot what serves us as international law." For example, he continues, "The Islamic states are certainly no more progressive as models than the various versions of the 'Arab nation' were. Everyone agrees, it seems, on the point that the [[Taliban]] do not embody the path of modernity for [[Afghanistan]].”<ref name="Corcoran"/> A modern democracy, he writes, must count all its residents as citizens, and "there is no acceptable reason to exempt the state of Israel from that rule. The claim is sometimes made that this state is the only 'democratic' state in the region. But the fact that this state presents itself as a [[Jewish state]] is directly contradictory."<ref name="Corcoran"/>

Badiou is optimistic that ongoing political problems can be resolved by de-emphasizing the communitarian religious dimension: "The signifier 'Palestinian' or 'Arab' should not be glorified any more than is permitted for the signifier 'Jew.' As a result, the legitimate solution to the Middle East conflict is not the dreadful institution of two barbed-wire states. The solution is the creation of a secular and democratic Palestine...which would show that it is perfectly possible to create a place in these lands where, from a political point of view and regardless of the apolitical continuity of customs, there is 'neither Arab nor Jew.' This will undoubtedly demand a regional [[Nelson Mandela|Mandela]]."<ref name="Corcoran"/>

== Key concepts ==
{{Original research section|date=August 2018}}
Badiou makes repeated use of several concepts throughout his philosophy, in line with his training at [[Ecole Normale Superieure]] in the history of philosophy, which entails, in France, a close reading of the great classics of philosophy, in their original languages such as Greek and Latin, which he handles fluently. His method cannot be fully understood if it is not replaced in the ways and means of French academic philosophy, which always engages a detailed decrypting of texts, in their original version, as evinced by philosophers as diverse as [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Deleuze]], [[Étienne Balibar|Balibar]], [[Bourdieu]], [[Derrida]], [[Jacques Bouveresse|Bouveresse]] and [[Pascal Engel|Engel]] - all of them alumni of the Ecole Normale Superieure.

One of the aims of his thought is to show that his categories of truth are useful for any type of philosophical critique. Therefore, he uses them to interrogate art and history as well as ontology and scientific discovery. Johannes Thumfart argues that Badiou's philosophy can be regarded as a contemporary reinterpretation of [[Platonism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.lacan.com/symptom9_articles/thumfart9.html |last=Thumfart | first=Johannes | title=Learning from Las Vegas: Badiou's Platonism Today |publisher=The Symptom 9. Lacan.com |access-date=11 August 2020}}</ref>

===Conditions===
According to Badiou, philosophy is suspended from four conditions (art, love, politics, and science), each of them fully independent "truth procedures." (For Badiou's notion of truth procedures, see below.) Badiou consistently maintains throughout his work (but most systematically in ''[[Manifesto for Philosophy]]'') that philosophy must avoid the temptation to suture itself ('sew itself', that is, to hand over its entire intellectual effort) to any of these independent truth procedures. When philosophy does suture itself to one of its conditions (and Badiou argues that the history of philosophy during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is primarily a history of sutures), what results is a philosophical "disaster." Consequently, philosophy is, according to Badiou, a thinking of the ''compossibility'' of the several truth procedures, whether this is undertaken through the investigation of the intersections between distinct truth procedures (the intersection of art and love in the novel, for instance), or whether this is undertaken through the more traditionally philosophical work of addressing categories like truth or the subject (concepts that are, as concepts, external to the individual truth procedures, though they are functionally operative in the truth procedures themselves). For Badiou, when philosophy addresses the four truth procedures in a genuinely philosophical manner, rather than through a suturing abandonment of philosophy as such, it speaks of them with a theoretical terminology that marks its philosophical character: "inaesthetics" rather than art; metapolitics rather than politics; ontology rather than science; etc.

[[Truth]], for Badiou, is a specifically philosophical category. While philosophy's several conditions are, on their own terms, "truth procedures" (i.e., they produce truths as they are pursued), it is only philosophy that can speak of the several truth procedures ''as'' truth procedures. (The lover, for instance, does not think of her love as a question of truth, but simply and rightly as a question of love. Only the philosopher sees in the true lover's love the unfolding of a truth.) Badiou has a very rigorous notion of truth, one that is strongly against the grain of much of contemporary European thought. Badiou at once embraces the traditional modernist notion that truths are genuinely invariant (always and everywhere the case, eternal and unchanging) and the incisively postmodernist notion that truths are constructed through processes. Badiou's theory of truth, exposited throughout his work, accomplishes this strange mixture by uncoupling invariance from self-evidence (such that invariance does not imply self-evidence), as well as by uncoupling constructedness from relativity (such that constructedness does not lead to relativism).

The idea, here, is that a truth's invariance makes it genuinely indiscernible: because a truth is everywhere and always the case, it passes unnoticed unless there is a rupture in the laws of being and appearance, during which the truth in question becomes, but only for a passing moment, discernible. Such a rupture is what Badiou calls an event, according to a theory originally worked out in ''[[Being and Event]]'' and fleshed out in important ways in ''[[Logics of Worlds]]''. The individual who chances to witness such an event, if he is faithful to what he has glimpsed, can then introduce the truth by naming it into worldly situations. For Badiou, it is by positioning oneself to the truth of an event that a human animal becomes a [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]]; subjectivity is not an inherent human trait. According to a process or procedure that subsequently unfolds only if those who subject themselves to the glimpsed truth continue to be faithful in the work of announcing the truth in question, genuine knowledge is produced (knowledge often appears in Badiou's work under the title of the "veridical"). While such knowledge is produced in the process of being faithful to a truth event, for Badiou, knowledge, in the figure of the encyclopedia, always remains fragile, subject to what may yet be produced as faithful subjects of the event produce further knowledge. According to Badiou, truth procedures proceed to infinity, such that faith (fidelity) outstrips knowledge. (Badiou, following both [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]] and [[Heidegger]], distances truth from knowledge.) The dominating ideology of the day, which Badiou terms "democratic materialism," denies the existence of truth and only recognizes "[[Physical body|bodies]]" and "[[languages]]." Badiou proposes a turn towards the "[[materialist dialectic]]," which recognizes that there are only bodies and languages, ''except'' there are also truths.

===Inaesthetic===
In ''Handbook of Inaesthetics'' Badiou both draws on the original Greek meaning and the later Kantian concept of "aesthesis" as "material perception" and coins the phrase "inaesthetic" to refer to a concept of artistic creation that denies "the reflection/object relation" yet, at the same time, in reaction against the idea of [[mimesis]], or poetic reflection of "nature", he affirms that art is "immanent" and "singular". Art is immanent in the sense that its truth is given in its immediacy in a given work of art, and singular in that its truth is found in art and art alone—hence reviving the ancient materialist concept of "aesthesis". His view of the link between philosophy and art is tied into the motif of pedagogy, which he claims functions so as to "arrange the forms of knowledge in a way that some truth may come to pierce a hole in them". He develops these ideas with examples from the prose of [[Samuel Beckett]] and the poetry of [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] and [[Fernando Pessoa]] (who he argues has developed a body of work that philosophy is currently incapable of incorporating), among others.

==''Being and Event''==
The major propositions of Badiou's philosophy all find their basis in ''Being and Event'', in which he continues his attempt (which he began in ''Théorie du sujet'') to reconcile a notion of the subject with ontology, and in particular [[post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] and [[Constructivist epistemology|constructivist]] ontologies.<ref>See here Feltham and Clamens's introduction in Badiou's book ''Infinite Thought'', Continuum (2004)</ref> A frequent criticism of post-structuralist work is that it prohibits, through its fixation on [[semiotics]] and language, any notion of a subject. Badiou's work is, by his own admission,<ref>See Badiou's book ''Infinite Thought'', Continuum (2004)</ref> an attempt to break out of contemporary philosophy's fixation upon language, which he sees almost as a straitjacket. This effort leads him, in ''Being and Event'', to combine rigorous mathematical formulae with his readings of poets such as [[Stéphane Mallarmé|Mallarmé]] and [[Friedrich Hölderlin|Hölderlin]] and religious thinkers such as [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]]. His philosophy draws upon both 'analytical' and 'continental' traditions. In Badiou's own opinion, this combination places him awkwardly relative to his contemporaries, meaning that his work had been only slowly taken up.<ref>See here Badiou's comments in the introduction to the English version of ''Being and Event'', Continuum (2005)</ref> ''Being and Event'' offers an example of this slow uptake, in fact: it was translated into English only in 2005, a full seventeen years after its French publication.

As is implied in the title of the book, two elements mark the thesis of ''Being and Event'': the place of ontology, or 'the science of being qua being' (being in itself), and the place of the event – which is seen as a rupture in being – through which the subject finds realization and reconciliation with truth. This situation of being and the rupture which characterizes the event are thought in terms of [[set theory]], and specifically [[Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory]] with the axiom of choice. In short, the event is a truth caused by a hidden "part" or set appearing within existence; this part escapes language and known existence, and thus being itself lacks the terms and resources to fully process the event.

===Mathematics as ontology===
{{Original research section|date=December 2014}}
For Badiou the problem which the [[Greek philosophy|Greek]] tradition of philosophy has faced and never satisfactorily dealt with is that while beings themselves are plural, and thought in terms of multiplicity, being itself is thought to be singular; that is, ''it'' is thought in terms of the one. He proposes as the solution to this impasse the following declaration: that the [[Henology|One]] is not (''l'Un n'est pas''). This is why Badiou accords set theory (the axioms of which he refers to as the "ideas of the multiple") such stature, and refers to mathematics as the very place of ontology: Only set theory allows one to conceive a 'pure doctrine of the multiple'. Set theory does not operate in terms of definite individual elements in groupings but only functions insofar as what belongs to a set is of the same relation as that set (that is, another set too). What individuates a set, therefore, is not an existential positive proposition, but other multiples whose properties (i.e., ''structural'' relations) validate its presentation. The ''structure'' of being thus secures the regime of the count-as-one. So if one is to think of a set – for instance, the set of people, or humanity – as counting as one, the multiple elements which belong to that set are secured as one consistent concept (humanity), but only in terms of what does ''not'' belong to that set. What is crucial for Badiou is that the structural form of the count-as-one, which makes multiplicities thinkable, implies (somehow or other) that the proper name of ''being'' does not belong to an ''element'' as such (an original 'one'), but rather the void set (written Ø), the set to which nothing (not even the void set itself) belongs. It may help to understand the concept 'count-as-one' if it is associated with the concept of 'terming': a multiple is ''not'' one, but it is referred to with 'multiple': one word. To count a set as one is to mention that set. How the being of terms such as 'multiple' does not contradict the non-being of the one can be understood by considering the multiple nature of terminology: for there to be a term without there also being a system of terminology, within which the difference between terms gives context and meaning to any one term, is impossible. 'Terminology' implies precisely difference between terms (thus multiplicity) as the condition for meaning. The idea of a term without meaning is incoherent, the count-as-one is a ''structural effect'' or a ''situational operation''; it is not an event of 'truth'. Multiples which are 'composed' or 'consistent' are count-effects. 'Inconsistent multiplicity' [''meaning?''] is [somehow or other] 'the presentation of presentation.'

Badiou's use of set theory in this manner is not just illustrative or [[heuristic]]. Badiou uses the [[axiom]]s of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory to identify the relationship of being to history, Nature, the State, and God. Most significantly this use means that (as with set theory) there is a strict prohibition on self-belonging; a set cannot contain or belong to itself. This results from the [[axiom of foundation]] – or the axiom of regularity – which enacts such a prohibition (cf. p. 190 in ''Being and Event''). (This axiom states that every non-empty set A contains an element y that is [[disjoint sets|disjoint]] from A.) Badiou's philosophy draws two major implications from this prohibition. Firstly, it secures the inexistence of the 'one': there cannot be a grand overarching set, and thus it is fallacious to conceive of a grand cosmos, a whole Nature, or a Being of God. Badiou is therefore – against [[Georg Cantor]], from whom he draws heavily – staunchly [[atheism|atheist]]. However, secondly, this prohibition prompts him to introduce the event. Because, according to Badiou, the axiom of foundation 'founds' all sets in the void, it ties all being to the historico-social situation of the multiplicities of de-centred sets – thereby effacing the positivity of subjective action, or an entirely 'new' occurrence. And whilst this is acceptable ontologically, it is unacceptable, Badiou holds, philosophically. Set theory mathematics has consequently 'pragmatically abandoned' an area which philosophy cannot. And so, Badiou argues, there is therefore only one possibility remaining: that ontology can say nothing about the event.

Several critics have questioned Badiou's use of mathematics. Mathematician [[Alan Sokal]] and physicist [[Jean Bricmont]] write that Badiou proposes, with seemingly "utter seriousness," a blending of psychoanalysis, politics and [[set theory]] that they contend is preposterous.<ref>Sokal, Alan and Jean Bricmont (1999) ''Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science '' Macmillan, {{ISBN|9780312204075}}, p. 180</ref> Similarly, philosopher [[Roger Scruton]] has questioned Badiou's grasp of the foundation of mathematics, writing in 2012:
:There is no evidence that I can find in ''Being and Event'' that the author really understands what he is talking about when he invokes (as he constantly does) Georg Cantor's theory of transfinite cardinals, the axioms of set theory, Gödel's incompleteness proof or Paul Cohen's proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis. When these things appear in Badiou's texts it is always allusively, with fragments of symbolism detached from the context that endows them with sense, and often with free variables and bound variables colliding randomly. No proof is clearly stated or examined, and the jargon of set theory is waved like a magician's wand, to give authority to bursts of all but unintelligible metaphysics.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A Nothing Would do As Well|journal=Times Literary Supplement |date=31 August 2012 |author=Scruton, Roger |author-link=Roger Scruton}}</ref>

An example of a critique from a mathematician's point of view is the essay 'Badiou's Number: A Critique of Mathematics as Ontology' by [[Ricardo L. Nirenberg]] and [[David Nirenberg]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/uploads/pdf/nirenbergs_badiousnumber_complete.pdf |last=Nirenberg |first=Ricardo L. |author2=David Nirenberg |title=Badiou's Number: A Critique of Mathematics as Ontology |publisher=Critical Inquiry |access-date=20 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170811064012/http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/uploads/pdf/nirenbergs_badiousnumber_complete.pdf |archive-date=11 August 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref> which takes issue in particular with Badiou's matheme of the Event in ''Being and Event'', which has already been alluded to in respect of the 'axiom of foundation' above. Nirenberg and Nirenberg write:

:Rather than being defined in terms of objects previously defined, ''ex'' is here defined in terms of itself; you must already have it in order to define it. Set theorists call this a not-well-founded set. This kind of set never appears in mathematics—not least because it produces an unmathematical ''mise-en-abîme'': if we replace ''ex'' inside the bracket by its expression as a bracket, we can go on doing this forever—and so can hardly be called "a matheme."'

===The event and the subject===

Badiou again turns here to mathematics and set theory – Badiou's language of ontology – to study the possibility of an indiscernible element existing extrinsically to the situation of ontology. He employs the strategy of the mathematician [[Paul Cohen (mathematician)|Paul J. Cohen]], using what are called the ''conditions'' of sets. These conditions are thought of in terms of domination, a domination being that which defines a set. (If one takes, in binary language, the set with the condition 'items marked only with ones', any item marked with zero negates the property of the set. The condition which has only ones is thus dominated by any condition which has zeros in it [cf. pp. 367–71 in ''Being and Event''].) Badiou reasons using these conditions that every discernible (nameable or constructible) set is dominated by the conditions which don't possess the property that makes it discernible as a set. (The property 'one' is always dominated by 'not one'.) These sets are, in line with constructible ontology, relative to one's being-in-the-world and one's being in language (where sets and concepts, such as the concept 'humanity', get their names). However, he continues, the dominations themselves are, whilst being relative concepts, not necessarily intrinsic to language and constructible thought; rather one can axiomatically define a domination – in the terms of mathematical ontology – as a set of conditions such that any condition outside the domination is dominated by at least one term inside the domination. One does not necessarily need to refer to constructible language to conceive of a 'set of dominations', which he refers to as the indiscernible set, or the generic set. It is therefore, he continues, possible to think beyond the strictures of the relativistic constructible universe of language, by a process Cohen calls [[Forcing (mathematics)|forcing]]. And he concludes in following that while ontology can mark out a space for an inhabitant of the constructible situation to decide upon the indiscernible, it falls to the subject – about which the ontological situation cannot comment – to nominate this indiscernible, this generic point; and thus nominate, and give name to, the undecidable event. Badiou thereby marks out a philosophy by which to refute the apparent relativism or apoliticism in post-structuralist thought.

Badiou's ultimate ethical maxim is therefore one of: 'decide upon the undecidable'. It is to name the indiscernible, the generic set, and thus name the event that re-casts ontology in a new light. He identifies four domains in which a subject (who, it is important to note, ''becomes'' a subject through this process) can potentially witness an event: love, science, politics and art. By enacting fidelity to the event within these four domains one performs a 'generic procedure', which in its undecidability is necessarily experimental, and one potentially recasts the situation in which being takes place. Through this maintenance of fidelity, truth has the potentiality to emerge.

In line with his concept of the event, Badiou maintains, politics is not about politicians, but activism based on the present situation and the {{Sic|evental}} (his translators' neologism) rupture. So too does love have this characteristic of becoming ''anew''. Even in science the guesswork that marks the event is prominent. He vigorously rejects the tag of '[[Decisionism|decisionist]]' (the idea that once something is decided it 'becomes true'), but rather argues that the recasting of a truth comes prior to its veracity or verifiability. As he says of [[Galileo]] (p. 401):

:''When Galileo announced the principle of inertia, he was still separated from the truth of the new physics by all the chance encounters that are named in subjects such as Descartes or Newton. How could he, with the names he fabricated and displaced (because they were at hand – 'movement', 'equal proportion', etc.), have supposed the veracity of his principle for the situation to-come that was the establishment of modern science; that is, the supplementation of his situation with the indiscernible and unfinishable part that one has to name 'rational physics'?''

While Badiou is keen to reject an equivalence between politics and philosophy, he correlates nonetheless his political activism and skepticism toward the parliamentary-democratic process with his philosophy, based around singular, situated truths, and potential revolutions.

==L'Organisation Politique==
Alain Badiou is a founding member (along with [[Natacha Michel]] and [[Sylvain Lazarus]]) of the militant French political organisation ''L'Organisation Politique'', which was active from 1985 until it disbanded in 2007.<ref>See the organisation's website at https://web.archive.org/web/20071028083920/http://www.orgapoli.net/</ref> It called itself a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). In addition to numerous writings and interventions, ''L'Organisation Politique'' highlighted the importance of developing political prescriptions concerning undocumented migrants (''les sans papiers''), stressing that they must be conceived primarily as workers and not immigrants.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/alain-badiou-political-action-organisation-politique/ |last=Robinson | first=Andrew | title=An A to Z of Theory. Alain Badiou: Political Action and the Organisation Politique |publisher=Cease Fire Magazine |date= 30 March 2015|access-date=23 April 2016}}</ref>

==Sarkozy pamphlet==
Alain Badiou gained great notoriety in 2007 with his pamphlet ''The Meaning of [[Sarkozy]]'' (''De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom?''), which quickly sold 60,000 copies, whereas for 40 years the sales of his books had oscillated between 2,000 and 6,000 copies.<ref>Eric Conan, [http://toutsurlachine.blogspot.ie/2010/03/portrait-badiou-la-star-de-la-philo-est.html?m=1 "Badiou, la star de la philo est-il un salaud?"], in ''Marianne'' no. 671, 27 Feb 2010, p. 18.</ref>

==Works==
{{Refbegin|2}}

===Philosophy===
* ''Le concept de modèle'' (1969, 2007)
* ''Théorie du sujet'' (1982)
* ''Peut-on penser la politique?'' (1985)
* ''[[L'Être et l'Événement]]'' (1988)
* ''Manifeste pour la philosophie'' (1989)
* ''Le nombre et les nombres'' (1990)
* ''D'un désastre obscur'' (1991)
* ''Conditions'' (1992)
* ''L'Éthique'' (1993)
* ''Deleuze'' (1997)
* ''[[Paul the Apostle|Saint Paul]]. La fondation de l'universalisme'' (1997, 2002)
* ''Abrégé de métapolitique'' (1998)
* ''Court traité d'ontologie transitoire'' (1998)
* ''Petit manuel d'inesthétique'' (1998)
* ''[[The Century (book)|Le Siècle]]'' (2005)
* ''Logiques des mondes. L'être et l'événement, 2'' (2006)
* ''Petit panthéon portatif'' (2008)
* ''Second manifeste pour la philosophie'' (2009)
* ''L'Antiphilosophie de Wittgenstein'' (2009)
* ''Éloge de l'Amour'' (2009)
* ''Heidegger. Le nazisme, les femmes, la philosophie'' co-authored with [[Barbara Cassin]] (2010)
* ''Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel'' co-authored with Barbara Cassin (2010)
* ''La Philosophie et l'Événement'' interviews with Fabien Tarby (ed.) (2010)
* ''Cinq leçons sur le cas Wagner'' (2010)
* ''Le Fini et l'Infini'' (2010)
* ''La Relation énigmatique entre politique et philosophie'' (2011)
* ''{{ill|La République de Platon|lt=|fr||WD=}}'' (2012)
* ''L'aventure de la philosophie française'' (2012)
* ''Jacques Lacan, passé présent: Dialogue'' (2012)
* ''De la fin. Conversations'' with Giovanbattista Tusa (2017)
* ''L'immanence des vérités '' (2018)
* ''Sometimes, We Are Eternal with Kenneth Reinhard, Jana Ndiaye Berankova, Nick Nesbitt (Suture Press 2019)

===Critical essays===
* ''L'autonomie du processus esthétique'' (1966)
* ''Rhapsodie pour le théâtre'' (1990)
* ''Beckett, l'increvable désir'' (1995)
* ''Cinéma'' (2010)

===Literature and drama===
* ''Almagestes'' (1964)
* ''Portulans'' (1967)
* ''L'Écharpe rouge'' (1979)
* ''Ahmed le subtil'' (1994)
* ''Ahmed Philosophe'', followed by ''Ahmed se fâche'' (1995)
* ''Les Citrouilles'', a comedy (1996)
* ''Calme bloc ici-bas'' (1997)

===Political essays===
* ''Théorie de la contradiction'' (1975)
* ''De l'idéologie'' with F. Balmès (1976)
* ''Le Noyau rationnel de la dialectique hégelienne'' with L. Mossot and J. Bellassen (1977)
* ''Circonstances 1: Kosovo, 11 Septembre, Chirac/Le Pen'' (2003)
* ''Circonstances 2: Irak, foulard, Allemagne/France'' (2004)
* ''Circonstances 3: Portées du mot " juif "'' (2005)
* ''Circonstances 4: De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom ?'' (2007)
* ''Circonstances 5: L'hypothèse communiste'' (2009)
* ''Circonstances 6: Le Réveil de l'Histoire'' (2011)
* ''Circonstances 7: Sarkozy: pire que prévu, les autres : prévoir le pire'' (2012)
* ''Mao. De la pratique et de la contradiction'' with [[Slavoj Žižek]] (2008)
* ''Démocratie, dans quel état ?'' with [[Giorgio Agamben]], [[Daniel Bensaïd]], Wendy Brown, [[Jean-Luc Nancy]], [[Jacques Rancière]], [[Kristin Ross]] and Slavoj Žižek (2009)
* ''L'Idée du communisme vol. 1 (London Conference, 2009)'' ('''Alain Badiou''' and Slavoj Žižek eds.), with [[Judith Balso]], [[Bruno Bosteels]], [[Susan Buck-Morss]], [[Terry Eagleton]], [[Peter Hallward]], [[Michael Hardt]], [[Minqi Li]], Jean-Luc Nancy, [[Toni Negri]], Jacques Rancière, [[Alessandro Russo]], [[Roberto Toscano]], [[Gianni Vattimo]], [[Wang Hui (intellectual)|Wang Hui]] and Slavoj Žižek (2010)
* ''L'Explication, conversation avec Aude Lancelin'' with [[Alain Finkielkraut]] (2010)
* ''L'Antisémitisme partout. Aujourd'hui en France'' with [[Eric Hazan]] (2011)
* ''L'Idée du communisme, vol. 2 (Berlin Conference, 2010)'', ('''Alain Badiou''' and Slavoj Žižek eds.) with [[Glyn Daly]], [[Saroj Giri]], [[Gernot Kamecke]], [[Janne Kurki]], [[Artemy Magun]], [[Kuba Majmurek]], [[Kuba Mikurda]], [[Toni Negri]], [[Frank Ruda]], [[Bülent Somay]], [[Janek Sowa]], [[G. M. Tamás]], [[Henning Teschke]], [[Jan Völker]], [[Cécile Winter]] and Slavoj Žižek (2011)

===Pamphlets and serial publications===
* ''Contribution au problème de la construction d'un parti marxiste-léniniste de type nouveau'', with Jancovici, Menetrey, and Terray (Maspero 1970)
* ''Jean Paul Sartre'' (Éditions Potemkine 1980)
* ''Le Perroquet. Quinzomadaire d'opinion'' (1981–1990)
* ''La Distance Politique'' (1990–?)
* ''Notre mal vient de plus loin'', 2016
{{Refend}}

===English translations===
{{Refbegin|2}}

====Books====
* ''Manifesto for Philosophy'', transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999): {{ISBN|978-0-7914-4220-3}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-7914-4219-7}} (hardcover)
* ''Deleuze: The Clamor of Being'', transl. by Louise Burchill; (Minnesota University Press, 1999): {{ISBN|978-0-8166-3140-7}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-8166-3139-1}} (library binding)
* ''Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil'', transl. by Peter Hallward; (New York: Verso, 2000): {{ISBN|978-1-85984-435-9}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-1-85984-297-3}}
* ''On Beckett'', transl. and ed. by [[Alberto Toscano]] and Nina Power; (London: Clinamen Press, 2003): {{ISBN|978-1-903083-30-7}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-1-903083-26-0}} (hardcover)
* ''Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy'', transl. and ed. by [[Oliver Feltham]] & [[Justin Clemens]]; (London: Continuum, 2003): {{ISBN|978-0-8264-7929-7}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-8264-6724-9}} (hardcover)
* ''Metapolitics'', transl. by [[Jason Barker]]; (New York: Verso, 2005): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-567-8}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-1-84467-035-2}} (hardcover)
* ''Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism''; transl. by [[Ray Brassier]]; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003): {{ISBN|978-0-8047-4471-3}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-8047-4470-6}} (hardcover)
* ''Handbook of Inaesthetics'', transl. by Alberto Toscano; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004): {{ISBN|978-0-8047-4409-6}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-8047-4408-9}} (hardcover)
* ''Theoretical Writings'', transl. by Ray Brassier; (New York: Continuum, 2004)<ref>Includes:
* ''Mathematics and Philosophy: The Grand Style and the Little Style'', (unpublished)
* ''Philosophy and Mathematics: Infinity and the End of Romanticism'', (from ''Conditions'', Paris, Seuil, 1992).
* ''The Question of Being Today'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'', )
* ''Platonism and Mathematical Ontology'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''The Being of Number'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''One, Multiple, Multiplicities'', (from ''Multitudes, 1'', 2000)
* ''Spinoza's Closed Ontology'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''The Event as Trans-Being'', (revised and expanded version of an essay of the same title from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''On Subtraction'', (from ''Conditions'', Paris, Seuil, 1992)
* ''Truth: Forcing and the Unnameable'', (from ''Conditions'', Paris, Seuil, 1992)
* ''Kant's Subtractive Ontology'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''Eight Theses on the Universal'', (from Jelica Sumic (ed.) ''Universal, Singulier, Subjet'', Paris, Kimé, 2000)
* ''Politics as a Truth Procedure'', (from ''Metapolitics'')
* ''Being and Appearance'', (from ''Briefings on Existence'')
* ''Notes Toward Thinking Appearance'', (unpublished)
* ''The Transcendental'', (from a draft manuscript [now published] of ''Logiques des mondes'', Paris, Seuil)
* ''Hegel and the Whole'', (from a draft manuscript [now published] of ''Logiques des mondes'', Paris, Seuil)
* ''Language, Thought, Poetry'', (unpublished)</ref>
* ''Briefings on Existence: A Short Treatise on Transitory Ontology'', transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005)
* ''Being and Event'', transl. by Oliver Feltham; (New York: Continuum, 2005)
* ''Polemics'', transl. by Steve Corcoran; (New York: Verso, 2007)
* ''[[The Century (book)|The Century]]'', transl. by Alberto Toscano; (New York: Polity Press, 2007)
* ''The Concept of Model: An Introduction to the Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics'', transl. by Zachery Luke Fraser & Tzuchien Tho; (Melbourne: re.press, 2007). Open Access<ref>Alain Badiou, [http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_9780980305234_The_Concept_of_Model.pdf ''The Concept of Model''].</ref>
* ''Number and Numbers'' (New York: Polity Press, 2008): {{ISBN|978-0-7456-3879-9}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-7456-3878-2}} (hardcover)
* ''The Meaning of Sarkozy'' (New York: Verso, 2008): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-309-4}} (hardcover) {{ISBN|978-1-84467-629-3}} (paperback)
* ''Conditions'', transl. by Steve Corcoran; (New York: Continuum, 2009): {{ISBN|978-0-8264-9827-4}} (hardcover)
* ''Logics of Worlds: Being and Event, Volume 2'', transl. by Alberto Toscano; (New York: Continuum, 2009): {{ISBN|978-0-8264-9470-2}} (hardcover)
* ''Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy'', transl. by [[David Macey]]; (New York: Verso, 2009): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-357-5}} (hardcover)
* ''Theory of the Subject'', transl. by [[Bruno Bosteels]]; (New York: Continuum, 2009): {{ISBN|978-0-8264-9673-7}} (hardcover)
* ''Philosophy in the Present'', (with [[Slavoj Žižek]]); (New York: Polity Press, 2010): {{ISBN|978-0-7456-4097-6}} (paperback)
* ''The Communist Hypothesis'', transl. by [[David Macey]] and Steve Corcoran; (New York: Verso, 2010): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-600-2}} (hardcover)
* ''Five Lessons on Wagner'', transl. by Susan Spitzer with an 'Afterword' by Slavoj Žižek; (New York: Verso, 2010): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-481-7}} (paperback)
* ''Second Manifesto for Philosophy'', transl. by Louise Burchill (New York: Polity Press, 2011)
* ''Wittgenstein's [[Antiphilosophy]]'', transl. by Bruno Bosteels; (New York: Verso, 2011)
* ''The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic'', transl. by Tzuchien Tho; (Melbourne: re.press, 2011)
* ''The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings'', transl. by Gregory Elliott; (New York: Verso, 2012): {{ISBN|978-1-84467-879-2}}
* ''In Praise of Love'', (with [[Nicolas Truong]]); transl. by Peter Bush; (London: Serpent's Tail, 2012)
* ''Philosophy for Militants'', transl. by Bruno Bosteels; (New York: Verso, 2012)
* ''The Adventure of French Philosophy'', transl. by Bruno Bosteels; (New York: Verso, 2012)
* ''Plato's Republic : A Dialogue in 16 Chapters'', transl. by Susan Spitzer; (New York : Columbia University Press, 2013)
* ''The Incident at Antioch/L'Incident d'Antioche: A Tragedy in Three Acts / Tragédie en trois actes'', transl. by Susan Spitzer; (New York : Columbia University Press, 2013)
* ''Badiou and the Philosophers : Interrogating 1960s French Philosophy'', transl. and ed. by Tzuchien Tho and Giuseppe Bianco; (New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)
* ''Philosophy and the Event'', (with [[Fabian Tarby]]); transl. by Louise Burchill; (Malden, MA: Polity, 2013)
* ''Reflections on Anti-Semitism'', (with [[Eric Hazan]]); transl. by David Fernbach; (London: Verso, 2013)
* ''Rhapsody for the Theatre'', transl. and ed. by Bruno Bosteels; (London: Verso, 2013)
* ''Cinema'', transl. by Susan Spitzer; (Malden, MA: Polity, 2013)
* ''Mathematics of the Transcendental: Onto-logy and being-there'', transl. by A.J. Bartlett and Alex Ling; (London: Bloomsbury, 2014)
* ''Ahmed the Philosopher: Thirty-four Short Plays for Children and Everyone Else'', transl. by Joseph Litvak; (New York : Columbia University Press, 2014)
* ''Jacques Lacan, Past and Present: A Dialogue'', (with [[Elisabeth Roudinesco]]); transl. by Jason E. Smith; (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)
* ''Controversies: Politics and Philosophy in our Time'', (with [[Jean-Claude Milner]]); transl. by ?; (London: Polity, 2014)
* ''Confrontation: A Conversation with Aude Lancelin'', (with [[Alain Finkielkraut]]); transl. by Susan Spitzer; (London: Polity, 2014)
* ''The Age of the Poets: And Other Writings on Twentieth-Century Poetry and Prose'', transl. by Bruno Bosteels; (New York: Verso, 2014)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/age-of-poets-alain-badiou/|title = The Age of the Poets | Alain Badiou | Review |}}</ref>
* ''The end'', (with [[Giovanbattista Tusa]]); transl. by Robin Mackay; (Cambridge: Polity, 2019) {{ISBN|978-1509536276}}
{{Refend}}

====Journals====
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20171020005144/https://badioustudiesjournal.org/ Journal of Badiou Studies]
*"The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?", transl. by Bruno Bosteels; [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126065237/http://positions.rice.edu/ positions: asia critique], Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
*"Selections from ''Théorie du sujet'' on the Cultural Revolution", transl. by Alberto Toscano with the assistance of Lorenzo Chiesa and Nina Power; [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126065237/http://positions.rice.edu/ positions: asia critique], Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
*"Further Selections from ''Théorie du sujet'' on the Cultural Revolution", transl. by Lorenzo Chiesa; [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126065237/http://positions.rice.edu/ positions: asia critique], Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
*"The Triumphant Restoration", transl. by Alberto Toscano; [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126065237/http://positions.rice.edu/ positions: asia critique], Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
*"An Essential Philosophical Thesis: 'It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries'", transl. by Alberto Toscano; [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126065237/http://positions.rice.edu/ positions: asia critique], Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
* [http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/26/52 What is a philosophical Institution? or: Address, Transmission, Inscription.] Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 2, No 1-2 (2006)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130521025652/http://www.lasca.fr/pdf/entretiens/Alain_Badiou.pdf Les Reponses Ecrites D'Alain Badiou] Interviewed by Ata Hoodashtian, for Le journal Philosophie Philosophie, Université Paris VIII.

===DVD===
{{refbegin}}
* ''[https://vimeo.com/418047554 Badiou]'', A Film in association with the [[Global Center for Advanced Studies]] (2018), Directed by Gorav Kalyan, Rohan Kalyan Gorav Kalyan.
* ''Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance: Alain Badiou and Simon Critchley in Conversation'', (Event Date: Thursday, 15 November 2007); Location: Slought Foundation, Conversations in Theory Series | Organized by Aaron Levy | Studio: Microcinema in collaboration with Slought Foundation | DVD Release Date: 26 August 2008
{{refend}}

===Lectures===
{{Refbegin|2}}
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8219961.stm "Interview with Alain Badiou"] [[BBC]] [[HARDtalk]]. March 2009.
* Creative Thinking. [[Al-Quds University]], Jerusalem, Palestine, 17 January 2009.
* [http://cultureandcommunication.org/badiou/Badiou--_Is%20the%20Word%20%27Communism%27%20Forever%20Doomed__.mp3 "Is the Word Communism forever Doomed?"]. [[Miguel Abreu Gallery]], New York, 6 November 2008.
* [http://cultureandcommunication.org/badiou/Badiou--_Theatre%20et%20philosophie_.mp3 "Theatre et Philosophie."] with [[Martin Puchner]] & [[Bruno Bosteels]]. La Maison Française, New York University, New York, 7 November 2008.
* [http://slought.org/media/media-mp3/1385-2007-11-15-1-Badiou.mp3 "Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance"]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, with [[Simon Critchley]]. Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, the Departments of Romance Languages, History, and English, and the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. 15 November 2007.
* [http://lecturecast.sdsc.edu/15858.ram "Homage to Jacques Derrida"]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, [[University of California, Irvine]], 1 March 2006 ([[RealPlayer]]).
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716113904/http://slought.org/files/downloads/events/SF_1385.pdf "Ours is not a terrible situation."] with Simon Critchley. Labyrinth Books, New York, 6 March 2006.
* [http://depts.washington.edu/schkatz/podcasts/katz0506_badiou.mp3 "Politics, Democracy and Philosophy: An Obscure Knot"], [[Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities]] at [[University of Washington]] 23 February 2006.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160310132240/http://ucentral.edu.co/nomadas/nunme-ante/21-25/nomadas-23/23.17b.%20panorama%20de%20la%20filosofia%20francesa%20contemporanea.pdf "Panorama de la Filosofía Francesa Contemporánea"] ''Biblioteca Nacional de Buenos Aires, 2004''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20091223035619/http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/20091217/16522/finkielkraut-badiou-le-face-a-face "Finkielkraut-Badiou: Le-Face-à-Vace"] [[The Nouvel Obs]] (Transcript in French)<ref>''The Nouvel Obs'' invited the philosophers Alain Finkielkraut and Alain Badiou, members of opposite political camps, to talk about national identity. According to Aude Lancelin who moderated the discussion, "it came to an ideological confrontation of rare violence". [http://www.signandsight.com/features/1972.html]</ref>
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121112175958/http://vimeo.com/7486770 "Faut-il réinventer l'amour?"] – Ce Soir. French television. En direct, [[France 3]] (French)
{{Refend|2}}

==See also==
* [[Speculative realism]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Further reading cleanup|date=February 2017}}

===Secondary literature on Badiou's work===

====in English (books)====
* [[Jason Barker]], ''Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction'', London, Pluto Press, 2002.
* [[Peter Hallward]], ''Badiou: A Subject to Truth'', Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
* Peter Hallward (ed.), ''Think Again: Badiou and the Future of Philosophy'', London, Continuum, 2004.
* [[Andrew William Gibson]], Beckett and Badiou: The Pathos of intermittency, Oxford, Oxford University press, 2006.
* Paul Ashton (ed.), A. J. Bartlett (ed.), [[Justin Clemens]] (ed.): ''The Praxis of Alain Badiou''; (Melbourne: re.press, 2006).
* Adam Miller, ''Badiou, Marion, and St. Paul: Immanent Grace'', London, Continuum, 2008.
* [[Bruno Bosteels]], ''Badiou and Politics'', Durham, Duke University Press, 2011.
* [[Oliver Feltham]], ''Alain Badiou: Live Theory'', London, Continuum, 2008.
* Burhanuddin Baki, ''Badiou's Being and Event and the Mathematics of Set Theory'', London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
* [[Sam Gillespie]], ''The Mathematics of Novelty: Badiou's Minimalist Metaphysics'', (Melbourne, Australia: re.press, 2008) ([http://re-press.org/books/the-mathematics-of-novelty-badiou’s-minimalist-metaphysics/ details on re.press website]) (Open Access)
* Chris Henry, ''The Ethics of Political Resistance: Althusser, Badiou, Deleuze'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019)
* [[Adrian Johnston (philosopher)|Adrian Johnston]], ''Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change'', Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2009.
* Gabriel Riera (ed.), ''Alain Badiou: Philosophy and its Conditions'', Albany: New York, SUNY Press, 2005.
* [[Frank Ruda]], ''For Badiou: Idealism Without Idealism'', Illinois, Northwestern University Press, 2015.
* [[Christopher Norris (critic)|Christopher Norris]], ''Badiou's Being and Event: A Reader's Guide'', London, Continuum, 2009.
* A. J. Bartlett and Justin Clemens (eds.), ''Badiou: Key Concepts'', London, Acumen, 2010.
* Alex Ling, ''Badiou and Cinema'', Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
* Ed Pluth, ''Badiou: A Philosophy of the New'', Malden, Polity, 2010.
* A. J. Bartlett, ''Badiou and Plato: An education by truths'', Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
* P. M. Livingston, ''The Politics of Logic: Badiou, Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism'', New York, Routledge, 2011.
* Steven Corcoran (ed.): ''The Badiou Dictionary'', Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press 2015, {{ISBN|978-0-7486-4096-6}}
* Am Johal: ''Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocence', New York, Atropos Press, 2015.

====In English (journals, essays and articles)====
* [https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/cantor-lacan-mao-beckett-meme-combat Cantor, Lacan, Mao, Becket, meme combat: The philosophy of Alain Badiou] essay by [[Jean-Jacques Lecercle]]. Radical Philosophy 093. January / February 1999
* [https://thediscourseunit.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/arcp8gomezcamarena.pdf Je te Mathème: Badiou's De-Psychologisation of Love], essay by [[Carlos Gómez Camarena]]. ''Annual Review of Critical Psychology'' 8 (2010).
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110516134242/http://www.warwick.ac.uk/philosophy/pli_journal/pdfs/Vol_12/12_12_Bosteels.pdf Alain Badiou's Theory of the Subject: Part 1. The Recommencement of Dialectical Materialism?] by [[Bruno Bosteels]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090928083316/http://www.envplan.com/contents.cgi?journal=D Society and Space Theme Issue: Being and Spatialization vol. 27. Issue 5. 2009, interview and articles by M. Constantinou, N. Madarasz, J. Flowers MacCannell](See: {{cite web|url=http://www.envplan.com/contents.cgi?journal=D&issue=current |title=Environment and Planning D: Society and Space contents vol 29 |publisher=Envplan.com |access-date=18 June 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110622041544/http://envplan.com/contents.cgi?journal=D&issue=current| archive-date= 22 June 2011 | url-status= live}})
* [http://luchte.wordpress.com/fatal-repetition-badiou-and-the-age-of-the-poets/ Fatal Repetition: Badiou and the Age of the Poets, with Appendix, A Psychoanalysis of Alain Badiou], by James Luchte, Istiraki (Turkey), 5 May 2014.

====In French (books)====
* Charles Ramond (éd), ''Penser le multiple'', Paris, [[Éditions L'Harmattan]], 2002
* Fabien Tarby, ''La Philosophie d'Alain Badiou'', Paris, [[Éditions L'Harmattan]], 2005
* Fabien Tarby, ''Matérialismes d'aujourd'hui : de Deleuze à Badiou'', Paris, [[Éditions L'Harmattan]], 2005
* Eric Marty, ''Une Querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe'', Paris, Editions Gallimard, coll. L'Infini, 2007
* Bruno Besana et Oliver Feltham (éd), ''Écrits autour de la pensée d'Alain Badiou'', Paris, [[Éditions L'Harmattan]], 2007.

====In Basque (books and articles)====
* Antton Azkargorta (1996): "Hitzaurrea" in Alain Badiou, ''Etika'', Bilbo, Besatari {{ISBN|84-921104-1-4}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120607032236/http://basque.criticalstew.org/wp-content/uploads/mundu_galfarsoro.pdf Imanol Galfarsoro (2011): "Alain Badiou. Filosofia etiko-politikoa I", ''hAUSnART'', 0: 124–129]
* [https://www.dropbox.com/s/sy050vajvojnny9/badiou%20galfarsoro.pdf Imanol Galfarsoro (2012): "Alain Badiou. Filosofia etiko-politikoa II", ''hAUSnART'', 1: 108–114]
* Imanol Galfarsoro (2012): "Alain Badiou eta hipotesi komunistaren birdefinizioak", ''hAUSnART'', 2: 82–99
* Imanol Galfarsoro (2012): "(Post)Marxismoa, kultura eta eragiletasuna: Ibilbide historiko labur bat" in Alaitz Aizpuru(koord.), ''Euskal Herriko pentsamenduaren gida'', Bilbo, UEU. {{ISBN|978-84-8438-435-9}}
* Xabier Insausti & Irati Oliden (2012): ''Konpromisorik gabeko filosofia. Alain Badiou'', Donostia, [[Jakin (magazine)|Jakin]] {{ISBN|978-84-95234-44-5}}
* [https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5fxaap85kq70w5/106799476-Alain-Badiou-Elkarrizketak-Interviews.pdf Alain Badiou on the Lapiko Kritikoa basque website. ]

====In Spanish (books and articles)====
* Carlos Gómez Camarena and Angelina Uzín Olleros (eds.), Badiou fuera de sus límites, Buenos Aires, Imago Mundi, 2010. {{ISBN|978-950-793-102-4}}
* Angelina Uzín Olleros (2008). Introducción al pensamiento de Alain Badiou. Buenos Aires: Imago Mundi. {{ISBN|978-950-793-076-8}}
* [http://teocripsi.com/documents/2GOMEZ.pdf Je te mathème: Badiou y la despsicologización del amor] (por Carlos Gómez Camarena- Revista Teoría y Crítica de la Psicología)
* [http://reflexionesmarginales.com/3.0/19-badiou-la-ciencia-el-matema Badiou, la ciencia, el matema] (por Carlos Gómez Camarena- Revista Reflexiones Marginales)
* Alfonso Galindo Hervás, ''Pensamiento impolítico contemporáneo. Ontología (y) política en Agamben, Badiou, Esposito y Nancy'', Sequitur, Madrid, 2015.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Alain Badiou}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121104114714/http://www.lacan.com/frameabad.htm Alain Badiou Bibliography] at Lacan Dot Com
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20171020002906/http://mideastdilemma.com/alain_badiou_archive.html Alain Badiou Archive] at MidEastDilemma.com
* [http://cordite.org.au/essays/plato-badiou-and-i/ Plato, Badiou and I: an Experiment in Writerly Happiness] ''Cordite Poetry Review''

===Critical opinions===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20170912120420/http://www.lacan.com/zizbadman.htm On Alain Badiou and ''Logiques des mondes''] by Slavoj Žižek
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20171020003524/http://platypus1917.org/2010/11/06/the-marxist-hypothesis-a-response-to-alain-badous-communist-hypothesis/ The Marxist hypothesis: a response to Alain Badiou's "communist hypothesis"] by [[Chris Cutrone]]
* [http://www.alpineanarchist.org/r_anarchist_hypothesis.html The Anarchist Hypothesis, or Badiou, Žižek, and the Anti-Anarchist Prejudice] by [[Gabriel Kuhn]]

{{continental philosophy}}
{{social and political philosophy}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Badiou, Alain}}
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[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century French philosophers]]
[[Category:Communist writers]]
[[Category:Continental philosophers]]
[[Category:École Normale Supérieure alumni]]
[[Category:École Normale Supérieure faculty]]
[[Category:University of Paris faculty]]
[[Category:Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis faculty]]
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[[Category:French activists]]
[[Category:French Maoists]]
[[Category:French political philosophers]]
[[Category:Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni]]
[[Category:French male novelists]]
[[Category:Maoist theorists]]
[[Category:Moroccan philosophers]]
[[Category:Philosophers of mathematics]]
[[Category:Revolution theorists]]
[[Category:Writers from Rabat]]
[[Category:French male poets]]
[[Category:Spinoza scholars]]
[[Category:Deleuze scholars]]
[[Category:Poststructuralists]]
[[Category:21st-century French philosophers]]

Post-anarchism

2022-01-25T03:48:50Z

Kurt1111S: Separated paragraphs more clearly

{{short description|Anarchist philosophy}}
{{refimprove|date=November 2012}}
{{anarchism sidebar|schools}}
'''Post-anarchism''' (or '''postanarchism'''), also known as '''post-structuralist anarchism''', is a strand within [[anarchist theory]] that accepts a [[post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] account of [[power (social and political)|power]] and aims to reconcile anarchist theory with [[postmodern philosophy]], particularly [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]] ([[Jacques Lacan]] and others); the work of [[Michel Foucault]]; and [[schizoanalysis]] ([[Deleuze and Guattari]]). Prominent post-anarchist theorists include [[Todd May]], [[Saul Newman]], [[Lewis Call]], and [[Duane Rousselle]].

== Approaches and etymology ==
{{postmodernism}}
The term "post-anarchism" was coined by philosopher of [[post-left anarchy]] [[Hakim Bey]] in his 1987 essay "Post-Anarchism Anarchy." Bey argued that anarchism had become insular and sectarian, confusing the various [[anarchist schools of thought]] for the real experience of lived anarchy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/hakim-bey-post-anarchism-anarchy|title=Post-Anarchism Anarchy|website=The Anarchist Library|language=en|access-date=2019-11-04}}</ref> In 1994, [[Todd May]] initiated what he called "poststructuralist anarchism",<ref>{{cite journal |last=Antliff |first=Allan | author-link = Allan Antliff |title=Anarchy, Power, and Poststructuralism |journal=[[SubStance]] |volume=36 |issue=2 |year=2007 |pages=56–66 |doi=10.1353/sub.2007.0026|s2cid=146156609 }}</ref> arguing for a theory grounded in the post-structuralist understanding of [[power (sociology)|power]], particularly through the work of [[Michel Foucault]] and [[Emma Goldman]], while taking the anarchist approach to [[ethics]].

The "[[Lacanian psychoanalysis|Lacanian]] anarchism" proposed by [[Saul Newman]] utilizes the works of [[Jacques Lacan]] and [[Max Stirner]] more prominently. Newman criticizes classical anarchists, such as [[Mikhail Bakunin]] and [[Peter Kropotkin]], for assuming an objective "[[human nature]]" and a natural order; he argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only [[the Establishment]] as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a [[Manichaeism|Manichaen]] worldview, which depicts the reversal of [[Thomas Hobbes]]' ''[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]]'', in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people.

[[Ruth Kinna]], in her review of Newman's book, wrote that, "anarchism [has largely been defined] as a program of action, an idea of social revolution and a conception of the stateless society, whereas [Newman's] postanarchism is associated with autonomous modes of thinking and acting – Foucault's 'decisive will to not be governed' – and the renunciation of revolution."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kinna|first=Ruth|date=2017-05-01|title=Postanarchism|journal=Contemporary Political Theory|language=en|volume=16|issue=2|pages=278–281|doi=10.1057/cpt.2016.15|issn=1476-9336|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[Lewis Call]] has attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], rejecting the [[Cartesian dualism|Cartesian]] concept of the "subject." From here, a radical form of anarchism is made possible: the anarchism of becoming. This anarchism does not have an eventual goal, nor does it flow into "being"; it is not a final state of development, nor a static form of society, but rather becomes permanent, as a means without end. Italian autonomist [[Giorgio Agamben]] has also written about this idea. In this respect it is similar to the "complex systems" view of emerging society known as [[panarchy]]. Call critiques [[Liberalism|liberal]] notions of language, consciousness, and rationality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that they are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization.<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1080/10457090309604847| issn = 1045-7097| volume = 32| issue = 3| pages = 186| last = Martin| first = Edward J.| title = Rev. of Postmodern Anarchism by Lewis Call| journal = [[Perspectives on Political Science]]| date = 2003| s2cid = 142842573}}</ref>

[[Duane Rousselle]] has approached the term from the perspective [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]] in [[After Post-Anarchism]] and [[Post-Anarchism: A Reader]].

The journal [[Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies]] has been a key academic journal disseminating post-anarchist theory.

== See also ==
* [[Existentialist anarchism]]

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* Rousselle, Duane and Evren, Süreyyya (eds) ''Post-Anarchism: A Reader''. London: Pluto Press. (2011)
* {{cite book | last = Call | first = Lewis | author-link = Lewis Call | title = Postmodern Anarchism | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lexington | year = 2002 | isbn = 0-7391-0522-1 }}
* Fabbri, Lorenzo. [https://academia.edu/998053/From_Inoperativeness_to_Action_On_Giorgio_Agambens_Anarchism "From Inoperativeness to Action: On Giorgio Agamben’s Anarchism"], "Radical Philosophy Review," Volume 4, Number 1, 2011.
* {{cite book | last = Ferguson | first = Kathy | title = The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy | url = https://archive.org/details/feministcaseagai0000ferg | url-access = registration | publisher = Temple University Press | location = Philadelphia | year = 1984 | isbn = 0-87722-400-5 }}
* {{cite journal |last = Franks | first = Benjamin |title=Postanarchism: A critical assessment |journal=Journal of Political Ideologies | volume=12 | issue= 2 |date=June 2007 | pages = 127–145 |publisher=[[Routledge]] | doi = 10.1080/13569310701284985 | s2cid = 144787193 |issn=1356-9317| url = http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/4472/1/4472.pdf }}
* {{cite book | last = May | first = Todd | author-link = Todd May | title = The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism | publisher = Pennsylvania State University Press | location = University Park | year = 1994 | isbn = 0-271-01046-0 }}
* {{cite book | last = Mümken | first = Jürgen | title = Freiheit, Individualität und Subjektivität. Staat und Subjekt in der Postmoderne aus anarchistischer Perspektive | publisher = Edition AV | location = Frankfurt am Main | year = 2003 | isbn = 3-936049-12-2 }}
* {{cite book | last = Mümken (editor) | first = Jürgen | title = Anarchismus in der Postmoderne. Beiträge zur anarchistischen Theorie und Praxis | publisher = Edition AV, Verlag | location = Frankfurt am Main | year = 2005 | isbn = 3-936049-37-8 }}
* {{cite book | last = Newman | first = Saul | author-link = Saul Newman | title = From Bakunin to Lacan. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power | publisher = Lexington Books | location = Lexington | year = 2001 | isbn = 0-7391-0240-0 | title-link = From Bakunin to Lacan. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power }}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=John |author-link=John Moore (anarchist) |title=I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition |publisher=[[Autonomedia]] |year=2004 |isbn=1-57027-121-6 |title-link=I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition }}
* [[Michel Onfray]] ''La puissance d'exister'', Paris, Grasset, (2006) {{ISBN|2-246-71691-8}}
* [[Michel Onfray]] ''Politique du rebelle: traité de résistance et d'insoumission'' (1997)
* Michel Onfray ''La philosophie féroce : exercices anarchistes''. (2004)
* Colson, Daniel. [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Daniel_Colson__Anarchist_Subjectivities_and_Modern_Subjectivity.html "Anarchist Subjectivities and Modern Subjectivity".]
* Colson, Daniel. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110726101449/http://raforum.info/spip.php?article3139&lang=fr "Deleuze et le renouveau de la pensée libertaire"]
* Call, Lewis et al. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110113164838/http://www.anarchist-developments.org/index.php/adcs/issue/current/showToc "Post-anarchism today"], ''Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies'', volume 1, 2010.
* [[Springer, S.]] 2012. [https://uvic.academia.edu/SimonSpringer/Papers/319555/Violent_accumulation_a_postanarchist_critique_of_property_dispossession_and_the_state_of_exception_in_neoliberalizing_Cambodia "Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia."] Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/topics/post_anarchism.html Archive of post-anarchist articles at the Anarchist Library]

{{anarchism}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Post-Anarchism}}
[[Category:Postanarchism| ]]
[[Category:Anarchist schools of thought]]
[[Category:Postmodern theory]]
[[Category:Post-structuralism]]

Morwen Thistlethwaite

2021-09-15T14:37:39Z

Kurt1111S: Added Spouse

{{short description|Mathematician specializing in knot theory}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| image = Morwen Thistlethwaite.jpg
| image_size = 200px
| caption = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality = British
| fields = [[Mathematics]]
| workplaces = [[University of Tennessee]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Manchester]] [[University of London]] [[University of Cambridge]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Michael George Barratt]]
| doctoral_students =
| known_for =
| awards =
|Spouse(s) = Stella Thistlethwaite
}}
[[Image:thistlethwaite_unknot.svg|right|150px|thumb|[[Thistlethwaite unknot]]]]

'''Morwen Bernard Thistlethwaite''' is a [[Knot theory|knot theorist]] and professor of mathematics for the [[University of Tennessee]] in [[Knoxville, Tennessee|Knoxville]]. He has made important contributions to both [[knot theory]] and [[Rubik's Cube group]] theory.

==Biography==
Morwen Thistlethwaite received his [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] from the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1967, his [[M.S.]] from the [[University of London]] in 1968, and his [[Ph.D.]] from the [[University of Manchester]] in 1972 where his advisor was Michael Barratt. He studied [[piano]] with Tanya Polunin, James Gibb and [[Balint Vazsonyi]], giving concerts in London before deciding to pursue a career in mathematics in 1975. He taught at the [[North London Polytechnic]] from 1975 to 1978 and the [[London South Bank University|Polytechnic of the South Bank, London]] from 1978 to 1987. He served as a visiting professor at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] for a year before going to the [[University of Tennessee]], where he currently is a professor. His wife, Stella Thistlethwaite, also teaches at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. <ref> http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/</ref> Thistlethwaite's son Oliver is also a mathematician.<ref>[http://www.oliverthistlethwaite.com Oliver Thistlethwaite]</ref> He has an [[Erdös number]] of 2.

==Work==

===Tait conjectures===
Morwen Thistlethwaite helped prove the [[Tait conjectures]], which are:
#Reduced [[alternating knot|alternating diagrams]] have minimal link [[Crossing number (knot theory)|crossing number]].
#Any two reduced alternating diagrams of a given [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] have equal [[writhe]].
#Given any two reduced alternating diagrams D1,D2 of an oriented, prime alternating link, D1 may be transformed to D2 by means of a sequence of certain simple moves called ''[[flype]]s''. Also known as the [[Tait flyping conjecture]]. (adapted from MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaitsKnotConjectures.html)<ref>{{MathWorld|TaitsKnotConjectures|Tait's Knot Conjectures}}</ref>
Morwen Thistlethwaite, along with [[Louis Kauffman]] and [[Kunio Murasugi]] proved the first two Tait conjectures in 1987 and Thistlethwaite and [[William Menasco]] proved the [[Tait flyping conjecture]] in 1991.

===Thistlethwaite's algorithm===
Thistlethwaite also came up with a famous solution to the [[Rubik's Cube]]. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into [[group (mathematics)|groups]] of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are:
*<math>G_0=\langle L,R,F,B,U,D\rangle</math>
:This group contains all possible positions of the Rubik's Cube.
*<math>G_1=\langle L,R,F,B,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:This group contains all positions that can be reached (from the solved state) with quarter turns of the left, right, front and back sides of the Rubik's Cube, but only double turns of the up and down sides.
*<math>G_2=\langle L,R,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:In this group, the positions are restricted to ones that can be reached with only double turns of the front, back, up and down faces and quarter turns of the left and right faces.
*<math>G_3=\langle L^2,R^2,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:Positions in this group can be solved using only double turns on all sides.
*<math>G_4=\{1\}</math>
:The final group contains only one position, the solved state of the cube.
The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube always lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved.<ref>[http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/thistle.htm Thistlethwaite's 52-move algorithm]</ref>

===Dowker notation===
Thistlethwaite, along with [[Clifford Hugh Dowker]], developed [[Dowker notation]], a [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] notation suitable for computer use and derived from notations of [[Peter Guthrie Tait]] and [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]].

==See also==
*[[Optimal solutions for Rubik's Cube]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/ - Morwen Thistlethwaite's home page.
*{{MathGenealogy |id=22485 }}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thistlethwaite, Morwen}}
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Topologists]]
[[Category:Academics of London South Bank University]]
[[Category:University of Tennessee faculty]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of London]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Manchester]]
[[Category:20th-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:21st-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:Rubik's Cube]]

Morwen Thistlethwaite

2021-09-15T14:33:23Z

Kurt1111S: Added image

{{short description|Mathematician specializing in knot theory}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| image = Morwen Thistlethwaite.jpg
| image_size = 200px
| caption = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality = British
| fields = [[Mathematics]]
| workplaces = [[University of Tennessee]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Manchester]] [[University of London]] [[University of Cambridge]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Michael George Barratt]]
| doctoral_students =
| known_for =
| awards =
}}
[[Image:thistlethwaite_unknot.svg|right|150px|thumb|[[Thistlethwaite unknot]]]]

'''Morwen Bernard Thistlethwaite''' is a [[Knot theory|knot theorist]] and professor of mathematics for the [[University of Tennessee]] in [[Knoxville, Tennessee|Knoxville]]. He has made important contributions to both [[knot theory]] and [[Rubik's Cube group]] theory.

==Biography==
Morwen Thistlethwaite received his [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] from the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1967, his [[M.S.]] from the [[University of London]] in 1968, and his [[Ph.D.]] from the [[University of Manchester]] in 1972 where his advisor was Michael Barratt. He studied [[piano]] with Tanya Polunin, James Gibb and [[Balint Vazsonyi]], giving concerts in London before deciding to pursue a career in mathematics in 1975. He taught at the [[North London Polytechnic]] from 1975 to 1978 and the [[London South Bank University|Polytechnic of the South Bank, London]] from 1978 to 1987. He served as a visiting professor at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] for a year before going to the [[University of Tennessee]], where he currently is a professor. His wife, Stella Thistlethwaite, also teaches at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. <ref> http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/</ref> Thistlethwaite's son Oliver is also a mathematician.<ref>[http://www.oliverthistlethwaite.com Oliver Thistlethwaite]</ref> He has an [[Erdös number]] of 2.

==Work==

===Tait conjectures===
Morwen Thistlethwaite helped prove the [[Tait conjectures]], which are:
#Reduced [[alternating knot|alternating diagrams]] have minimal link [[Crossing number (knot theory)|crossing number]].
#Any two reduced alternating diagrams of a given [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] have equal [[writhe]].
#Given any two reduced alternating diagrams D1,D2 of an oriented, prime alternating link, D1 may be transformed to D2 by means of a sequence of certain simple moves called ''[[flype]]s''. Also known as the [[Tait flyping conjecture]]. (adapted from MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaitsKnotConjectures.html)<ref>{{MathWorld|TaitsKnotConjectures|Tait's Knot Conjectures}}</ref>
Morwen Thistlethwaite, along with [[Louis Kauffman]] and [[Kunio Murasugi]] proved the first two Tait conjectures in 1987 and Thistlethwaite and [[William Menasco]] proved the [[Tait flyping conjecture]] in 1991.

===Thistlethwaite's algorithm===
Thistlethwaite also came up with a famous solution to the [[Rubik's Cube]]. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into [[group (mathematics)|groups]] of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are:
*<math>G_0=\langle L,R,F,B,U,D\rangle</math>
:This group contains all possible positions of the Rubik's Cube.
*<math>G_1=\langle L,R,F,B,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:This group contains all positions that can be reached (from the solved state) with quarter turns of the left, right, front and back sides of the Rubik's Cube, but only double turns of the up and down sides.
*<math>G_2=\langle L,R,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:In this group, the positions are restricted to ones that can be reached with only double turns of the front, back, up and down faces and quarter turns of the left and right faces.
*<math>G_3=\langle L^2,R^2,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:Positions in this group can be solved using only double turns on all sides.
*<math>G_4=\{1\}</math>
:The final group contains only one position, the solved state of the cube.
The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube always lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved.<ref>[http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/thistle.htm Thistlethwaite's 52-move algorithm]</ref>

===Dowker notation===
Thistlethwaite, along with [[Clifford Hugh Dowker]], developed [[Dowker notation]], a [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] notation suitable for computer use and derived from notations of [[Peter Guthrie Tait]] and [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]].

==See also==
*[[Optimal solutions for Rubik's Cube]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/ - Morwen Thistlethwaite's home page.
*{{MathGenealogy |id=22485 }}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thistlethwaite, Morwen}}
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Topologists]]
[[Category:Academics of London South Bank University]]
[[Category:University of Tennessee faculty]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of London]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Manchester]]
[[Category:20th-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:21st-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:Rubik's Cube]]

Morwen Thistlethwaite

2021-09-15T14:04:32Z

Kurt1111S: Added info about wife

{{short description|Mathematician specializing in knot theory}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| image =
| image_size = 200px
| caption = Morwen Thistlethwaite
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality = British
| fields = [[Mathematics]]
| workplaces = [[University of Tennessee]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Manchester]] [[University of London]] [[University of Cambridge]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Michael George Barratt]]
| doctoral_students =
| known_for =
| awards =
}}
[[Image:thistlethwaite_unknot.svg|right|150px|thumb|[[Thistlethwaite unknot]]]]

'''Morwen Bernard Thistlethwaite''' is a [[Knot theory|knot theorist]] and professor of mathematics for the [[University of Tennessee]] in [[Knoxville, Tennessee|Knoxville]]. He has made important contributions to both [[knot theory]] and [[Rubik's Cube group]] theory.

==Biography==
Morwen Thistlethwaite received his [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] from the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1967, his [[M.S.]] from the [[University of London]] in 1968, and his [[Ph.D.]] from the [[University of Manchester]] in 1972 where his advisor was Michael Barratt. He studied [[piano]] with Tanya Polunin, James Gibb and [[Balint Vazsonyi]], giving concerts in London before deciding to pursue a career in mathematics in 1975. He taught at the [[North London Polytechnic]] from 1975 to 1978 and the [[London South Bank University|Polytechnic of the South Bank, London]] from 1978 to 1987. He served as a visiting professor at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] for a year before going to the [[University of Tennessee]], where he currently is a professor. His wife, Stella Thistlethwaite, also teaches at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. <ref> http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/</ref> Thistlethwaite's son Oliver is also a mathematician.<ref>[http://www.oliverthistlethwaite.com Oliver Thistlethwaite]</ref> He has an [[Erdös number]] of 2.

==Work==

===Tait conjectures===
Morwen Thistlethwaite helped prove the [[Tait conjectures]], which are:
#Reduced [[alternating knot|alternating diagrams]] have minimal link [[Crossing number (knot theory)|crossing number]].
#Any two reduced alternating diagrams of a given [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] have equal [[writhe]].
#Given any two reduced alternating diagrams D1,D2 of an oriented, prime alternating link, D1 may be transformed to D2 by means of a sequence of certain simple moves called ''[[flype]]s''. Also known as the [[Tait flyping conjecture]]. (adapted from MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaitsKnotConjectures.html)<ref>{{MathWorld|TaitsKnotConjectures|Tait's Knot Conjectures}}</ref>
Morwen Thistlethwaite, along with [[Louis Kauffman]] and [[Kunio Murasugi]] proved the first two Tait conjectures in 1987 and Thistlethwaite and [[William Menasco]] proved the [[Tait flyping conjecture]] in 1991.

===Thistlethwaite's algorithm===
Thistlethwaite also came up with a famous solution to the [[Rubik's Cube]]. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into [[group (mathematics)|groups]] of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are:
*<math>G_0=\langle L,R,F,B,U,D\rangle</math>
:This group contains all possible positions of the Rubik's Cube.
*<math>G_1=\langle L,R,F,B,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:This group contains all positions that can be reached (from the solved state) with quarter turns of the left, right, front and back sides of the Rubik's Cube, but only double turns of the up and down sides.
*<math>G_2=\langle L,R,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:In this group, the positions are restricted to ones that can be reached with only double turns of the front, back, up and down faces and quarter turns of the left and right faces.
*<math>G_3=\langle L^2,R^2,F^2,B^2,U^2,D^2\rangle</math>
:Positions in this group can be solved using only double turns on all sides.
*<math>G_4=\{1\}</math>
:The final group contains only one position, the solved state of the cube.
The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube always lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved.<ref>[http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/thistle.htm Thistlethwaite's 52-move algorithm]</ref>

===Dowker notation===
Thistlethwaite, along with [[Clifford Hugh Dowker]], developed [[Dowker notation]], a [[knot (mathematics)|knot]] notation suitable for computer use and derived from notations of [[Peter Guthrie Tait]] and [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]].

==See also==
*[[Optimal solutions for Rubik's Cube]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* http://www.math.utk.edu/~morwen/ - Morwen Thistlethwaite's home page.
*{{MathGenealogy |id=22485 }}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thistlethwaite, Morwen}}
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Topologists]]
[[Category:Academics of London South Bank University]]
[[Category:University of Tennessee faculty]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of London]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Manchester]]
[[Category:20th-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:21st-century British mathematicians]]
[[Category:Rubik's Cube]]

Max Stirner

2021-08-30T16:08:35Z

Kurt1111S: Clarified Mackay's position

{{short description|German philosopher}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| name = Max Stirner
| image = MaxStirner1.svg
| image_size = 150
| caption = Max Stirner as portrayed by [[Friedrich Engels]]
| birth_name = Johann Kaspar Schmidt
| birth_date = {{birth date|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Bayreuth]], [[Kingdom of Bavaria]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1856|6|26|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Berlin]], [[Prussia]], [[German Confederation]]
| education = {{plainlist|
* {{interlanguage link multi|Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|de|3=Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|lt=Gymnasium illustre zu Bayreuth}}
* [[University of Berlin]] (no degree)
* [[University of Erlangen]] (no degree)
}}
| era = [[19th-century philosophy]]
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| school_tradition = {{plainlist|
* [[Continental philosophy]]
* [[Anti-foundationalism]]
* [[Nihilism#Cosmic nihilism|Cosmic nihilism]]<ref name="Crosby1998">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Crosby|first=Donald A.|title=Nihilism|year=1998|doi=10.4324/9780415249126-N037-1|encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy|publisher=Taylor and Francis|isbn=9780415250696|at=§ Cosmic nihilism}}</ref>
* [[Dialectical egoism]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism|first=John F.|last=Welsh|year=2010|publisher=Lexington Books}}</ref>
* [[Egoist anarchism]] (''post-mortem'')
* [[Nominalism]]<ref name="Crosby1998"/>
* [[Post-Hegelianism]]
* [[Young Hegelians]] (early)
}}
| main_interests = [[Egoism]], [[ethics]], [[ontology]], [[pedagogy]], [[philosophy of history]], [[philosophy of religion]], [[philosophy of education]],<ref>https://archive.org/details/sparrowsnest-10358/mode/2up The False Principle of our Education
by Stirner, Max; Publication date 1967</ref> [[property theory]], [[psychology]], [[value theory]], [[dialectic]]
| notable_ideas = {{plainlist|
* {{lang|de|Eigenheit}} ({{translation|ownness}})
* ''Man–I'' dialectic
* [[Philosophy of Max Stirner#Egoism|Stirnerian egoism]]
* [[Union of egoists]]
}}
| influences = {{flatlist|
* [[Epicurus]]
* [[Bruno Bauer|Bauer]]
* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]
* [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]]
* [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]]
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]<ref>The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967.</ref>
* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|Proudhon]]
* [[Marquis de Sade|Sade]]<ref>Iwan Bloch. ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ Der Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413035949/https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ |date=13 April 2021 }}''</ref>
* [[Adam Smith|Smith]]
* [[Yang Zhu|Yang]]<ref>Wolfi Landstreicher. ''[https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf The Unique and Its Property] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625040124/https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf |date=25 June 2020 }}''</ref>
}}
| influenced = {{flatlist|
* [[Max Adler (Marxist)|Adler]]
* [[Émile Armand|Armand]]
* [[Enrico Arrigoni|Arrigoni]]
* [[Julius Bahnsen|Bahnsen]]<ref>[[Frederick C. Beiser|Beiser, Frederick C.]]. ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 233.</ref>
* [[Bob Black|Black]]
* [[Adolf Brand|Brand]]
* [[Ray Brassier|Brassier]]
* [[Steven T. Byington|Byington]]
* [[Albert Camus|Camus]]
* [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]]
* [[Julius Evola|Evola]]
* [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]
* [[Emma Goldman|Goldman]]
* [[Otto Gross|Gross]]<ref>Bernd A. Laska. ''[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html Otto Gross zwischen Max Stirner und Wilhelm Reich] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200111/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html |date=4 March 2016 }}'', In: Raimund Dehmlow and Gottfried Heuer, eds.: 3. Internationaler Otto-Gross-Kongress, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München. Marburg, 2003, pp. 125–162, {{ISBN|3-936134-06-5}} [http://literaturwissenschaft.de/ LiteraturWissenschaft.de] .</ref>
* [[Miguel Giménez Igualada|Igualada]]
* [[Ernst Jünger|Jünger]]
* [[Gustav Landauer|Landauer]]
* [[John Henry Mackay|Mackay]]
* [[Dora Marsden|Marsden]]
* [[Karl Marx|Marx]]
* [[H. L. Mencken|Mencken]]
* [[Erich Mühsam|Mühsam]]
* [[Saul Newman|Newman]]
* [[Renzo Novatore|Novatore]]
* [[Dmitry Pisarev|Pisarev]]
* [[Herbert Read|Read]]
* [[Wilhelm Reich|Reich]]
* [[Carl Schmitt|Schmitt]]
* [[Rudolf Steiner|Steiner]]
* [[Benjamin Tucker|Tucker]]
* [[Robert Anton Wilson|Wilson]]
* [[Raoul Vaneigem|Vaneigem]]<ref>Raoul Vaneigem. ''[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life The Revolution of Everyday Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516040629/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life |date=16 May 2020 }}''.</ref>
}}
}}

'''Johann Kaspar Schmidt''' (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as '''Max Stirner''', was a German [[post-Hegelian]] philosopher, dealing mainly with the [[Hegelian]] notion of [[social alienation]] and [[self-consciousness]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Stepelevich|first=Lawrence|date=1985|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|url=https://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|journal=|access-date=2 October 2020|archive-date=27 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027162935/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]], [[psychoanalytic theory]], [[postmodernism]] and [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner">{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner|last=Leopold|first=David|date=4 August 2006}}</ref><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99">Goodway, David. [[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]. Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 99.</ref>

Stirner's main work ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' ({{lang-de|Der Einzige und sein Eigentum}}; meaningfully translated as ''The Individual and his Property'', literally as ''The Only One and His Property'') was first published in 1844 in [[Leipzig]] and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''A Ready Reference to Philosophy East and West''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230222119/https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=30 December 2019 }}.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229172353/https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=29 December 2019 }}.</ref>

== Biography ==
[[File:MaxStirner'sbirthplace.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Stirner's birthplace in Bayreuth]]
Stirner was born in [[Bayreuth]], [[Bavaria]]. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the 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 the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778–1839). His father died of [[tuberculosis]] on 19 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"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109232842/http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/bio/sein_leben/ |date=9 November 2016 }}. p. 28.</ref> In 1809, his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt (a [[pharmacist]]) and settled in [[West Prussia]]n Kulm (now [[Chełmno]], Poland). When Stirner turned 20, he attended the [[University of Berlin]],<ref name="seinleben"/> where he studied [[philology]], philosophy and theology. He attended the lectures of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 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> He attended Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of religion and the subjective spirit. Stirner then moved to the [[University of Erlangen]], which he attended at the same time as [[Ludwig Feuerbach]].{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985|p=602}}

Stirner returned to Berlin and obtained a teaching certificate, but he was unable to obtain a full-time teaching post from the Prussian government.<ref>{{cite book|last=Marshall|first=Peter|title=Demanding the Impossible|title-link=Demanding the Impossible|year=1992|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=0002178559|page=221}}</ref> While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called ''[[Die Freien]]'' (The Free Ones), whom historians have subsequently categorized as the [[Young Hegelians]]. Some of the best known names in 19th century literature and [[19th century philosophy|philosophy]] were involved with this group, including [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Bruno Bauer]] and [[Arnold Ruge]]. Contrary to [[List of common misconceptions|popular belief]], Feuerbach was not a member of ''Die Freien'', although he was heavily involved in Young Hegelian discourse.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} 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 group broke with Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.

Frequently the debates would take place at Hippel's, a [[wine bar]] in [[Friedrichstraße]], attended by among others Marx and Engels, who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the time. Stirner met with Engels many times and Engels even recalled that they were "great friends,"<ref name="autogenerated2">Lawrence L Stepelevich. ''The Revival of Max Stirner''.</ref> but it is still unclear whether Marx and Stirner ever met. It does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener.<ref>Gide, Charles and Rist, Charles. ''A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day''. Harrap 1956, p. 612.</ref> The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory at biographer Mackay's request. It is highly likely that this and the group sketch of ''Die Freien'' at Hippel's are the only firsthand images of Stirner. Stirner worked as a teacher in a school for young girls owned by Madame Gropius<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', vol. 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 Feuerbach and Bauer, but also against [[communists]] such as [[Wilhelm Weitling]] and the [[anarchist]] [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]. He resigned from his teaching position in anticipation of controversy from this work's publication in October 1844.

Stirner married twice. His first wife was Agnes Burtz (1815–1838), the daughter of his landlady, whom he married on 12 December 1837. However, she died from complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843, he married [[Marie Dähnhardt]], an intellectual associated with ''Die Freien''. Their ''[[ad hoc]]'' wedding took place at Stirner's apartment, during which the participants were notably [[Casual wear|dressed casually]], used copper rings as they had forgotten to buy [[wedding rings]], and needed to search the whole neighborhood for a [[Bible]] as they did not have their own. Using Marie's inheritance, Stirner opened a [[Dairy (store)|dairy shop]] that handled the distribution of [[milk]] from [[Dairy farming|dairy farmers]] into the city, but was unable to solicit the customers needed to keep the business afloat. It quickly failed and drove a wedge between him and Marie, leading to their separation in 1847.<ref>{{cite book|title=Anarchism in Germany. Volume I: The Early Movement|first=Andrew R.|last=Carlson|chapter=II: Max Stirner (1806-1856)|url=https://libcom.org/history/anarchism-germany-volume-1-early-movement-andrew-r-carlson|chapter-url=https://libcom.org/library/chapter-ii-max-stirner-1806-1856|pages=55–56|year=1972|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield|Scarecrow Press]]|location=[[Metuchen, New Jersey]]|isbn=0-8108-0484-0|oclc=490643062}}</ref> ''The Ego and Its Own'' was dedicated "to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt." Marie later converted to [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]] and died in 1902 in London.

After ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner wrote ''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.<ref name="SEP-Stirner" /> Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians present at his funeral,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stepelevich |first1=Lawrence S. |title=Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1978 |volume=39 |issue=3 |page=452 |doi=10.2307/2709388 |jstor=2709388 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/2709388 |access-date=1 July 2021 |issn=0022-5037 |quote=Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians at his funeral.}}</ref> held at the [[Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin]].

== Philosophy ==
{{main|Philosophy of Max Stirner}}
{{see also|Egoism|Egoist anarchism}}
Stirner, whose main philosophical work was ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'', is credited as a major influence in the development of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]] and [[post-modernism]] as well as [[individualist anarchism]], [[post-anarchism]] and [[post-left anarchy]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner"/><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99"/> Although Stirner was opposed to [[communism]] for the same reasons he opposed [[capitalism]], [[humanism]], [[liberalism]], [[property rights]] and [[nationalism]], seeing them as forms of authority over the individual and as purveyors of ideologies he could not reconcile himself with, he has influenced many [[anarcho-communists]] and [[post-left anarchists]]. The writers of ''[[An Anarchist FAQ]]'' report that "many in the anarchist movement in Glasgow, Scotland, took Stirner's 'Union of egoists' literally as the basis for their [[anarcho-syndicalist]] organising in the 1940s and beyond." Similarly, the noted anarchist historian [[Max Nettlau]] states that "[o]n reading Stirner, I maintain that he cannot be interpreted except in a socialist sense." Stirner was [[anti-capitalist]] and [[pro-labour]], attacking "the division of labour resulting from private property for its deadening effects on the ego and individuality of the worker" and writing that free competition "is not 'free,' because I lack the things for competition. [...] Under the regime of the commonality the labourers always fall into the hands of the possessors of the capitalists [...]. The labourer cannot realise on his labour to the extent of the value that it has for the customer. [...] The state rests on the slavery of labour. If labour becomes free, the state is lost."<ref name="McKay 2012">{{cite book|editor-last=McKay|editor-first=Iain|year=2012|chapter=What are the ideas of Max Stirner?|title=An Anarchist FAQ|volume=II|location=Stirling|publisher=AK Press|isbn=9781849351225}}</ref> For Stirner, "Labor has an egoistic character; the laborer is the egoist."<ref name="Paul 1975">Thomas, Paul (May 1975). "Karl Marx and Max Stirner". ''Political Theory''. Sage Publications. '''3''' (2): 159–179. {{jstor|190930}}.</ref>

Stirner did not personally oppose the struggles carried out by certain ideologies, such as [[socialism]], [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s humanism or the advocacy of [[human rights]]. Rather, he opposed their legal and ideal abstractness, a fact that made him different from the [[liberal individualists]], including the [[anarcho-capitalists]] and [[right-libertarians]], but also from the ''[[Übermensch]]'' theories of [[fascism]], as he placed the individual and not the sacred collective at the center. About socialism, Stirner wrote in a letter to [[Moses Hess]] that "I am not at all against socialism, but against consecrated socialism; my selfishness is not opposed to love [...] nor is it an enemy of sacrifice, nor of self-denial [...] and least of all of socialism [...] —in short, it is not an enemy of true interests; it rebels not against love, but against sacred love, not against thought, but against sacred thought, not against socialists, but against sacred socialism."<ref>Roudine, Victor. ''The Workers Struggle According to Max Stirner''. p. 12.</ref>

=== Egoism ===
{{individualism sidebar}}
Stirner's [[Egoist anarchism|egoism]] is purely descriptive and is an attempt to surpass the very idea of ''ought'' itself. To try to fit Stirner into the contemporary mindset misses the point. Stirner argues that individuals are impossible to fully comprehend. All mere concepts of the self will always be inadequate to fully describe the nature of our experience. Stirner has been broadly understood as descriptive of both [[psychological egoism]] and [[rational egoism]]. Hence, this self-interest is necessarily subjective, allowing both selfish and altruistic normative claims to be included, although he wrote that "my selfishness is not opposed to love [...] nor is it an enemy of sacrifice, nor of self-denial."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

This self-interest is also unlike "the narrow and self-defeating 'egoism' of, say, Ayn Rand" as Stirner "did not prescribe what was and was not in a person's self-interest. He did not say you should act in certain ways because he preferred it, he did not redefine selfishness to allow most of bourgeois morality to remain intact. Rather he urged the individual to think for themselves and seek their own path. Not for Stirner the grim 'egoism' of 'selfishly' living a life determined by some guru and which only that authority figure would approve of. True egoism is not parroting what Stirner wrote and agreeing with everything he expounded. Nothing could be more foreign to Stirner's work than to invent 'Stirnerism.'"<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In this sense, Donald Rooum, who combined Stirner and [[anarcho-communism]], wrote that "I am happy to be called a Stirnerite anarchist, provided 'Stirnerite' means one who agrees with Stirner's general drift, not one who agrees with Stirner's every word. Please judge my arguments on their merits, not on the merits of Stirner's arguments, and not by the test of whether I conform to Stirner."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

Individual self-realization rests on each individual's desire to fulfill his egoism. The difference between an unwilling and a willing egoist is that the former will be possessed by an "empty idea" and believe that he is fulfilling a higher cause, while usually unaware that he is only fulfilling his own desires to be happy or secure. In contrast, the latter will be a person that is able to freely choose his actions, fully aware that he is only fulfilling individual desires as stated by Stirner:<ref name="McKay 2012"/>
{{quote|Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself, the ''involuntary egoist'' [...] in short, for the egoist who would like not to be an egoist, and abases himself (combats his egoism), but at the same time abases himself only for the sake of "being exalted" and therefore of gratifying his egoism. Because he would like to cease to be an egoist, he looks about in heaven and earth for higher beings to serve and sacrifice himself to; but, however much he shakes and disciplines himself, in the end he does all for his own sake [...] [on] this account I call him the involuntary egoist. [...] As you are each instant, you are your own creature in this very 'creature' you do not wish to lose yourself, the creator. You are yourself a higher being than you are, and surpass yourself. [...] [J]ust this, as an involuntary egoist, you fail to recognize; and therefore the 'higher essence' is to you—an alien essence. [...] Alienness is a criterion of the "sacred."<ref>Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'' (Cambridge ed.). pp. 37–38.</ref>}}

The contrast is also expressed in terms of the difference between the voluntary egoist being the possessor of his concepts as opposed to being possessed. Only when one realizes that all sacred truths such as [[law]], [[Rights|right]], [[morality]], [[religion]] and so on are nothing other than artificial concepts—and not to be obeyed—can one act freely. For Stirner, to be free is to be both one's own "creature" (in the sense of creation) and one's own "creator" (dislocating the traditional role assigned to the gods). To Stirner, power is the method of egoism—it is the only justified method of gaining [[Property (philosophy)|property]] in the philosophical sense. According to the authors of ''[[An Anarchist FAQ]]'', Stirner rejects the claim of "modern-day 'libertarian' capitalists, who regard 'profit' as the key to 'selfishness'" and argue that Stirner "has nothing but contempt" for it because "'greed' is just one part of the ego, and to spend one's life pursuing only that part is to deny all other parts. Stirner called such pursuit 'self-sacrificing,' or a 'one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism,' which leads to the ego being possessed by one aspect of itself." The writers quote Stirner as saying "he who ventures everything else for one thing, one object, one will, one passion [...] He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> Similarly, Stirner "had nothing but contempt for those who defended property in terms of 'natural rights' and opposed theft and taxation with a passion because it violates said rights." Stirner was also "well aware that inequality was only possible as long as the masses were convinced of the sacredness of property. In this way, the majority end up without property." Therefore, Stirner urges insurrection against all forms of authority and disrespect for property.<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

=== Anarchism ===
[[File:Benjamin_R_Tucker.jpg|thumb|180px|Three pioneers of individualist anarchism]] Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of [[State (polity)|state]], [[Property#Property in philosophy|property as a right]], [[natural rights]] in general and the very notion of [[society]]—were mere illusions, "spooks" or ghosts in the mind.<ref>Heider, Ulrike. ''Anarchism: Left, Right and Green'', San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95–96.</ref> He advocated egoism and a form of [[amoralism]] in which individuals would unite in [[Union of egoists|Unions of egoists]] only when it was in their self-interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might, saying: "Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him belongs [property]. [...] What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." He adds that "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!"<ref name="Stirner, Max p. 248">Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 248.</ref> Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint and that rights do not exist in regard to objects and people at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality."<ref name="Moggach, Douglas p. 194">Moggach, Douglas. ''The New Hegelians''. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 194.</ref>

Despite being labeled as anarchist, Stirner was not necessarily one. Separation of Stirner and egoism from anarchism was first done in 1914 by [[Dora Marsden]] in her debate with [[Benjamin Tucker]] in her journals ''The New Freewoman'' and ''The Egoist''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|title=Dora Marsden & Benjamin R. Tucker – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180445/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|url-status=live}}</ref> The idea of egoist anarchism was also expounded by various other egoists, mainly [[Malfew Seklew]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|title=The Gospel According to Malfew Seklew|access-date=13 December 2019|archive-date=13 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191213073901/https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sidney E. Parker]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|title=Archists, Anarchists and Egoists – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180444/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Communism ====
The Anarchist FAQ Collective writes that "[w]hile some may object to our attempt to place egoism and communism together, it is worth pointing out that Stirner rejected 'communism'. Quite! Stirner did not subscribe to libertarian communism, because it did not exist when he was writing and so he was directing his critique against the various forms of state communism which did. Moreover, this does not mean that anarcho-communists and others may not find his work of use to them. And Stirner would have approved, for nothing could be more foreign to his ideas than to limit what an individual considers to be in their best interest."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In summarizing Stirner's main arguments, the writers "indicate why social anarchists have been, and should be, interested in his ideas, saying that, John P. Clark presents a sympathetic and useful social anarchist critique of his work in ''Max Stirner's Egoism''."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

[[Daniel Guérin]] wrote that "Stirner accepted many of the premises of communism but with the following qualification: the profession of communist faith is a first step toward total emancipation of the victims of our society, but they will become completely 'disalienated,' and truly able to develop their individuality, only by advancing beyond communism."<ref>Guérin, Daniel (1970). ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''. Monthly Review Press. pp. 70–71. {{ISBN|9780853451280}}.</ref>

==== Revolution ====
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of [[revolution]], arguing that [[social movement]]s aimed at overturning established ideals are tacitly idealist because they are implicitly aimed at the establishment of a new ideal thereafter. Nonetheless, Stirner recognizes "the importance of self-liberation and the way that authority often exists purely through its acceptance by the governed."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

==== Union of egoists ====
{{main|Union of egoists}}
Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in ''The Ego and Its Own''. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the [[Sovereign state|state]].<ref name=karl>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Paul|title=Karl Marx and the Anarchists|publisher=[[Routledge]]/[[Kegan Paul]]|location=London|year=1985|isbn=0-7102-0685-2|page=142}}</ref> Unlike a "community" in which individuals are obliged to participate, Stirner's suggested Union would be voluntary and instrumental under which individuals would freely associate insofar as others within the Union remain useful to each constituent individual.<ref name=Cohn>{{Cite journal |last1=Cohn |first1=Jesse |title=What is Postanarchism 'Post'? |journal=[[Postmodern Culture]] |volume=13 |issue=1 |date=September 2002 |url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |language=en |doi=10.1353/pmc.2002.0028 |s2cid=145475500 |issn=1053-1920 |via=[[Project MUSE]] |access-date=2 December 2018 |archive-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925231231/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Union relation between egoists is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.<ref name="nonserviam">{{cite journal|url=http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf#page=13|title=The union of egoists|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|first=Svein Olav|last=Nyberg|pages=13–14|location=Oslo, Norway|oclc=47758413|access-date=1 September 2012|publisher=Svein Olav Nyberg|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207042220/http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf|archive-date=7 December 2010}}</ref> Some such as Svein Olav Nyberg argue that the Union requires that all parties participate out of a [[Selfishness|conscious egoism]] while others such as [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sydney E. Parker]] regard the union as a "change of attitude," rejecting its previous conception as an institution.<ref>{{cite web|title=Non Serviam, No. 18, page 6, "Union of Egoists - Comment" by S.E. Parker.|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153648/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Response to Hegelianism ===
[[File:Stirner02.jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Max Stirner taken from a sketch by [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820–1895) of the meetings of ''[[Die Freien]]'']]
Scholar [[Lawrence Stepelevich]] states that [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]] was a major influence on ''The Ego and Its Own''. While the latter has an "un-Hegelian structure and tone" on the whole and is hostile to Hegel's conclusions about the self and the world, Stepelevich states that Stirner's work is best understood as answering Hegel's question of the role of consciousness after it has contemplated "untrue knowledge" and become "absolute knowledge." Stepelevich concludes that Stirner presents the consequences of the rediscovering one's self-consciousness after realizing self-determination.{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985}}

Scholars such as [[Douglas Moggach]] and Widukind De Ridder have stated that Stirner was obviously a student of Hegel, like his contemporaries [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] and [[Bruno Bauer]], but this does not necessarily make him an Hegelian. Contrary to the Young Hegelians, Stirner scorned all attempts at an immanent critique of Hegel and the Enlightenment and renounced Bauer and Feuerbach's emancipatory claims as well. Contrary to Hegel, who considered the given as an inadequate embodiment of rational, Stirner leaves the given intact by considering it a mere object, not of transformation, but of enjoyment and consumption ("His Own").<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83">Moggach, Douglas and De Ridder, Widukind. "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 82–83.</ref>

According to Moggach, Stirner does not go beyond Hegel, but he in fact leaves the domain of philosophy in its entirety, stating:
{{quote|Stirner refused to conceptualize the human self, and rendered it devoid of any reference to rationality or universal standards. The self was moreover considered a field of action, a "never-being I." The "I" had no essence to realize and life itself was a process of self-dissolution. Far from accepting, like the humanist Hegelians, a construal of subjectivity endowed with a universal and ethical mission, Stirner's notion of "the Unique" (''Der Einzige'') distances itself from any conceptualization whatsoever: "There is no development of the concept of the Unique. No philosophical system can be built out of it, as it can out of Being, or Thinking, or the I. Rather, with it, all development of the concept ceases. The person who views it as a principle thinks that he can treat it philosophically or theoretically and necessarily wastes his breath arguing against it."<ref>"Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought.", In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 75.</ref>}}

== Works ==
=== ''The False Principle of Our Education'' ===
{{main|The False Principle of Our Education}}
In 1842, ''[[The False Principle of Our Education]]'' (''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung'') was published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'', which was edited by Marx at the time.<ref>''Encyclopaedia of Philosophy'' (1967). The Macmillan Company and The Free Press: New York.</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 therefore fulfilled in aiding the individual in becoming an individual.

=== ''Art and Religion'' ===
''Art and Religion'' (''Kunst und Religion'') was also published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'' on 14 June 1842. It addresses Bruno Bauer and his publication against Hegel called ''Hegel's Doctrine of Religion and Art Judged From the Standpoint of Faith''. Bauer had inverted Hegel's relation between "Art" and "Religion" by claiming that "Art" was much more closely related to "Philosophy" than to "Religion", based on their shared determinacy and clarity, and a common ethical root. However, Stirner went beyond both Hegel and Bauer's criticism by asserting that "Art" rather created an object for "Religion" and could thus by no means be related to what Stirner considered—in opposition with Hegel and Bauer—to be "Philosophy", stating:
{{quote|[Philosophy] neither stands opposed to an Object, as Religion, nor makes one, as Art, but rather places its pulverizing hand upon all the business of making Objects as well as the whole of objectivity itself, and so breathes the air of freedom. Reason, the spirit of Philosophy, concerns itself only with itself, and troubles itself over no Object.<ref>''Art and Religion'', p. 110.</ref>}}

Stirner deliberately left "Philosophy" out of the dialectical triad (Art–Religion–Philosophy) by claiming that "Philosophy" does not "bother itself with objects" (Religion), nor does it "make an object" (Art). In Stirner's account, "Philosophy" was in fact indifferent towards both "Art" and "Religion." Stirner thus mocked and radicalised Bauer's criticism of religion.<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83"/>

=== ''The Ego and Its Own'' ===
{{main|The Ego and Its Own}}
Stirner's main work ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'') appeared in [[Leipzig]] in October 1844, with as year of publication mentioned 1845. In ''The Ego And Its Own'', Stirner launches a radical [[anti-authoritarian]] and [[individualist]] critique of contemporary [[Prussia]]n society and modern western society as such. He offers an approach to human existence in which he depicts himself as "the unique one", a "creative nothing", beyond the ability of language to fully express, stating that "[i]f I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me".<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 324.</ref>

The book proclaims that all religions and ideologies rest on empty concepts. The same holds true for society's institutions that claim authority over the individual, be it the state, legislation, the church, or the systems of education such as universities. Stirner's argument explores and extends the limits of criticism, aiming his critique especially at those of his contemporaries, particularly Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, also at popular ideologies, including [[communism]], [[humanism]] (which he regarded as analogous to religion with the abstract Man or humanity as the supreme being), [[liberalism]], and [[nationalism]] as well as [[capitalism]], [[religion]] and [[statism]], arguing:
{{quote|In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies – an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 17.</ref>}}

=== ''Stirner's Critics'' ===
[[File:Portrait of Max Stirner.svg|thumb|Portrait of Max Stirner]]
''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners'') was published in September 1845 in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''. It is a response in which Stirner refers to himself in the third-person to three critical reviews of ''The Ego and its Own'' by [[Moses Hess]] in ''Die letzten Philosophen'' (''The Last Philosophers''), by a certain Szeliga (alias of an adherent of [[Bruno Bauer]]) in an article in the journal ''Norddeutsche Blätter'', and by [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] anonymously in an article called ''On 'The Essence of Christianity' in Relation to Stirner's 'The Ego and its Own''' (''Über 'Das Wesen des Christentums' in Beziehung auf Stirners 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum{{'}}'') in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''.

=== ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' ===
''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' (''Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'') was published in 1847 in ''Die Epigonen'', a journal edited by Otto Wigand from Leipzig. At the time, Wigand had already published ''The Ego and Its Own'' and was about to finish the publication of Stirner's translations of [[Adam Smith]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]. As the subtitle indicates, ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' was written in response to a 1847 article by [[Kuno Fischer]] (1824–1907) entitled ''The Modern Soliphist'' (''Die Moderne Sophisten''). The article was signed G. Edward and its authorship has been disputed ever since John Henry Mackay "cautiously" attributed it to Stirner and included it in his collection of Stirner's lesser writings. It was first translated into English in 2011 by [[Saul Newman]] and the introductory note explains:
{{quote|Mackay based his attribution of this text to Stirner on Kuno Fischer's subsequent reply to it, in which the latter, 'with such determination', identified G. Edward as Max Stirner. The article was entitled 'Ein Apologet der Sophistik und "ein Philosophischer Reactionäre"' and was published alongside 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. Moreover, it seems rather odd that Otto Wigand would have published 'Edward's' piece back- to-back with an article that falsely attributed it to one of his personal associates at the time. And, indeed, as Mackay went on to argue, Stirner never refuted this attribution. This remains, however, a slim basis on which to firmly identify Stirner as the author. This circumstantial evidence has led some scholars to cast doubts over Stirner's authorship, based on both the style and content of 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. One should, however, bear in mind that it was written almost three years after ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'', at a time when Young Hegelianism had withered away.<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 90 (2011).</ref>}}

The majority of the text deals with Kuno Fischer's definition of sophism. With much wit, the self-contradictory nature of Fischer's criticism of sophism is exposed. Fischer had made a sharp distinction between sophism and philosophy while at the same time considering it as the "mirror image of philosophy". The sophists breathe "philosophical air" and were "dialectically inspired to a formal volubility". Stirner's answer is striking:
{{quote|Have you philosophers really no clue that you have been beaten with your own weapons? Only one clue. What can your common sense reply when I dissolve dialectically what you have merely posited dialectically? You have showed me with what kind of 'volubility' one can turn everything to nothing and nothing to everything, black into white and white into black. What do you have against me, when I return to you your pure art?<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 99 (2011).</ref>}}

Looking back on ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner claims that "Stirner himself has described his book as, in part, a clumsy expression of what he wanted to say. It is the arduous work of the best years of his life, and yet he calls it, in part, 'clumsy'. That is how hard he struggled with a language that was ruined by philosophers, abused by state-, religious- and other believers, and enabled a boundless confusion of ideas".<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 104 (2011).</ref>

=== ''History of Reaction'' ===
''History of Reaction'' (''Geschichte der Reaktion'') 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 [[revolutions of 1848 in the German states|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, who answered the criticism in a German periodical in the September 1845 article ''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners''), which clarifies several points of interest to readers of the book—especially in relation to Feuerbach.

While Marx's ''Saint Max'' (''Sankt Max''), a large part of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' (''Die Deutsche Ideologie''), was not published until 1932 and thus assured ''The Ego and Its Own'' a place of curious interest among [[Marxist]] readers, Marx's ridicule of Stirner has played a significant role in the preservation of Stirner's work in popular and academic discourse despite lacking mainstream popularity.<ref name="Paul 1975"/><ref name="Lobkowicz 1970"/><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002"/><ref name="Alexander"/>

=== Comments by contemporaries ===
Twenty years after the appearance of Stirner's book, the author [[Friedrich Albert Lange]] wrote the following:
{{quote|Stirner went so far in his notorious work, 'Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum' (1845), as to reject all moral ideas. Everything that in any way, whether it be external force, belief, or mere idea, places itself above the individual and his caprice, Stirner rejects as a hateful limitation of himself. What a pity that to this book – the extremest that we know anywhere – a second positive part was not added. It would have been easier than in the case of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Schelling]]'s philosophy; for out of the unlimited Ego I can again beget every kind of [[Idealism]] as ''my'' [[Will (philosophy)|will]] and ''my'' [[idea]]. Stirner lays so much stress upon the will, in fact, that it appears as the root force of human nature. It may remind us of [[Schopenhauer]].<ref>''[[History of Materialism]]'', ii. 256 (1865).</ref>}}

Some people believe that in a sense a "second positive part" was soon to be added, though not by Stirner, but by [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. The [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner|relationship between Nietzsche and Stirner]] seems to be much more complicated.<ref>See [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, Fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref> According to George J. Stack's ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Nietzsche read Lange's ''History of Materialism'' "again and again" and was therefore very familiar with the passage regarding Stirner.<ref>George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1983, p. 12, {{ISBN|978-3-11-008866-3}}.</ref>

== Influence ==
While ''Der Einzige'' was a critical success and attracted much reaction from famous philosophers after publication, it was out of print and the notoriety that it had provoked had faded many years before Stirner's death.<ref name=sep>{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner |title=Max Stirner}}</ref> Stirner had a destructive impact on [[left-Hegelianism]], but [[Philosophy of Max Stirner|his philosophy]] was a significant influence on Marx and his magnum opus became a founding text of [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name=sep/> [[Edmund Husserl]] once warned a small audience about the "seducing power" of ''Der Einzige'', but he never mentioned it in his writing.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident – in a nutshell"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060518155939/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html |date=18 May 2006 }}.</ref> As the art critic and Stirner admirer [[Herbert Read]] observed, the book has remained "stuck in the gizzard" of Western culture since it first appeared.<ref>Quoted in Read's book, "The Contrary Experience", Faber and Faber, 1963.</ref>

Many thinkers have read and been affected by ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' in their youth including [[Rudolf Steiner]], [[Gustav Landauer]], [[Victor Serge]],<ref>See Memoirs of a revolutionary, 1901–1941 by Victor Serge. Publisher Oxford U.P., 1967.</ref> [[Carl Schmitt]] and [[Jürgen Habermas]]. Few openly admit any influence on their own thinking.<ref>See Bernd A. Laska: ''Ein dauerhafter Dissident.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> [[Ernst Jünger]]'s book ''[[Eumeswil]]'', had the character of the [[Anarch (sovereign individual)|Anarch]], based on Stirner's Einzige.<ref>Bernd A. Laska: ''Katechon und Anarch.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1997 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> Several other authors, philosophers and artists have cited, quoted or otherwise referred to Max Stirner. They include [[Albert Camus]] in ''[[The Rebel (book)|The Rebel]]'' (the section on Stirner is omitted from the majority of English editions including [[Penguin books|Penguin]]'s), [[Benjamin Tucker]], [[James Huneker]],<ref>Huneker's book ''Egoists, a Book of Supermen'' (1909)contains an essay on Stirner.</ref> [[Dora Marsden]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[Emma Goldman]],<ref>See Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, p. 50.</ref> [[Georg Brandes]], [[John Cowper Powys]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=A. N.|date=1 November 2004|title=World of books|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/01/do0106.xml|url-status=dead|access-date=12 May 2010|archive-date=20 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220062510/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/}}</ref> [[Martin Buber]],<ref>''Between Man and Man'' by Martin Buber, Beacon Press, 1955.</ref> [[Sidney Hook]],<ref>From Hegel to Marx by Sidney Hook, London, 1936.</ref> [[Robert Anton Wilson]], [[Horst Matthai Quelle|Horst Matthai]], [[Enrico Arrigoni|Frank Brand]], [[Marcel Duchamp]], several writers of the [[Situationist International]] including [[Raoul Vaneigem]]<ref>"The long revolution is preparing to write works in the ink of action whose unknown or nameless authors will flock to join Sade, Fourier, Babeuf, Marx, Lacenaire, Stirner, Lautréamont, L'hautier, Vaillant, Henry, Villa, Zapata, Makhno, the Communards, the insurrectionaries of Hamburg, Kiel, Kronstadt, Asturias – all those who have not yet played their last card in a game which we have only just joined: the great gamble whose stake is freedom". [[Raoul Vaneigem]]. ''[[The Revolution of Everyday Life]]''.</ref> and [[Max Ernst]]. [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Soul of Man Under Socialism]]'' has caused some historians to speculate that Wilde (who could read German) was familiar with the book.<ref>[[David Goodway]], ''[[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]'', Liverpool University Press, 2006. p. 75.</ref>

Since its appearance in 1844, ''The Ego and Its Own'' has seen periodic revivals of popular, political and academic interest based around widely divergent translations and interpretations—some psychological, others political in their emphasis. Today, many ideas associated with [[post-left anarchy]]'s criticism of ideology and uncompromising [[individualism]] are clearly related to Stirner's. His ideas were also adopted by [[post-anarchism]], with [[Saul Newman]] largely in agreement with much of Stirner's criticism of [[classical anarchism]], including his rejection of revolution and [[essentialism]].

=== Anarchist movement ===
{{anarchism sidebar|people}}
{{main|Egoist anarchism|Individualist anarchism}}
Stirner's philosophy was important in the development of modern anarchist thought, particularly [[individualist anarchism]] and [[egoist anarchism]]. Although Stirner is usually associated with [[individualist anarchism]], he was influential to many [[social anarchism|social anarchists]] such as [[anarcha-feminist]]s [[Emma Goldman]] and [[Federica Montseny]]. In [[European individualist anarchism]], he influenced its major proponents after him such as [[Émile Armand]], [[Han Ryner]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[John Henry Mackay]], [[Miguel Giménez Igualada]] and [[Lev Chernyi]].

In [[American individualist anarchism]], he found adherence in [[Benjamin Tucker]] and his magazine ''[[Liberty (1881–1908)|Liberty]]'' while these abandoned [[natural right]]s positions for egoism.<ref name="mcelroy">"Only the influence of the German philosopher of egoism, Max Stirner (né Johann Kaspar Schmidt, 1806–1856), as expressed through The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum) compared with that of Proudhon. In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886), Tucker rejected natural rights which had long been considered the foundation of libertarianism. This rejection galvanized the movement into fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself. So bitter was the conflict that a number of natural rights proponents withdrew from the pages of Liberty in protest even though they had hitherto been among its frequent contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed egoism although its general content did not change significantly". Wendy Mcelroy. [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 "Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, & Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524105129/http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 |date=24 May 2011 }}.</ref> Several periodicals "were undoubtedly influenced by ''Liberty'''s presentation of egoism". They included ''I'', published by [[Clarence Lee Swartz]] and edited by [[William Walstein Gordak]] and [[J. William Lloyd]] (all associates of ''Liberty''); and ''The Ego and The Egoist'', both of which were edited by [[Edward H. Fulton]]. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed, there were the German ''[[Der Eigene]]'', edited by [[Adolf Brand]]; and ''The Eagle and The Serpent'', issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle ''A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology''.<ref name="mcelroy"/> Other American egoist anarchists around the early 20th century include [[James L. Walker]], [[George Schumm]], [[John Beverley Robinson (anarchist)|John Beverley Robinson]], [[Steven T. Byington]].<ref name="mcelroy"/>

In the United Kingdom, [[Herbert Read]] was influenced by Stirner and noted the closeness of Stirner's egoism to [[existentialism]] (see [[existentialist anarchism]]). Later in the 1960s, [[Daniel Guérin]] says in ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice'' that Stirner "rehabilitated the individual at a time when the philosophical field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism and most reformers in the social field had been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism to stress its opposite" and pointed to "the boldness and scope of his thought".<ref name="Guerin">[[Daniel Guérin]],''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''</ref> In the 1970s, an American [[Situationist International|Situationist]] collective called For Ourselves published a book called ''[[The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything]]'' in which they advocate a "communist egoism" basing themselves on Stirner.<ref>[http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything "Four Ourselves, The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622062115/http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything|date=22 June 2013}}</ref>

Later in the United States, it emerged the tendency of [[post-left anarchy]] which was influenced profoundly by Stirner in aspects such as the critique of ideology. [[Jason McQuinn]] says that "when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist philosophy of Max Stirner".<ref name="Cuchuflito">"What is Ideology?" by [[Jason McQuinn]].</ref> [[Bob Black]] and Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. In the hybrid of [[post-structuralism]] and anarchism called [[post-anarchism]], [[Saul Newman]] has written on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism. [[Insurrectionary anarchism]] also has an important relationship with Stirner as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher and [[Alfredo Bonanno]] who has also written on him in works such as ''Max Stirner'' and ''Max Stirner and Anarchism''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bonanno |first1=Alfredo M. |title=Max Stirner und der Anarchismus |date=1996 |publisher=Anares |location=Bern |isbn=3-905052-61-X }}</ref>

==== Free love, homosexuals and feminists ====
{{See also|Anarchism and issues related to love and sex}}
German Stirnerist [[Adolf Brand]] produced the homosexual periodical ''[[Der Eigene]]'' in 1896. This was the first ongoing homosexual publication in the world<ref>[[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]] had begun a journal called ''Prometheus'' in 1870, but only one issue was published. Kennedy, Hubert, ''Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality'', In: 'Science and Homosexualities', ed. Vernon Rosario. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 26–45.</ref> and ran until 1931. The name was taken from the writings of Stirner (who had greatly influenced the young Brand) and refers to Stirner's concept of "[[self-ownership]]" of the individual. Another early homosexual activist influenced by Stirner was [[John Henry Mackay]]. Mackay also used the works of Stirner to justify 'man-boy love" and the abolition of the age of concent<ref>{{cite book |last=Kinna |first=Ruth |date=2011 |title=The Mirror of Anarchy: The Egoism of John Henry Mackay and Dora Marsden |url=https://libcom.org/files/Newman_Max_Stirner.pdf |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=46}}</ref>. Feminists influenced by Stirner include [[Dora Marsden]] who edited the journals ''[[The Freewoman]]'' and ''[[The New Freewoman]]'' and anarchist [[Emma Goldman]]. Stirner also influenced [[free love]] and [[polyamory]] propagandist [[Émile Armand]] in the context of [[Individualist anarchism in Europe#France|French individualist anarchism]] of the early 20th century which is known for "[t]he call of nudist [[naturism]], the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of "[[union of egoists|unions of egoists]]" with the sole justification of sexual practices".<ref name="frenchexperimentation">Xavier Diez. [http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 "La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la dictadura y la Segunda República"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220143610/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 |date=20 December 2019 }}.</ref>

==== Post-structuralism ====
{{see also|Post-anarchism|Post-structuralism}}
In his book ''[[Specters of Marx]]'', influential French poststructuralist thinker [[Jacques Derrida]] dealt with Stirner and his relationship with Marx while also analysing Stirner's concept of "specters" or "spooks".<ref>[[Jacques Derrida]]. ''[[Specters of Marx]]''. Routledge. 1994.</ref> [[Gilles Deleuze]], another key thinker associated with post-structuralism, mentions Stirner briefly in his book ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''.<ref>"Human or divine, as Stirner said, the predicates are the same whether they belong analytically to the divine being, or whether they are synthetically bound to the human form" (Gilles Deleuze. ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''. Continuum. 2004). p. 122.</ref> [[Saul Newman]] calls Stirner a proto-[[Post-structuralism|poststructuralist]] who on the one hand had essentially anticipated modern post-structuralists such as [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]], Deleuze and Derrida, but on the other had already transcended them, thus providing what they were unable to—i.e. a ground for a [[non-essentialist]] critique of present liberal capitalist society. This is particularly evident in Stirner's identification of the self with a "creative nothing", a thing that cannot be bound by ideology, inaccessible to representation in language.

=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ===
[[File:Skiz-hegel.png|thumb|Caricature by Engels of the meetings of ''Die Freien'']]
[[Friedrich Engels]] commented on Stirner in poetry at the time of ''[[Die Freien]]'':
{{poem quote|Look at Stirner, look at him, the peaceful enemy of all constraint.
For the moment, he is still drinking beer,
Soon he will be drinking blood as though it were water.
When others cry savagely "down with the kings"
Stirner immediately supplements "down with the laws also."
Stirner full of dignity proclaims;
You bend your willpower and you dare to call yourselves free.
You become accustomed to slavery
Down with dogmatism, down with law.<ref>Henri Arvon, Aux sources de 1'existentialisme Max Stirner (Paris, 1954), p. 14.</ref>}}

Engels once even recalled at how they were "great friends" (''Duzbrüder'').<ref name="autogenerated2" /> In November 1844, Engels wrote a letter to [[Karl Marx]] in which he first reported a visit to Moses Hess in [[Cologne]] and then went on to note that during this visit Hess had given him a press copy of a new book by Stirner, ''The Ego and Its Own''. In his letter to Marx, Engels promised to send a copy of the book to him, for it certainly deserved their attention as Stirner "had obviously, among the 'Free Ones', the most talent, independence and diligence."<ref name="autogenerated2"/> To begin with, Engels was enthusiastic about the book and expressed his opinions freely in letters to Marx:
{{quote|But what is true in his principle, we, too, must accept. And what is true is that before we can be active in any cause we must make it our own, egoistic cause—and that in this sense, quite aside from any material expectations, we are communists in virtue of our egoism, that out of egoism we want to be human beings and not merely individuals.<ref>Zwischen 18 and 25, pp. 237–238.</ref>}}

Later, Marx and Engels wrote a major criticism of Stirner's work. The number of pages Marx and Engels devote to attacking Stirner in the unexpurgated text of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' exceeds the total of Stirner's written works.<ref>[http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max "Chapter ''Sankt Max'' in ''Die deutsche Ideologie''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929113759/http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max |date=29 September 2011 }}.</ref> In the book Stirner is derided as ''Sankt Max'' (Saint Max) and as ''Sancho'' (a reference to Cervantes’ [[Sancho Panza]]). As [[Isaiah Berlin]] has described it, Stirner "is pursued through five hundred pages of heavy-handed mockery and insult."<ref>I. Berlin, Karl Marx (New York, 1963), 143.</ref> The book was written in 1845–1846, but it was not published until 1932. Marx's lengthy ferocious [[polemic]] against Stirner has since been considered an important turning point in Marx's intellectual development from [[idealism]] to [[materialism]]. It has been argued that [[historical materialism]] was Marx's method of reconciling communism with a Stirnerite rejection of morality.<ref name="Lobkowicz 1970">{{cite book|last=Lobkowicz|first=Nicolas|year=1970|chapter-url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/KarlMarxAndMaxStirner.pdf|chapter=Karl Marx and Max Stirner|title=Demythologizing Marxism|edition=illustrated|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Springer Netherlands|isbn=9789024702121}}{{Dead link|date=July 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002">Stedman-Jones, Gareth (2002). "Introduction". In Engels, Friedrich; Marx, Karl. ''The Communist Manifesto'' (illustrated, reprinted, revised ed.). London: Penguin Adult. {{ISBN|9780140447576}}.</ref><ref name="Alexander">{{cite journal|last=Alexander|first=Green|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|title=Stirner & Marx – Max Stirner: A Biographical Sketch|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|issue=23|pages=5–42|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153640/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Possible influence on Friedrich Nietzsche ===
{{main|Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner}}
The ideas of Stirner and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] have often been compared and many authors have discussed apparent similarities in their writings, sometimes raising the question of influence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904; Robert Schellwien, ''Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1892; H.L. Mencken, ''The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1908; K. Löwith, From Hegel To Nietzsche New York, 1964, p. 187; R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37; T. A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in ''PMLA'', Vol. 62, No. 3, September 1947, pp. 828–843; Seth Taylor, ''Left Wing Nietzscheans, The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920'', p. 144, 1990, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York; Gilles Deleuze, ''Nietzsche et la Philosophy'', Presses Universitaires de France, 1962; R. C. Solomon and K. M. Higgins, ''The Age of German Idealism'', p. 300, Routledge, 1993.</ref> During the early years of Nietzsche's emergence as a well-known figure in Germany, the only thinker discussed in connection with his ideas more often than Stirner was [[Arthur Schopenhauer]].<ref>While discussion of possible influence has never ceased entirely, the period of most intense discussion occurred between 1892 and 1900 in the German-speaking world. During this time, the most comprehensive account of Nietzsche's reception in the German language, the 4-volume work of Richard Frank Krummel called ''Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist'', indicates 83 entries discussing Stirner and Nietzsche. The only thinker more frequently discussed in connection with Nietzsche during this time is Schopenhauer, with about twice the number of entries. Discussion steadily declines thereafter, but it is still significant. Nietzsche and Stirner show 58 entries between 1901 and 1918. From 1919 to 1945, there are 28 entries regarding Nietzsche and Stirner.</ref> It is certain that Nietzsche read about ''The Ego and Its Own'', which was mentioned in [[Friedrich Albert Lange|Friedrich Albert Lange's]] ''History of Materialism'' and [[Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann]]'s ''Philosophy of the Unconscious'', both of which Nietzsche knew well.<ref>"Apart from the information which can be gained from the annotations, the library (and the books Nietzsche read) shows us the extent, and the bias, of Nietzsche's knowledge of many fields, such as evolution and cosmology. Still more obvious, the library shows us the extent and the bias of Nietzsche's knowledge about many persons to whom he so often refers with ad hominem statements in his works. This includes not only such important figures as Mill, Kant, and Pascal but also such minor ones (for Nietzsche) as Max Stirner and William James who are both discussed in books Nietzsche read". T. H. Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library", 1885–1889, in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 663–693; Stack believes it is doubtful that Nietzsche read Stirner, but notes "he was familiar with the summary of his theory he found in Lange's history." George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 276.</ref> However, there is no indication that he actually read it as no mention of Stirner is known to exist anywhere in Nietzsche's publications, papers or correspondence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904.</ref> In 2002, a biographical discovery revealed it is probable that Nietzsche had encountered Stirner's ideas before he read Hartmann and Lange in October 1865, when he met with Eduard Mushacke, an old friend of Stirner's during the 1840s.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref>

As soon as Nietzsche's work began to reach a wider audience, the question of whether he owed a debt of influence to Stirner was raised. As early as 1891 when Nietzsche was still alive, though incapacitated by mental illness, Hartmann went so far as to suggest that he had plagiarized Stirner.<ref>Eduard von Hartmann, Nietzsches "neue Moral", in ''Preussische Jahrbücher'', 67. Jg., Heft 5, May 1891, S. 501–521; augmented version with more express reproach of plagiarism in: ''Ethische Studien'', Leipzig, Haacke 1898, pp. 34–69.</ref> By the turn of the century, the belief that Nietzsche had been influenced by Stirner was so widespread that it became something of a commonplace at least in Germany, prompting one observer to note in 1907 that "Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy."<ref>This author believes that one should be careful in comparing the two men. However, he notes: "It is this intensive nuance of individualism that appeared to point from Nietzsche to Max Stirner, the author of the remarkable work ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum''. Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy." O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 17, No. 4, July 1908, pp. 400–426.</ref>

From the beginning of what was characterized as "great debate"<ref>[in the last years of the nineteenth century] "The question of whether Nietzsche had read Stirner was the subject of great debate" R.A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 29–30.</ref> regarding Stirner's possible positive influence on Nietzsche, serious problems with the idea were nonetheless noted.<ref>Levy pointed out in 1904 that the similarities in the writing of the two men appeared superficial. Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904</ref> By the middle of the 20th century, if Stirner was mentioned at all in works on Nietzsche, the idea of influence was often dismissed outright or abandoned as unanswerable.<ref>R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37.</ref> However, the idea that Nietzsche was influenced in some way by Stirner continues to attract a significant minority, perhaps because it seems necessary to explain the oft-noted (though arguably superficial) similarities in their writings.<ref>"Stirner, like Nietzsche, who was clearly influenced by him, has been interpreted in many different ways," [[Saul Newman]], ''[[From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power]]'', Lexington Books, 2001, p. 56; "We do not even know for sure that Nietzsche had read Stirner. Yet, the similarities are too striking to be explained away." R. A. Samek, ''The Meta Phenomenon'', p. 70, New York, 1981; Tom Goyens, (referring to Stirner's book ''The Ego and His Own'') "The book influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, and even Marx and Engels devoted some attention to it." T. Goyens, ''[[Beer and Revolution|Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement In New York City]]'', p. 197, Illinois, 2007.</ref> In any case, the most significant problems with the theory of possible Stirner influence on Nietzsche are not limited to the difficulty in establishing whether the one man knew of or read the other. They also consist in determining if Stirner in particular might have been a meaningful influence on a man as widely read as Nietzsche.<ref>"We have every reason to suppose that Nietzsche had a profound knowledge of the Hegelian movement, from Hegel to Stirner himself. The philosophical learning of an author is not assessed by the number of quotations, nor by the always fanciful and conjectural check lists of libraries, but by the apologetic or polemical directions of his work itself." Gilles Deleuze (translated by Hugh Tomlinson), ''[[Nietzsche and Philosophy]]'', 1962 (2006 reprint, pp. 153–154).</ref>

=== Rudolf Steiner ===
The individualist anarchist orientation of [[Rudolf Steiner]]'s early philosophy—before he turned to [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]] around 1900—has strong parallels to and was admittedly influenced by Stirner's conception of the ego, for which Steiner claimed to have provided a philosophical foundation.<ref>Guido Giacomo Preparata, "Perishable Money in a Threefold Commonwealth: Rudolf Steiner and the Social Economics of an Anarchist Utopia". ''Review of Radical Economics'' 38/4 (Fall 2006). pp. 619–648.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Alterity]]
* [[Antihumanism]]
*[[Difference (philosophy)]]
*[[Différance]]
*[[Egoist anarchism]]
*[[Enlightened self-interest]]
*[[Hauntology]]
* [[Individualist anarchism in Europe]]
*[[Other (philosophy)]]
* [[Philosophy of Max Stirner]]
* [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== References ==
* Stirner, Max: ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'' (1845 [October 1844]). Stuttgart: Reclam-Verlag, 1972ff; English translation ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (1907), ed. David Leopold, Cambridge/ New York: CUP 1995.
* Stirner, Max: "Recensenten Stirners" (September 1845). In: ''Parerga, Kritiken, Repliken'', Bernd A. Laska, ed., Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag, 1986; English translation ''Stirner's Critics'' (abridged), see below.
* [http://www.panarchy.org/stirner/liberalism.html Max Stirner, Political Liberalism] (1845).

== Further reading ==
* Max Stirner's 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum' im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen deutschen Kritik. Eine Textauswahl (1844–1856). Hg. Kurt W. Fleming. Leipzig: Verlag Max-Stirner-Archiv 2001 ([http://www.max-stirner-archiv-leipzig.de/stirneriana.html#stirneriana20 Stirneriana]).
* Arena, Leonardo V., Note ai margini del nulla, ebook, 2013.
* Arvon, Henri, Aux Sources de l'existentialisme, Paris: P.U.F. 1954.
* Essbach, Wolfgang, Gegenzüge. Der Materialismus des Selbst. Eine Studie über die Kontroverse zwischen Max Stirner und Karl Marx. Frankfurt: Materialis 1982.
* {{cite journal|last1=Feiten|first1=Elmo|title=Would the Real Max Stirner Please Stand Up?|journal=Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies|date=2013|issue=1|url=https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/article/view/17141|issn=1923-5615}}
* Helms, Hans G, Die Ideologie der anonymen Gesellschaft. Max Stirner 'Einziger' und der Fortschritt des demokratischen Selbstbewusstseins vom Vormärz bis zur Bundesrepublik, Köln: Du Mont Schauberg, 1966.
* Koch, Andrew M., "Max Stirner: The Last Hegelian or the First Poststructuralist". In: Anarchist Studies, vol. 5 (1997) pp. 95–108.
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein dauerhafter Dissident. Eine Wirkungsgeschichte des Einzigen, Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 TOC, index]).
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein heimlicher Hit. Editionsgeschichte des "Einzigen". Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1994 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss1 abstract]).
* [[Peter Marshall (author)|Marshall, Peter H.]] "Max Stirner" in "[[Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism]] "(London: HarperCollins, 1992).
* Moggach, Douglas; De Ridder, Widukind, "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia,1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: Herzog, Lisa (ed.): Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents. Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 71–92 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=CdnRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT5&dq=hegel%27s+thought+in+europe&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=7Sg2VbOjFoTV7QbM8oFQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hegel%27s%20thought%20in%20europe&f=false Google Books]).
* [[Saul Newman|Newman, Saul]] (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 ([https://libcom.org/files/Newman_Max_Stirner.pdf#ss1 full book]).
* Newman, Saul, Power and Politics in Poststructural Thought. London and New York: Routledge 2005.
* Parvulescu, C. [https://www.academia.edu/38180363/The_Individualist_Anarchism_of_Early_Interwar_Germany "The Individualist Anarchist Discourse of Early Interwar Germany"]. Cluj University Press, 2018 (full book).
* Paterson, R. W. K., The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1971.
* Spiessens, Jeff. ''The Radicalism of Departure. A Reassessment of Max Stirner's Hegelianism'', Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018.
* {{cite journal|last1=Stepelevich|first1=Lawrence S.|author-link=Lawrence Stepelevich|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]]|volume=46|issue=4|pages=597–614|date=1985a|doi=10.2307/2709548|issn=0022-5037|jstor=2709548}}
* Stepelevich, Lawrence S., Ein Menschenleben. Hegel and Stirner". In: Moggach, Douglas (ed.): The New Hegelians. Philosophy and Politics in the Hegelian School. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 166–176.
* Welsh, John F. ''Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation.'' Lexington Books. 2010.
* {{cite encyclopedia|last=Wilkinson|first=Will|author-link=Will Wilkinson|editor-first=Ronald|editor-last=Hamowy|editor-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|chapter=Stirner, Max (1806–1856)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008|publisher=[[SAGE Publications|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]]|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n300|isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4|oclc=750831024|lccn= 2008009151|pages=493–494}}
* Di Mascio, Carlo, ''Stirner Giuspositivista. Rileggendo l'Unico e la sua proprietà'', 2 ed., Edizioni Del Faro, Trento, 2015, p. 253, {{ISBN|978-88-6537-378-1}}.

== External links ==
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{commons-inline}}

=== General ===
* {{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner}}, an extensive introduction
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160408143140/http://i-studies.com/ Svein Olav Nybergs website on Max Stirner], with extensive links to texts and references
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/en.html Max Stirner within the LSR project (English section)]
* [http://www.projektmaxstirner.de/project.htm Max Stirner Project] by H. Ibrahim Türkdogan
* [http://consciousegoism.6te.net/ Library of Egoism], an extensive depisitory of free books, essays and journals concerning egoism

=== Relationship with other philosophers ===
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident -- in a nutshell -- 'How Marx and Nietzsche suppressed their colleague Max Stirner and why he has intellectually survived them']
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03d.htm#c.1.5 ''Stirner Delighted in His Construction''] – "loves miracles, but can only perform a logical miracle", by Karl Marx
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Nietzsche's initial crisis] due to an encounter with Stirner's "The Ego", by Bernd A. Laska (2002)
* "At the End of the Path of Doubt: Max Stirner", By Lawrence S. Stepelevich (Owl of Minerva 41:1–2 (2009–2010) pp. 85–106)

=== Texts ===
* {{Gutenberg author|id=Stirner,+Max|name=Max Stirner}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Max Stirner}}
* {{Librivox author|id=2520}}
* [http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Stirner,+Max/Der+Einzige+und+sein+Eigentum Online book ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msee.html The complete original text in German of ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051217135357/http://tmh.floonet.net/teaho/theego0.html The complete English edition of "The Ego and his Own"], in the translation of Steven T. Byington.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110712234811/http://i-studies.com/library/articles/shorter.shtml Some of Stirner's illuminating "Shorter Essays"], translated into English
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161117035609/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/enrec.html Recensenten Stirners / Stirner's Critics] bilingual: full text in German / abridged text in English (trans. Frederick M. Gordon)
* [http://calpress.org/2013/08/04/stirners-critics-book-project/ Stirner's Critics by Max Stirner translated by Wolfi Landstreicher, with an introduction by Jason McQuinn] (2013 revision of the only full-text English translation of both "Stirner's Critics" and "The Philosophical Reactionaries" by Wolfi Landstreicher published by CAL Press)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=21 Archive of texts on Stirner at RevoltLib]

{{Stirner}}
{{anarchism}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stirner, Max}}
[[Category:Max Stirner| ]]
[[Category:1806 births]]
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[[Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers]]

Max Stirner

2021-08-30T15:17:02Z

Kurt1111S: Added Dora Marsden as a influenced author. She discusses Stirner and her differing interpretation from Tucker and Mackay repeatedly throughout The Egoist and The New Free Woman

{{short description|German philosopher}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| name = Max Stirner
| image = MaxStirner1.svg
| image_size = 150
| caption = Max Stirner as portrayed by [[Friedrich Engels]]
| birth_name = Johann Kaspar Schmidt
| birth_date = {{birth date|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Bayreuth]], [[Kingdom of Bavaria]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1856|6|26|1806|10|25|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Berlin]], [[Prussia]], [[German Confederation]]
| education = {{plainlist|
* {{interlanguage link multi|Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|de|3=Gymnasium Christian-Ernestinum|lt=Gymnasium illustre zu Bayreuth}}
* [[University of Berlin]] (no degree)
* [[University of Erlangen]] (no degree)
}}
| era = [[19th-century philosophy]]
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| school_tradition = {{plainlist|
* [[Continental philosophy]]
* [[Anti-foundationalism]]
* [[Nihilism#Cosmic nihilism|Cosmic nihilism]]<ref name="Crosby1998">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Crosby|first=Donald A.|title=Nihilism|year=1998|doi=10.4324/9780415249126-N037-1|encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy|publisher=Taylor and Francis|isbn=9780415250696|at=§ Cosmic nihilism}}</ref>
* [[Dialectical egoism]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism|first=John F.|last=Welsh|year=2010|publisher=Lexington Books}}</ref>
* [[Egoist anarchism]] (''post-mortem'')
* [[Nominalism]]<ref name="Crosby1998"/>
* [[Post-Hegelianism]]
* [[Young Hegelians]] (early)
}}
| main_interests = [[Egoism]], [[ethics]], [[ontology]], [[pedagogy]], [[philosophy of history]], [[philosophy of religion]], [[philosophy of education]],<ref>https://archive.org/details/sparrowsnest-10358/mode/2up The False Principle of our Education
by Stirner, Max; Publication date 1967</ref> [[property theory]], [[psychology]], [[value theory]], [[dialectic]]
| notable_ideas = {{plainlist|
* {{lang|de|Eigenheit}} ({{translation|ownness}})
* ''Man–I'' dialectic
* [[Philosophy of Max Stirner#Egoism|Stirnerian egoism]]
* [[Union of egoists]]
}}
| influences = {{flatlist|
* [[Epicurus]]
* [[Bruno Bauer|Bauer]]
* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]
* [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]]
* [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]]
* [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]]<ref>The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967.</ref>
* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon|Proudhon]]
* [[Marquis de Sade|Sade]]<ref>Iwan Bloch. ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ Der Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413035949/https://books.google.com/books/about/Der_Marquis_de_Sade_und_seine_Zeit.html?id=4y4JAAAAIAAJ |date=13 April 2021 }}''</ref>
* [[Adam Smith|Smith]]
* [[Yang Zhu|Yang]]<ref>Wolfi Landstreicher. ''[https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf The Unique and Its Property] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625040124/https://libcom.org/files/Stirner%20-%20The%20Unique%20and%20Its%20Property.pdf |date=25 June 2020 }}''</ref>
}}
| influenced = {{flatlist|
* [[Max Adler (Marxist)|Adler]]
* [[Émile Armand|Armand]]
* [[Enrico Arrigoni|Arrigoni]]
* [[Julius Bahnsen|Bahnsen]]<ref>[[Frederick C. Beiser|Beiser, Frederick C.]]. ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 233.</ref>
* [[Bob Black|Black]]
* [[Adolf Brand|Brand]]
* [[Ray Brassier|Brassier]]
* [[Steven T. Byington|Byington]]
* [[Albert Camus|Camus]]
* [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]]
* [[Julius Evola|Evola]]
* [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]
* [[Emma Goldman|Goldman]]
* [[Otto Gross|Gross]]<ref>Bernd A. Laska. ''[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html Otto Gross zwischen Max Stirner und Wilhelm Reich] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200111/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/gross.html |date=4 March 2016 }}'', In: Raimund Dehmlow and Gottfried Heuer, eds.: 3. Internationaler Otto-Gross-Kongress, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München. Marburg, 2003, pp. 125–162, {{ISBN|3-936134-06-5}} [http://literaturwissenschaft.de/ LiteraturWissenschaft.de] .</ref>
* [[Miguel Giménez Igualada|Igualada]]
* [[Ernst Jünger|Jünger]]
* [[Gustav Landauer|Landauer]]
* [[John Henry Mackay|Mackay]]
* [[Dora Marsden|Marsden]]
* [[Karl Marx|Marx]]
* [[H. L. Mencken|Mencken]]
* [[Erich Mühsam|Mühsam]]
* [[Saul Newman|Newman]]
* [[Renzo Novatore|Novatore]]
* [[Dmitry Pisarev|Pisarev]]
* [[Herbert Read|Read]]
* [[Wilhelm Reich|Reich]]
* [[Carl Schmitt|Schmitt]]
* [[Rudolf Steiner|Steiner]]
* [[Benjamin Tucker|Tucker]]
* [[Robert Anton Wilson|Wilson]]
* [[Raoul Vaneigem|Vaneigem]]<ref>Raoul Vaneigem. ''[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life The Revolution of Everyday Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516040629/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/raoul-vaneigem-the-revolution-of-everyday-life |date=16 May 2020 }}''.</ref>
}}
}}

'''Johann Kaspar Schmidt''' (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as '''Max Stirner''', was a German [[post-Hegelian]] philosopher, dealing mainly with the [[Hegelian]] notion of [[social alienation]] and [[self-consciousness]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Stepelevich|first=Lawrence|date=1985|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|url=https://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|journal=|access-date=2 October 2020|archive-date=27 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027162935/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/academia/StirnerAsHegelian.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]], [[psychoanalytic theory]], [[postmodernism]] and [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner">{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner|last=Leopold|first=David|date=4 August 2006}}</ref><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99">Goodway, David. [[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]. Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 99.</ref>

Stirner's main work ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' ({{lang-de|Der Einzige und sein Eigentum}}; meaningfully translated as ''The Individual and his Property'', literally as ''The Only One and His Property'') was first published in 1844 in [[Leipzig]] and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''A Ready Reference to Philosophy East and West''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230222119/https://books.google.com/books?id=34cjS0M1rFIC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=ysWNPk51wR&sig=v7xrZOygfQAYZ9l2QSHROmGumyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=30 December 2019 }}.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false ''Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229172353/https://books.google.com/books?id=rB0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22the+individual+and+his+property%22+stirner&source=bl&ots=UQyJnGjV3O&sig=PLocaJE6MPrd2bOmoLucxkPPHcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgLHUopLRAhXDSyYKHfsPCaQQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20individual%20and%20his%20property%22%20stirner&f=false |date=29 December 2019 }}.</ref>

== Biography ==
[[File:MaxStirner'sbirthplace.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Stirner's birthplace in Bayreuth]]
Stirner was born in [[Bayreuth]], [[Bavaria]]. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the 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 the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778–1839). His father died of [[tuberculosis]] on 19 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"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109232842/http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/bio/sein_leben/ |date=9 November 2016 }}. p. 28.</ref> In 1809, his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt (a [[pharmacist]]) and settled in [[West Prussia]]n Kulm (now [[Chełmno]], Poland). When Stirner turned 20, he attended the [[University of Berlin]],<ref name="seinleben"/> where he studied [[philology]], philosophy and theology. He attended the lectures of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 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> He attended Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of religion and the subjective spirit. Stirner then moved to the [[University of Erlangen]], which he attended at the same time as [[Ludwig Feuerbach]].{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985|p=602}}

Stirner returned to Berlin and obtained a teaching certificate, but he was unable to obtain a full-time teaching post from the Prussian government.<ref>{{cite book|last=Marshall|first=Peter|title=Demanding the Impossible|title-link=Demanding the Impossible|year=1992|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=0002178559|page=221}}</ref> While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called ''[[Die Freien]]'' (The Free Ones), whom historians have subsequently categorized as the [[Young Hegelians]]. Some of the best known names in 19th century literature and [[19th century philosophy|philosophy]] were involved with this group, including [[Karl Marx]], [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Bruno Bauer]] and [[Arnold Ruge]]. Contrary to [[List of common misconceptions|popular belief]], Feuerbach was not a member of ''Die Freien'', although he was heavily involved in Young Hegelian discourse.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} 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 group broke with Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.

Frequently the debates would take place at Hippel's, a [[wine bar]] in [[Friedrichstraße]], attended by among others Marx and Engels, who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the time. Stirner met with Engels many times and Engels even recalled that they were "great friends,"<ref name="autogenerated2">Lawrence L Stepelevich. ''The Revival of Max Stirner''.</ref> but it is still unclear whether Marx and Stirner ever met. It does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener.<ref>Gide, Charles and Rist, Charles. ''A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day''. Harrap 1956, p. 612.</ref> The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory at biographer Mackay's request. It is highly likely that this and the group sketch of ''Die Freien'' at Hippel's are the only firsthand images of Stirner. Stirner worked as a teacher in a school for young girls owned by Madame Gropius<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', vol. 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 Feuerbach and Bauer, but also against [[communists]] such as [[Wilhelm Weitling]] and the [[anarchist]] [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]. He resigned from his teaching position in anticipation of controversy from this work's publication in October 1844.

Stirner married twice. His first wife was Agnes Burtz (1815–1838), the daughter of his landlady, whom he married on 12 December 1837. However, she died from complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843, he married [[Marie Dähnhardt]], an intellectual associated with ''Die Freien''. Their ''[[ad hoc]]'' wedding took place at Stirner's apartment, during which the participants were notably [[Casual wear|dressed casually]], used copper rings as they had forgotten to buy [[wedding rings]], and needed to search the whole neighborhood for a [[Bible]] as they did not have their own. Using Marie's inheritance, Stirner opened a [[Dairy (store)|dairy shop]] that handled the distribution of [[milk]] from [[Dairy farming|dairy farmers]] into the city, but was unable to solicit the customers needed to keep the business afloat. It quickly failed and drove a wedge between him and Marie, leading to their separation in 1847.<ref>{{cite book|title=Anarchism in Germany. Volume I: The Early Movement|first=Andrew R.|last=Carlson|chapter=II: Max Stirner (1806-1856)|url=https://libcom.org/history/anarchism-germany-volume-1-early-movement-andrew-r-carlson|chapter-url=https://libcom.org/library/chapter-ii-max-stirner-1806-1856|pages=55–56|year=1972|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield|Scarecrow Press]]|location=[[Metuchen, New Jersey]]|isbn=0-8108-0484-0|oclc=490643062}}</ref> ''The Ego and Its Own'' was dedicated "to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt." Marie later converted to [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]] and died in 1902 in London.

After ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner wrote ''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.<ref name="SEP-Stirner" /> Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians present at his funeral,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stepelevich |first1=Lawrence S. |title=Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1978 |volume=39 |issue=3 |page=452 |doi=10.2307/2709388 |jstor=2709388 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/2709388 |access-date=1 July 2021 |issn=0022-5037 |quote=Only Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl represented the Young Hegelians at his funeral.}}</ref> held at the [[Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin]].

== Philosophy ==
{{main|Philosophy of Max Stirner}}
{{see also|Egoism|Egoist anarchism}}
Stirner, whose main philosophical work was ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'', is credited as a major influence in the development of [[nihilism]], [[existentialism]] and [[post-modernism]] as well as [[individualist anarchism]], [[post-anarchism]] and [[post-left anarchy]].<ref name="SEP-Stirner"/><ref name="Goodway, David 2006, p. 99"/> Although Stirner was opposed to [[communism]] for the same reasons he opposed [[capitalism]], [[humanism]], [[liberalism]], [[property rights]] and [[nationalism]], seeing them as forms of authority over the individual and as purveyors of ideologies he could not reconcile himself with, he has influenced many [[anarcho-communists]] and [[post-left anarchists]]. The writers of ''[[An Anarchist FAQ]]'' report that "many in the anarchist movement in Glasgow, Scotland, took Stirner's 'Union of egoists' literally as the basis for their [[anarcho-syndicalist]] organising in the 1940s and beyond." Similarly, the noted anarchist historian [[Max Nettlau]] states that "[o]n reading Stirner, I maintain that he cannot be interpreted except in a socialist sense." Stirner was [[anti-capitalist]] and [[pro-labour]], attacking "the division of labour resulting from private property for its deadening effects on the ego and individuality of the worker" and writing that free competition "is not 'free,' because I lack the things for competition. [...] Under the regime of the commonality the labourers always fall into the hands of the possessors of the capitalists [...]. The labourer cannot realise on his labour to the extent of the value that it has for the customer. [...] The state rests on the slavery of labour. If labour becomes free, the state is lost."<ref name="McKay 2012">{{cite book|editor-last=McKay|editor-first=Iain|year=2012|chapter=What are the ideas of Max Stirner?|title=An Anarchist FAQ|volume=II|location=Stirling|publisher=AK Press|isbn=9781849351225}}</ref> For Stirner, "Labor has an egoistic character; the laborer is the egoist."<ref name="Paul 1975">Thomas, Paul (May 1975). "Karl Marx and Max Stirner". ''Political Theory''. Sage Publications. '''3''' (2): 159–179. {{jstor|190930}}.</ref>

Stirner did not personally oppose the struggles carried out by certain ideologies, such as [[socialism]], [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s humanism or the advocacy of [[human rights]]. Rather, he opposed their legal and ideal abstractness, a fact that made him different from the [[liberal individualists]], including the [[anarcho-capitalists]] and [[right-libertarians]], but also from the ''[[Übermensch]]'' theories of [[fascism]], as he placed the individual and not the sacred collective at the center. About socialism, Stirner wrote in a letter to [[Moses Hess]] that "I am not at all against socialism, but against consecrated socialism; my selfishness is not opposed to love [...] nor is it an enemy of sacrifice, nor of self-denial [...] and least of all of socialism [...] —in short, it is not an enemy of true interests; it rebels not against love, but against sacred love, not against thought, but against sacred thought, not against socialists, but against sacred socialism."<ref>Roudine, Victor. ''The Workers Struggle According to Max Stirner''. p. 12.</ref>

=== Egoism ===
{{individualism sidebar}}
Stirner's [[Egoist anarchism|egoism]] is purely descriptive and is an attempt to surpass the very idea of ''ought'' itself. To try to fit Stirner into the contemporary mindset misses the point. Stirner argues that individuals are impossible to fully comprehend. All mere concepts of the self will always be inadequate to fully describe the nature of our experience. Stirner has been broadly understood as descriptive of both [[psychological egoism]] and [[rational egoism]]. Hence, this self-interest is necessarily subjective, allowing both selfish and altruistic normative claims to be included, although he wrote that "my selfishness is not opposed to love [...] nor is it an enemy of sacrifice, nor of self-denial."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

This self-interest is also unlike "the narrow and self-defeating 'egoism' of, say, Ayn Rand" as Stirner "did not prescribe what was and was not in a person's self-interest. He did not say you should act in certain ways because he preferred it, he did not redefine selfishness to allow most of bourgeois morality to remain intact. Rather he urged the individual to think for themselves and seek their own path. Not for Stirner the grim 'egoism' of 'selfishly' living a life determined by some guru and which only that authority figure would approve of. True egoism is not parroting what Stirner wrote and agreeing with everything he expounded. Nothing could be more foreign to Stirner's work than to invent 'Stirnerism.'"<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In this sense, Donald Rooum, who combined Stirner and [[anarcho-communism]], wrote that "I am happy to be called a Stirnerite anarchist, provided 'Stirnerite' means one who agrees with Stirner's general drift, not one who agrees with Stirner's every word. Please judge my arguments on their merits, not on the merits of Stirner's arguments, and not by the test of whether I conform to Stirner."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

Individual self-realization rests on each individual's desire to fulfill his egoism. The difference between an unwilling and a willing egoist is that the former will be possessed by an "empty idea" and believe that he is fulfilling a higher cause, while usually unaware that he is only fulfilling his own desires to be happy or secure. In contrast, the latter will be a person that is able to freely choose his actions, fully aware that he is only fulfilling individual desires as stated by Stirner:<ref name="McKay 2012"/>
{{quote|Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself, the ''involuntary egoist'' [...] in short, for the egoist who would like not to be an egoist, and abases himself (combats his egoism), but at the same time abases himself only for the sake of "being exalted" and therefore of gratifying his egoism. Because he would like to cease to be an egoist, he looks about in heaven and earth for higher beings to serve and sacrifice himself to; but, however much he shakes and disciplines himself, in the end he does all for his own sake [...] [on] this account I call him the involuntary egoist. [...] As you are each instant, you are your own creature in this very 'creature' you do not wish to lose yourself, the creator. You are yourself a higher being than you are, and surpass yourself. [...] [J]ust this, as an involuntary egoist, you fail to recognize; and therefore the 'higher essence' is to you—an alien essence. [...] Alienness is a criterion of the "sacred."<ref>Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'' (Cambridge ed.). pp. 37–38.</ref>}}

The contrast is also expressed in terms of the difference between the voluntary egoist being the possessor of his concepts as opposed to being possessed. Only when one realizes that all sacred truths such as [[law]], [[Rights|right]], [[morality]], [[religion]] and so on are nothing other than artificial concepts—and not to be obeyed—can one act freely. For Stirner, to be free is to be both one's own "creature" (in the sense of creation) and one's own "creator" (dislocating the traditional role assigned to the gods). To Stirner, power is the method of egoism—it is the only justified method of gaining [[Property (philosophy)|property]] in the philosophical sense. According to the authors of ''[[An Anarchist FAQ]]'', Stirner rejects the claim of "modern-day 'libertarian' capitalists, who regard 'profit' as the key to 'selfishness'" and argue that Stirner "has nothing but contempt" for it because "'greed' is just one part of the ego, and to spend one's life pursuing only that part is to deny all other parts. Stirner called such pursuit 'self-sacrificing,' or a 'one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism,' which leads to the ego being possessed by one aspect of itself." The writers quote Stirner as saying "he who ventures everything else for one thing, one object, one will, one passion [...] He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> Similarly, Stirner "had nothing but contempt for those who defended property in terms of 'natural rights' and opposed theft and taxation with a passion because it violates said rights." Stirner was also "well aware that inequality was only possible as long as the masses were convinced of the sacredness of property. In this way, the majority end up without property." Therefore, Stirner urges insurrection against all forms of authority and disrespect for property.<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

=== Anarchism ===
[[File:Benjamin_R_Tucker.jpg|thumb|180px|Three pioneers of individualist anarchism]] Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of [[State (polity)|state]], [[Property#Property in philosophy|property as a right]], [[natural rights]] in general and the very notion of [[society]]—were mere illusions, "spooks" or ghosts in the mind.<ref>Heider, Ulrike. ''Anarchism: Left, Right and Green'', San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95–96.</ref> He advocated egoism and a form of [[amoralism]] in which individuals would unite in [[Union of egoists|Unions of egoists]] only when it was in their self-interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might, saying: "Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him belongs [property]. [...] What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." He adds that "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!"<ref name="Stirner, Max p. 248">Stirner, Max. ''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 248.</ref> Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint and that rights do not exist in regard to objects and people at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality."<ref name="Moggach, Douglas p. 194">Moggach, Douglas. ''The New Hegelians''. Cambridge University Press, 2006 p. 194.</ref>

Despite being labeled as anarchist, Stirner was not necessarily one. Separation of Stirner and egoism from anarchism was first done in 1914 by [[Dora Marsden]] in her debate with [[Benjamin Tucker]] in her journals ''The New Freewoman'' and ''The Egoist''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|title=Dora Marsden & Benjamin R. Tucker – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180445/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/dora-marsden-benjamin-r-tucker/|url-status=live}}</ref> The idea of egoist anarchism was also expounded by various other egoists, mainly [[Malfew Seklew]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|title=The Gospel According to Malfew Seklew|access-date=13 December 2019|archive-date=13 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191213073901/https://dilpicklepress.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/the-gospel-according-to-malfew-seklew-ver-2.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sidney E. Parker]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|title=Archists, Anarchists and Egoists – Sidney E. Parker Archives|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128180444/http://www.sidparker.com/essays/archists-anarchists-and-egoists/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Communism ====
The Anarchist FAQ Collective writes that "[w]hile some may object to our attempt to place egoism and communism together, it is worth pointing out that Stirner rejected 'communism'. Quite! Stirner did not subscribe to libertarian communism, because it did not exist when he was writing and so he was directing his critique against the various forms of state communism which did. Moreover, this does not mean that anarcho-communists and others may not find his work of use to them. And Stirner would have approved, for nothing could be more foreign to his ideas than to limit what an individual considers to be in their best interest."<ref name="McKay 2012"/> In summarizing Stirner's main arguments, the writers "indicate why social anarchists have been, and should be, interested in his ideas, saying that, John P. Clark presents a sympathetic and useful social anarchist critique of his work in ''Max Stirner's Egoism''."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

[[Daniel Guérin]] wrote that "Stirner accepted many of the premises of communism but with the following qualification: the profession of communist faith is a first step toward total emancipation of the victims of our society, but they will become completely 'disalienated,' and truly able to develop their individuality, only by advancing beyond communism."<ref>Guérin, Daniel (1970). ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''. Monthly Review Press. pp. 70–71. {{ISBN|9780853451280}}.</ref>

==== Revolution ====
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of [[revolution]], arguing that [[social movement]]s aimed at overturning established ideals are tacitly idealist because they are implicitly aimed at the establishment of a new ideal thereafter. Nonetheless, Stirner recognizes "the importance of self-liberation and the way that authority often exists purely through its acceptance by the governed."<ref name="McKay 2012"/>

==== Union of egoists ====
{{main|Union of egoists}}
Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in ''The Ego and Its Own''. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the [[Sovereign state|state]].<ref name=karl>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Paul|title=Karl Marx and the Anarchists|publisher=[[Routledge]]/[[Kegan Paul]]|location=London|year=1985|isbn=0-7102-0685-2|page=142}}</ref> Unlike a "community" in which individuals are obliged to participate, Stirner's suggested Union would be voluntary and instrumental under which individuals would freely associate insofar as others within the Union remain useful to each constituent individual.<ref name=Cohn>{{Cite journal |last1=Cohn |first1=Jesse |title=What is Postanarchism 'Post'? |journal=[[Postmodern Culture]] |volume=13 |issue=1 |date=September 2002 |url=http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |language=en |doi=10.1353/pmc.2002.0028 |s2cid=145475500 |issn=1053-1920 |via=[[Project MUSE]] |access-date=2 December 2018 |archive-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925231231/http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.902/13.1cohn.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Union relation between egoists is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will.<ref name="nonserviam">{{cite journal|url=http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf#page=13|title=The union of egoists|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|first=Svein Olav|last=Nyberg|pages=13–14|location=Oslo, Norway|oclc=47758413|access-date=1 September 2012|publisher=Svein Olav Nyberg|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207042220/http://i-studies.com/journal/n/pdf/nsi-17.pdf|archive-date=7 December 2010}}</ref> Some such as Svein Olav Nyberg argue that the Union requires that all parties participate out of a [[Selfishness|conscious egoism]] while others such as [[Sidney Parker (anarchist)|Sydney E. Parker]] regard the union as a "change of attitude," rejecting its previous conception as an institution.<ref>{{cite web|title=Non Serviam, No. 18, page 6, "Union of Egoists - Comment" by S.E. Parker.|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153648/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/18.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Response to Hegelianism ===
[[File:Stirner02.jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Max Stirner taken from a sketch by [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820–1895) of the meetings of ''[[Die Freien]]'']]
Scholar [[Lawrence Stepelevich]] states that [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]] was a major influence on ''The Ego and Its Own''. While the latter has an "un-Hegelian structure and tone" on the whole and is hostile to Hegel's conclusions about the self and the world, Stepelevich states that Stirner's work is best understood as answering Hegel's question of the role of consciousness after it has contemplated "untrue knowledge" and become "absolute knowledge." Stepelevich concludes that Stirner presents the consequences of the rediscovering one's self-consciousness after realizing self-determination.{{sfn|Stepelevich|1985}}

Scholars such as [[Douglas Moggach]] and Widukind De Ridder have stated that Stirner was obviously a student of Hegel, like his contemporaries [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] and [[Bruno Bauer]], but this does not necessarily make him an Hegelian. Contrary to the Young Hegelians, Stirner scorned all attempts at an immanent critique of Hegel and the Enlightenment and renounced Bauer and Feuerbach's emancipatory claims as well. Contrary to Hegel, who considered the given as an inadequate embodiment of rational, Stirner leaves the given intact by considering it a mere object, not of transformation, but of enjoyment and consumption ("His Own").<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83">Moggach, Douglas and De Ridder, Widukind. "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 82–83.</ref>

According to Moggach, Stirner does not go beyond Hegel, but he in fact leaves the domain of philosophy in its entirety, stating:
{{quote|Stirner refused to conceptualize the human self, and rendered it devoid of any reference to rationality or universal standards. The self was moreover considered a field of action, a "never-being I." The "I" had no essence to realize and life itself was a process of self-dissolution. Far from accepting, like the humanist Hegelians, a construal of subjectivity endowed with a universal and ethical mission, Stirner's notion of "the Unique" (''Der Einzige'') distances itself from any conceptualization whatsoever: "There is no development of the concept of the Unique. No philosophical system can be built out of it, as it can out of Being, or Thinking, or the I. Rather, with it, all development of the concept ceases. The person who views it as a principle thinks that he can treat it philosophically or theoretically and necessarily wastes his breath arguing against it."<ref>"Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia, 1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought.", In: ''Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents'', ed. Lisa Herzog (pp. 71–92). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 75.</ref>}}

== Works ==
=== ''The False Principle of Our Education'' ===
{{main|The False Principle of Our Education}}
In 1842, ''[[The False Principle of Our Education]]'' (''Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung'') was published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'', which was edited by Marx at the time.<ref>''Encyclopaedia of Philosophy'' (1967). The Macmillan Company and The Free Press: New York.</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 therefore fulfilled in aiding the individual in becoming an individual.

=== ''Art and Religion'' ===
''Art and Religion'' (''Kunst und Religion'') was also published in ''[[Rheinische Zeitung]]'' on 14 June 1842. It addresses Bruno Bauer and his publication against Hegel called ''Hegel's Doctrine of Religion and Art Judged From the Standpoint of Faith''. Bauer had inverted Hegel's relation between "Art" and "Religion" by claiming that "Art" was much more closely related to "Philosophy" than to "Religion", based on their shared determinacy and clarity, and a common ethical root. However, Stirner went beyond both Hegel and Bauer's criticism by asserting that "Art" rather created an object for "Religion" and could thus by no means be related to what Stirner considered—in opposition with Hegel and Bauer—to be "Philosophy", stating:
{{quote|[Philosophy] neither stands opposed to an Object, as Religion, nor makes one, as Art, but rather places its pulverizing hand upon all the business of making Objects as well as the whole of objectivity itself, and so breathes the air of freedom. Reason, the spirit of Philosophy, concerns itself only with itself, and troubles itself over no Object.<ref>''Art and Religion'', p. 110.</ref>}}

Stirner deliberately left "Philosophy" out of the dialectical triad (Art–Religion–Philosophy) by claiming that "Philosophy" does not "bother itself with objects" (Religion), nor does it "make an object" (Art). In Stirner's account, "Philosophy" was in fact indifferent towards both "Art" and "Religion." Stirner thus mocked and radicalised Bauer's criticism of religion.<ref name="Moggach, Douglas & De Ridder, Widukind pp. 82–83"/>

=== ''The Ego and Its Own'' ===
{{main|The Ego and Its Own}}
Stirner's main work ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'') appeared in [[Leipzig]] in October 1844, with as year of publication mentioned 1845. In ''The Ego And Its Own'', Stirner launches a radical [[anti-authoritarian]] and [[individualist]] critique of contemporary [[Prussia]]n society and modern western society as such. He offers an approach to human existence in which he depicts himself as "the unique one", a "creative nothing", beyond the ability of language to fully express, stating that "[i]f I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me".<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 324.</ref>

The book proclaims that all religions and ideologies rest on empty concepts. The same holds true for society's institutions that claim authority over the individual, be it the state, legislation, the church, or the systems of education such as universities. Stirner's argument explores and extends the limits of criticism, aiming his critique especially at those of his contemporaries, particularly Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, also at popular ideologies, including [[communism]], [[humanism]] (which he regarded as analogous to religion with the abstract Man or humanity as the supreme being), [[liberalism]], and [[nationalism]] as well as [[capitalism]], [[religion]] and [[statism]], arguing:
{{quote|In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies – an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.<ref>''The Ego and Its Own'', p. 17.</ref>}}

=== ''Stirner's Critics'' ===
[[File:Portrait of Max Stirner.svg|thumb|Portrait of Max Stirner]]
''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners'') was published in September 1845 in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''. It is a response in which Stirner refers to himself in the third-person to three critical reviews of ''The Ego and its Own'' by [[Moses Hess]] in ''Die letzten Philosophen'' (''The Last Philosophers''), by a certain Szeliga (alias of an adherent of [[Bruno Bauer]]) in an article in the journal ''Norddeutsche Blätter'', and by [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] anonymously in an article called ''On 'The Essence of Christianity' in Relation to Stirner's 'The Ego and its Own''' (''Über 'Das Wesen des Christentums' in Beziehung auf Stirners 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum{{'}}'') in ''Wigands Vierteljahrsschrift''.

=== ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' ===
''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' (''Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'') was published in 1847 in ''Die Epigonen'', a journal edited by Otto Wigand from Leipzig. At the time, Wigand had already published ''The Ego and Its Own'' and was about to finish the publication of Stirner's translations of [[Adam Smith]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]. As the subtitle indicates, ''The Philosophical Reactionaries'' was written in response to a 1847 article by [[Kuno Fischer]] (1824–1907) entitled ''The Modern Soliphist'' (''Die Moderne Sophisten''). The article was signed G. Edward and its authorship has been disputed ever since John Henry Mackay "cautiously" attributed it to Stirner and included it in his collection of Stirner's lesser writings. It was first translated into English in 2011 by [[Saul Newman]] and the introductory note explains:
{{quote|Mackay based his attribution of this text to Stirner on Kuno Fischer's subsequent reply to it, in which the latter, 'with such determination', identified G. Edward as Max Stirner. The article was entitled 'Ein Apologet der Sophistik und "ein Philosophischer Reactionäre"' and was published alongside 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. Moreover, it seems rather odd that Otto Wigand would have published 'Edward's' piece back- to-back with an article that falsely attributed it to one of his personal associates at the time. And, indeed, as Mackay went on to argue, Stirner never refuted this attribution. This remains, however, a slim basis on which to firmly identify Stirner as the author. This circumstantial evidence has led some scholars to cast doubts over Stirner's authorship, based on both the style and content of 'Die Philosophischen Reactionäre'. One should, however, bear in mind that it was written almost three years after ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'', at a time when Young Hegelianism had withered away.<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 90 (2011).</ref>}}

The majority of the text deals with Kuno Fischer's definition of sophism. With much wit, the self-contradictory nature of Fischer's criticism of sophism is exposed. Fischer had made a sharp distinction between sophism and philosophy while at the same time considering it as the "mirror image of philosophy". The sophists breathe "philosophical air" and were "dialectically inspired to a formal volubility". Stirner's answer is striking:
{{quote|Have you philosophers really no clue that you have been beaten with your own weapons? Only one clue. What can your common sense reply when I dissolve dialectically what you have merely posited dialectically? You have showed me with what kind of 'volubility' one can turn everything to nothing and nothing to everything, black into white and white into black. What do you have against me, when I return to you your pure art?<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 99 (2011).</ref>}}

Looking back on ''The Ego and Its Own'', Stirner claims that "Stirner himself has described his book as, in part, a clumsy expression of what he wanted to say. It is the arduous work of the best years of his life, and yet he calls it, in part, 'clumsy'. That is how hard he struggled with a language that was ruined by philosophers, abused by state-, religious- and other believers, and enabled a boundless confusion of ideas".<ref>"The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer", ''Newman, Saul (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 104 (2011).</ref>

=== ''History of Reaction'' ===
''History of Reaction'' (''Geschichte der Reaktion'') 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 [[revolutions of 1848 in the German states|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, who answered the criticism in a German periodical in the September 1845 article ''Stirner's Critics'' (''Recensenten Stirners''), which clarifies several points of interest to readers of the book—especially in relation to Feuerbach.

While Marx's ''Saint Max'' (''Sankt Max''), a large part of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' (''Die Deutsche Ideologie''), was not published until 1932 and thus assured ''The Ego and Its Own'' a place of curious interest among [[Marxist]] readers, Marx's ridicule of Stirner has played a significant role in the preservation of Stirner's work in popular and academic discourse despite lacking mainstream popularity.<ref name="Paul 1975"/><ref name="Lobkowicz 1970"/><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002"/><ref name="Alexander"/>

=== Comments by contemporaries ===
Twenty years after the appearance of Stirner's book, the author [[Friedrich Albert Lange]] wrote the following:
{{quote|Stirner went so far in his notorious work, 'Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum' (1845), as to reject all moral ideas. Everything that in any way, whether it be external force, belief, or mere idea, places itself above the individual and his caprice, Stirner rejects as a hateful limitation of himself. What a pity that to this book – the extremest that we know anywhere – a second positive part was not added. It would have been easier than in the case of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Schelling]]'s philosophy; for out of the unlimited Ego I can again beget every kind of [[Idealism]] as ''my'' [[Will (philosophy)|will]] and ''my'' [[idea]]. Stirner lays so much stress upon the will, in fact, that it appears as the root force of human nature. It may remind us of [[Schopenhauer]].<ref>''[[History of Materialism]]'', ii. 256 (1865).</ref>}}

Some people believe that in a sense a "second positive part" was soon to be added, though not by Stirner, but by [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. The [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner|relationship between Nietzsche and Stirner]] seems to be much more complicated.<ref>See [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, Fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref> According to George J. Stack's ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Nietzsche read Lange's ''History of Materialism'' "again and again" and was therefore very familiar with the passage regarding Stirner.<ref>George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1983, p. 12, {{ISBN|978-3-11-008866-3}}.</ref>

== Influence ==
While ''Der Einzige'' was a critical success and attracted much reaction from famous philosophers after publication, it was out of print and the notoriety that it had provoked had faded many years before Stirner's death.<ref name=sep>{{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner |title=Max Stirner}}</ref> Stirner had a destructive impact on [[left-Hegelianism]], but [[Philosophy of Max Stirner|his philosophy]] was a significant influence on Marx and his magnum opus became a founding text of [[individualist anarchism]].<ref name=sep/> [[Edmund Husserl]] once warned a small audience about the "seducing power" of ''Der Einzige'', but he never mentioned it in his writing.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident – in a nutshell"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060518155939/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html |date=18 May 2006 }}.</ref> As the art critic and Stirner admirer [[Herbert Read]] observed, the book has remained "stuck in the gizzard" of Western culture since it first appeared.<ref>Quoted in Read's book, "The Contrary Experience", Faber and Faber, 1963.</ref>

Many thinkers have read and been affected by ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' in their youth including [[Rudolf Steiner]], [[Gustav Landauer]], [[Victor Serge]],<ref>See Memoirs of a revolutionary, 1901–1941 by Victor Serge. Publisher Oxford U.P., 1967.</ref> [[Carl Schmitt]] and [[Jürgen Habermas]]. Few openly admit any influence on their own thinking.<ref>See Bernd A. Laska: ''Ein dauerhafter Dissident.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> [[Ernst Jünger]]'s book ''[[Eumeswil]]'', had the character of the [[Anarch (sovereign individual)|Anarch]], based on Stirner's Einzige.<ref>Bernd A. Laska: ''Katechon und Anarch.'' Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1997 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228034538/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss3 |date=28 February 2008 }}).</ref> Several other authors, philosophers and artists have cited, quoted or otherwise referred to Max Stirner. They include [[Albert Camus]] in ''[[The Rebel (book)|The Rebel]]'' (the section on Stirner is omitted from the majority of English editions including [[Penguin books|Penguin]]'s), [[Benjamin Tucker]], [[James Huneker]],<ref>Huneker's book ''Egoists, a Book of Supermen'' (1909)contains an essay on Stirner.</ref> [[Dora Marsden]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[Emma Goldman]],<ref>See Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, p. 50.</ref> [[Georg Brandes]], [[John Cowper Powys]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=A. N.|date=1 November 2004|title=World of books|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/01/do0106.xml|url-status=dead|access-date=12 May 2010|archive-date=20 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220062510/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/}}</ref> [[Martin Buber]],<ref>''Between Man and Man'' by Martin Buber, Beacon Press, 1955.</ref> [[Sidney Hook]],<ref>From Hegel to Marx by Sidney Hook, London, 1936.</ref> [[Robert Anton Wilson]], [[Horst Matthai Quelle|Horst Matthai]], [[Enrico Arrigoni|Frank Brand]], [[Marcel Duchamp]], several writers of the [[Situationist International]] including [[Raoul Vaneigem]]<ref>"The long revolution is preparing to write works in the ink of action whose unknown or nameless authors will flock to join Sade, Fourier, Babeuf, Marx, Lacenaire, Stirner, Lautréamont, L'hautier, Vaillant, Henry, Villa, Zapata, Makhno, the Communards, the insurrectionaries of Hamburg, Kiel, Kronstadt, Asturias – all those who have not yet played their last card in a game which we have only just joined: the great gamble whose stake is freedom". [[Raoul Vaneigem]]. ''[[The Revolution of Everyday Life]]''.</ref> and [[Max Ernst]]. [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Soul of Man Under Socialism]]'' has caused some historians to speculate that Wilde (who could read German) was familiar with the book.<ref>[[David Goodway]], ''[[Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow]]'', Liverpool University Press, 2006. p. 75.</ref>

Since its appearance in 1844, ''The Ego and Its Own'' has seen periodic revivals of popular, political and academic interest based around widely divergent translations and interpretations—some psychological, others political in their emphasis. Today, many ideas associated with [[post-left anarchy]]'s criticism of ideology and uncompromising [[individualism]] are clearly related to Stirner's. His ideas were also adopted by [[post-anarchism]], with [[Saul Newman]] largely in agreement with much of Stirner's criticism of [[classical anarchism]], including his rejection of revolution and [[essentialism]].

=== Anarchist movement ===
{{anarchism sidebar|people}}
{{main|Egoist anarchism|Individualist anarchism}}
Stirner's philosophy was important in the development of modern anarchist thought, particularly [[individualist anarchism]] and [[egoist anarchism]]. Although Stirner is usually associated with [[individualist anarchism]], he was influential to many [[social anarchism|social anarchists]] such as [[anarcha-feminist]]s [[Emma Goldman]] and [[Federica Montseny]]. In [[European individualist anarchism]], he influenced its major proponents after him such as [[Émile Armand]], [[Han Ryner]], [[Renzo Novatore]], [[John Henry Mackay]], [[Miguel Giménez Igualada]] and [[Lev Chernyi]].

In [[American individualist anarchism]], he found adherence in [[Benjamin Tucker]] and his magazine ''[[Liberty (1881–1908)|Liberty]]'' while these abandoned [[natural right]]s positions for egoism.<ref name="mcelroy">"Only the influence of the German philosopher of egoism, Max Stirner (né Johann Kaspar Schmidt, 1806–1856), as expressed through The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum) compared with that of Proudhon. In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886), Tucker rejected natural rights which had long been considered the foundation of libertarianism. This rejection galvanized the movement into fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself. So bitter was the conflict that a number of natural rights proponents withdrew from the pages of Liberty in protest even though they had hitherto been among its frequent contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed egoism although its general content did not change significantly". Wendy Mcelroy. [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 "Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, & Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524105129/http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1300&layout=html#chapter_100896 |date=24 May 2011 }}.</ref> Several periodicals "were undoubtedly influenced by ''Liberty'''s presentation of egoism". They included ''I'', published by [[Clarence Lee Swartz]] and edited by [[William Walstein Gordak]] and [[J. William Lloyd]] (all associates of ''Liberty''); and ''The Ego and The Egoist'', both of which were edited by [[Edward H. Fulton]]. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed, there were the German ''[[Der Eigene]]'', edited by [[Adolf Brand]]; and ''The Eagle and The Serpent'', issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle ''A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology''.<ref name="mcelroy"/> Other American egoist anarchists around the early 20th century include [[James L. Walker]], [[George Schumm]], [[John Beverley Robinson (anarchist)|John Beverley Robinson]], [[Steven T. Byington]].<ref name="mcelroy"/>

In the United Kingdom, [[Herbert Read]] was influenced by Stirner and noted the closeness of Stirner's egoism to [[existentialism]] (see [[existentialist anarchism]]). Later in the 1960s, [[Daniel Guérin]] says in ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice'' that Stirner "rehabilitated the individual at a time when the philosophical field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism and most reformers in the social field had been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism to stress its opposite" and pointed to "the boldness and scope of his thought".<ref name="Guerin">[[Daniel Guérin]],''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''</ref> In the 1970s, an American [[Situationist International|Situationist]] collective called For Ourselves published a book called ''[[The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything]]'' in which they advocate a "communist egoism" basing themselves on Stirner.<ref>[http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything "Four Ourselves, The Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622062115/http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything|date=22 June 2013}}</ref>

Later in the United States, it emerged the tendency of [[post-left anarchy]] which was influenced profoundly by Stirner in aspects such as the critique of ideology. [[Jason McQuinn]] says that "when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist philosophy of Max Stirner".<ref name="Cuchuflito">"What is Ideology?" by [[Jason McQuinn]].</ref> [[Bob Black]] and Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. In the hybrid of [[post-structuralism]] and anarchism called [[post-anarchism]], [[Saul Newman]] has written on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism. [[Insurrectionary anarchism]] also has an important relationship with Stirner as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher and [[Alfredo Bonanno]] who has also written on him in works such as ''Max Stirner'' and ''Max Stirner and Anarchism''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bonanno |first1=Alfredo M. |title=Max Stirner und der Anarchismus |date=1996 |publisher=Anares |location=Bern |isbn=3-905052-61-X }}</ref>

==== Free love, homosexuals and feminists ====
{{See also|Anarchism and issues related to love and sex}}
German Stirnerist [[Adolf Brand]] produced the homosexual periodical ''[[Der Eigene]]'' in 1896. This was the first ongoing homosexual publication in the world<ref>[[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]] had begun a journal called ''Prometheus'' in 1870, but only one issue was published. Kennedy, Hubert, ''Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality'', In: 'Science and Homosexualities', ed. Vernon Rosario. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 26–45.</ref> and ran until 1931. The name was taken from the writings of Stirner (who had greatly influenced the young Brand) and refers to Stirner's concept of "[[self-ownership]]" of the individual. Another early homosexual activist influenced by Stirner was [[John Henry Mackay]]. Feminists influenced by Stirner include [[Dora Marsden]] who edited the journals ''[[The Freewoman]]'' and ''[[The New Freewoman]]'' and anarchist [[Emma Goldman]]. Stirner also influenced [[free love]] and [[polyamory]] propagandist [[Émile Armand]] in the context of [[Individualist anarchism in Europe#France|French individualist anarchism]] of the early 20th century which is known for "[t]he call of nudist [[naturism]], the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of "[[union of egoists|unions of egoists]]" with the sole justification of sexual practices".<ref name="frenchexperimentation">Xavier Diez. [http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 "La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista español durante la dictadura y la Segunda República"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220143610/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2044944 |date=20 December 2019 }}.</ref>

==== Post-structuralism ====
{{see also|Post-anarchism|Post-structuralism}}
In his book ''[[Specters of Marx]]'', influential French poststructuralist thinker [[Jacques Derrida]] dealt with Stirner and his relationship with Marx while also analysing Stirner's concept of "specters" or "spooks".<ref>[[Jacques Derrida]]. ''[[Specters of Marx]]''. Routledge. 1994.</ref> [[Gilles Deleuze]], another key thinker associated with post-structuralism, mentions Stirner briefly in his book ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''.<ref>"Human or divine, as Stirner said, the predicates are the same whether they belong analytically to the divine being, or whether they are synthetically bound to the human form" (Gilles Deleuze. ''[[The Logic of Sense]]''. Continuum. 2004). p. 122.</ref> [[Saul Newman]] calls Stirner a proto-[[Post-structuralism|poststructuralist]] who on the one hand had essentially anticipated modern post-structuralists such as [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]], Deleuze and Derrida, but on the other had already transcended them, thus providing what they were unable to—i.e. a ground for a [[non-essentialist]] critique of present liberal capitalist society. This is particularly evident in Stirner's identification of the self with a "creative nothing", a thing that cannot be bound by ideology, inaccessible to representation in language.

=== Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ===
[[File:Skiz-hegel.png|thumb|Caricature by Engels of the meetings of ''Die Freien'']]
[[Friedrich Engels]] commented on Stirner in poetry at the time of ''[[Die Freien]]'':
{{poem quote|Look at Stirner, look at him, the peaceful enemy of all constraint.
For the moment, he is still drinking beer,
Soon he will be drinking blood as though it were water.
When others cry savagely "down with the kings"
Stirner immediately supplements "down with the laws also."
Stirner full of dignity proclaims;
You bend your willpower and you dare to call yourselves free.
You become accustomed to slavery
Down with dogmatism, down with law.<ref>Henri Arvon, Aux sources de 1'existentialisme Max Stirner (Paris, 1954), p. 14.</ref>}}

Engels once even recalled at how they were "great friends" (''Duzbrüder'').<ref name="autogenerated2" /> In November 1844, Engels wrote a letter to [[Karl Marx]] in which he first reported a visit to Moses Hess in [[Cologne]] and then went on to note that during this visit Hess had given him a press copy of a new book by Stirner, ''The Ego and Its Own''. In his letter to Marx, Engels promised to send a copy of the book to him, for it certainly deserved their attention as Stirner "had obviously, among the 'Free Ones', the most talent, independence and diligence."<ref name="autogenerated2"/> To begin with, Engels was enthusiastic about the book and expressed his opinions freely in letters to Marx:
{{quote|But what is true in his principle, we, too, must accept. And what is true is that before we can be active in any cause we must make it our own, egoistic cause—and that in this sense, quite aside from any material expectations, we are communists in virtue of our egoism, that out of egoism we want to be human beings and not merely individuals.<ref>Zwischen 18 and 25, pp. 237–238.</ref>}}

Later, Marx and Engels wrote a major criticism of Stirner's work. The number of pages Marx and Engels devote to attacking Stirner in the unexpurgated text of ''[[The German Ideology]]'' exceeds the total of Stirner's written works.<ref>[http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max "Chapter ''Sankt Max'' in ''Die deutsche Ideologie''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929113759/http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Marx,+Karl/Die+deutsche+Ideologie/I.+Band%3A+%5BKritik+der+neuesten+deutschen+Philosophie+in+ihren+Repr%C3%A4sentanten+Feuerbach,+B.+Bauer+und+Stirner%5D/III.+Sankt+Max |date=29 September 2011 }}.</ref> In the book Stirner is derided as ''Sankt Max'' (Saint Max) and as ''Sancho'' (a reference to Cervantes’ [[Sancho Panza]]). As [[Isaiah Berlin]] has described it, Stirner "is pursued through five hundred pages of heavy-handed mockery and insult."<ref>I. Berlin, Karl Marx (New York, 1963), 143.</ref> The book was written in 1845–1846, but it was not published until 1932. Marx's lengthy ferocious [[polemic]] against Stirner has since been considered an important turning point in Marx's intellectual development from [[idealism]] to [[materialism]]. It has been argued that [[historical materialism]] was Marx's method of reconciling communism with a Stirnerite rejection of morality.<ref name="Lobkowicz 1970">{{cite book|last=Lobkowicz|first=Nicolas|year=1970|chapter-url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/KarlMarxAndMaxStirner.pdf|chapter=Karl Marx and Max Stirner|title=Demythologizing Marxism|edition=illustrated|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Springer Netherlands|isbn=9789024702121}}{{Dead link|date=July 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="Stedman-Jones 2002">Stedman-Jones, Gareth (2002). "Introduction". In Engels, Friedrich; Marx, Karl. ''The Communist Manifesto'' (illustrated, reprinted, revised ed.). London: Penguin Adult. {{ISBN|9780140447576}}.</ref><ref name="Alexander">{{cite journal|last=Alexander|first=Green|url=http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|title=Stirner & Marx – Max Stirner: A Biographical Sketch|journal=Non Serviam|volume=1|issue=23|pages=5–42|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=20 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420153640/http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/nonserviam/23.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Possible influence on Friedrich Nietzsche ===
{{main|Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner}}
The ideas of Stirner and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] have often been compared and many authors have discussed apparent similarities in their writings, sometimes raising the question of influence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904; Robert Schellwien, ''Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1892; H.L. Mencken, ''The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche'', 1908; K. Löwith, From Hegel To Nietzsche New York, 1964, p. 187; R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37; T. A. Riley, "Anti-Statism in German Literature, as Exemplified by the Work of John Henry Mackay", in ''PMLA'', Vol. 62, No. 3, September 1947, pp. 828–843; Seth Taylor, ''Left Wing Nietzscheans, The Politics of German Expressionism 1910–1920'', p. 144, 1990, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York; Gilles Deleuze, ''Nietzsche et la Philosophy'', Presses Universitaires de France, 1962; R. C. Solomon and K. M. Higgins, ''The Age of German Idealism'', p. 300, Routledge, 1993.</ref> During the early years of Nietzsche's emergence as a well-known figure in Germany, the only thinker discussed in connection with his ideas more often than Stirner was [[Arthur Schopenhauer]].<ref>While discussion of possible influence has never ceased entirely, the period of most intense discussion occurred between 1892 and 1900 in the German-speaking world. During this time, the most comprehensive account of Nietzsche's reception in the German language, the 4-volume work of Richard Frank Krummel called ''Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist'', indicates 83 entries discussing Stirner and Nietzsche. The only thinker more frequently discussed in connection with Nietzsche during this time is Schopenhauer, with about twice the number of entries. Discussion steadily declines thereafter, but it is still significant. Nietzsche and Stirner show 58 entries between 1901 and 1918. From 1919 to 1945, there are 28 entries regarding Nietzsche and Stirner.</ref> It is certain that Nietzsche read about ''The Ego and Its Own'', which was mentioned in [[Friedrich Albert Lange|Friedrich Albert Lange's]] ''History of Materialism'' and [[Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann]]'s ''Philosophy of the Unconscious'', both of which Nietzsche knew well.<ref>"Apart from the information which can be gained from the annotations, the library (and the books Nietzsche read) shows us the extent, and the bias, of Nietzsche's knowledge of many fields, such as evolution and cosmology. Still more obvious, the library shows us the extent and the bias of Nietzsche's knowledge about many persons to whom he so often refers with ad hominem statements in his works. This includes not only such important figures as Mill, Kant, and Pascal but also such minor ones (for Nietzsche) as Max Stirner and William James who are both discussed in books Nietzsche read". T. H. Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library", 1885–1889, in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 663–693; Stack believes it is doubtful that Nietzsche read Stirner, but notes "he was familiar with the summary of his theory he found in Lange's history." George J. Stack, ''Lange and Nietzsche'', Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 276.</ref> However, there is no indication that he actually read it as no mention of Stirner is known to exist anywhere in Nietzsche's publications, papers or correspondence.<ref>Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904.</ref> In 2002, a biographical discovery revealed it is probable that Nietzsche had encountered Stirner's ideas before he read Hartmann and Lange in October 1865, when he met with Eduard Mushacke, an old friend of Stirner's during the 1840s.<ref>[http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Bernd A. Laska: Nietzsche's initial crisis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020022410/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html |date=20 October 2017 }}. In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n. 2, fall/Herbst 2002, pp. 109–133.</ref>

As soon as Nietzsche's work began to reach a wider audience, the question of whether he owed a debt of influence to Stirner was raised. As early as 1891 when Nietzsche was still alive, though incapacitated by mental illness, Hartmann went so far as to suggest that he had plagiarized Stirner.<ref>Eduard von Hartmann, Nietzsches "neue Moral", in ''Preussische Jahrbücher'', 67. Jg., Heft 5, May 1891, S. 501–521; augmented version with more express reproach of plagiarism in: ''Ethische Studien'', Leipzig, Haacke 1898, pp. 34–69.</ref> By the turn of the century, the belief that Nietzsche had been influenced by Stirner was so widespread that it became something of a commonplace at least in Germany, prompting one observer to note in 1907 that "Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy."<ref>This author believes that one should be careful in comparing the two men. However, he notes: "It is this intensive nuance of individualism that appeared to point from Nietzsche to Max Stirner, the author of the remarkable work ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum''. Stirner's influence in modern Germany has assumed astonishing proportions, and moves in general parallel with that of Nietzsche. The two thinkers are regarded as exponents of essentially the same philosophy." O. Ewald, "German Philosophy in 1907", in ''The Philosophical Review'', Vol. 17, No. 4, July 1908, pp. 400–426.</ref>

From the beginning of what was characterized as "great debate"<ref>[in the last years of the nineteenth century] "The question of whether Nietzsche had read Stirner was the subject of great debate" R.A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 29–30.</ref> regarding Stirner's possible positive influence on Nietzsche, serious problems with the idea were nonetheless noted.<ref>Levy pointed out in 1904 that the similarities in the writing of the two men appeared superficial. Albert Levy, ''Stirner and Nietzsche'', Paris, 1904</ref> By the middle of the 20th century, if Stirner was mentioned at all in works on Nietzsche, the idea of influence was often dismissed outright or abandoned as unanswerable.<ref>R. A. Nicholls, "Beginnings of the Nietzsche Vogue in Germany", in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 56, No. 1, August 1958, pp. 24–37.</ref> However, the idea that Nietzsche was influenced in some way by Stirner continues to attract a significant minority, perhaps because it seems necessary to explain the oft-noted (though arguably superficial) similarities in their writings.<ref>"Stirner, like Nietzsche, who was clearly influenced by him, has been interpreted in many different ways," [[Saul Newman]], ''[[From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power]]'', Lexington Books, 2001, p. 56; "We do not even know for sure that Nietzsche had read Stirner. Yet, the similarities are too striking to be explained away." R. A. Samek, ''The Meta Phenomenon'', p. 70, New York, 1981; Tom Goyens, (referring to Stirner's book ''The Ego and His Own'') "The book influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, and even Marx and Engels devoted some attention to it." T. Goyens, ''[[Beer and Revolution|Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement In New York City]]'', p. 197, Illinois, 2007.</ref> In any case, the most significant problems with the theory of possible Stirner influence on Nietzsche are not limited to the difficulty in establishing whether the one man knew of or read the other. They also consist in determining if Stirner in particular might have been a meaningful influence on a man as widely read as Nietzsche.<ref>"We have every reason to suppose that Nietzsche had a profound knowledge of the Hegelian movement, from Hegel to Stirner himself. The philosophical learning of an author is not assessed by the number of quotations, nor by the always fanciful and conjectural check lists of libraries, but by the apologetic or polemical directions of his work itself." Gilles Deleuze (translated by Hugh Tomlinson), ''[[Nietzsche and Philosophy]]'', 1962 (2006 reprint, pp. 153–154).</ref>

=== Rudolf Steiner ===
The individualist anarchist orientation of [[Rudolf Steiner]]'s early philosophy—before he turned to [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]] around 1900—has strong parallels to and was admittedly influenced by Stirner's conception of the ego, for which Steiner claimed to have provided a philosophical foundation.<ref>Guido Giacomo Preparata, "Perishable Money in a Threefold Commonwealth: Rudolf Steiner and the Social Economics of an Anarchist Utopia". ''Review of Radical Economics'' 38/4 (Fall 2006). pp. 619–648.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Alterity]]
* [[Antihumanism]]
*[[Difference (philosophy)]]
*[[Différance]]
*[[Egoist anarchism]]
*[[Enlightened self-interest]]
*[[Hauntology]]
* [[Individualist anarchism in Europe]]
*[[Other (philosophy)]]
* [[Philosophy of Max Stirner]]
* [[Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== References ==
* Stirner, Max: ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'' (1845 [October 1844]). Stuttgart: Reclam-Verlag, 1972ff; English translation ''[[The Ego and Its Own]]'' (1907), ed. David Leopold, Cambridge/ New York: CUP 1995.
* Stirner, Max: "Recensenten Stirners" (September 1845). In: ''Parerga, Kritiken, Repliken'', Bernd A. Laska, ed., Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag, 1986; English translation ''Stirner's Critics'' (abridged), see below.
* [http://www.panarchy.org/stirner/liberalism.html Max Stirner, Political Liberalism] (1845).

== Further reading ==
* Max Stirner's 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum' im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen deutschen Kritik. Eine Textauswahl (1844–1856). Hg. Kurt W. Fleming. Leipzig: Verlag Max-Stirner-Archiv 2001 ([http://www.max-stirner-archiv-leipzig.de/stirneriana.html#stirneriana20 Stirneriana]).
* Arena, Leonardo V., Note ai margini del nulla, ebook, 2013.
* Arvon, Henri, Aux Sources de l'existentialisme, Paris: P.U.F. 1954.
* Essbach, Wolfgang, Gegenzüge. Der Materialismus des Selbst. Eine Studie über die Kontroverse zwischen Max Stirner und Karl Marx. Frankfurt: Materialis 1982.
* {{cite journal|last1=Feiten|first1=Elmo|title=Would the Real Max Stirner Please Stand Up?|journal=Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies|date=2013|issue=1|url=https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/article/view/17141|issn=1923-5615}}
* Helms, Hans G, Die Ideologie der anonymen Gesellschaft. Max Stirner 'Einziger' und der Fortschritt des demokratischen Selbstbewusstseins vom Vormärz bis zur Bundesrepublik, Köln: Du Mont Schauberg, 1966.
* Koch, Andrew M., "Max Stirner: The Last Hegelian or the First Poststructuralist". In: Anarchist Studies, vol. 5 (1997) pp. 95–108.
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein dauerhafter Dissident. Eine Wirkungsgeschichte des Einzigen, Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1996 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss2 TOC, index]).
* Laska, Bernd A., Ein heimlicher Hit. Editionsgeschichte des "Einzigen". Nürnberg: LSR-Verlag 1994 ([http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msstudien.html#ss1 abstract]).
* [[Peter Marshall (author)|Marshall, Peter H.]] "Max Stirner" in "[[Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism]] "(London: HarperCollins, 1992).
* Moggach, Douglas; De Ridder, Widukind, "Hegelianism in Restoration Prussia,1841–1848: Freedom, Humanism and 'Anti-Humanism' in Young Hegelian Thought". In: Herzog, Lisa (ed.): Hegel's Thought in Europe: Currents, Crosscurrents and Undercurrents. Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 71–92 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=CdnRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT5&dq=hegel%27s+thought+in+europe&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=7Sg2VbOjFoTV7QbM8oFQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hegel%27s%20thought%20in%20europe&f=false Google Books]).
* [[Saul Newman|Newman, Saul]] (ed.), Max Stirner (Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought), Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 ([https://libcom.org/files/Newman_Max_Stirner.pdf#ss1 full book]).
* Newman, Saul, Power and Politics in Poststructural Thought. London and New York: Routledge 2005.
* Parvulescu, C. [https://www.academia.edu/38180363/The_Individualist_Anarchism_of_Early_Interwar_Germany "The Individualist Anarchist Discourse of Early Interwar Germany"]. Cluj University Press, 2018 (full book).
* Paterson, R. W. K., The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1971.
* Spiessens, Jeff. ''The Radicalism of Departure. A Reassessment of Max Stirner's Hegelianism'', Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018.
* {{cite journal|last1=Stepelevich|first1=Lawrence S.|author-link=Lawrence Stepelevich|title=Max Stirner as Hegelian|journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]]|volume=46|issue=4|pages=597–614|date=1985a|doi=10.2307/2709548|issn=0022-5037|jstor=2709548}}
* Stepelevich, Lawrence S., Ein Menschenleben. Hegel and Stirner". In: Moggach, Douglas (ed.): The New Hegelians. Philosophy and Politics in the Hegelian School. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 166–176.
* Welsh, John F. ''Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation.'' Lexington Books. 2010.
* {{cite encyclopedia|last=Wilkinson|first=Will|author-link=Will Wilkinson|editor-first=Ronald|editor-last=Hamowy|editor-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|chapter=Stirner, Max (1806–1856)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008|publisher=[[SAGE Publications|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]]|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n300|isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4|oclc=750831024|lccn= 2008009151|pages=493–494}}
* Di Mascio, Carlo, ''Stirner Giuspositivista. Rileggendo l'Unico e la sua proprietà'', 2 ed., Edizioni Del Faro, Trento, 2015, p. 253, {{ISBN|978-88-6537-378-1}}.

== External links ==
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{commons-inline}}

=== General ===
* {{cite SEP|url-id=max-stirner|title=Max Stirner}}, an extensive introduction
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160408143140/http://i-studies.com/ Svein Olav Nybergs website on Max Stirner], with extensive links to texts and references
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/en.html Max Stirner within the LSR project (English section)]
* [http://www.projektmaxstirner.de/project.htm Max Stirner Project] by H. Ibrahim Türkdogan
* [http://consciousegoism.6te.net/ Library of Egoism], an extensive depisitory of free books, essays and journals concerning egoism

=== Relationship with other philosophers ===
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html "Max Stirner, a durable dissident -- in a nutshell -- 'How Marx and Nietzsche suppressed their colleague Max Stirner and why he has intellectually survived them']
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03d.htm#c.1.5 ''Stirner Delighted in His Construction''] – "loves miracles, but can only perform a logical miracle", by Karl Marx
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/ennietzsche.html Nietzsche's initial crisis] due to an encounter with Stirner's "The Ego", by Bernd A. Laska (2002)
* "At the End of the Path of Doubt: Max Stirner", By Lawrence S. Stepelevich (Owl of Minerva 41:1–2 (2009–2010) pp. 85–106)

=== Texts ===
* {{Gutenberg author|id=Stirner,+Max|name=Max Stirner}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Max Stirner}}
* {{Librivox author|id=2520}}
* [http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Stirner,+Max/Der+Einzige+und+sein+Eigentum Online book ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [http://www.lsr-projekt.de/msee.html The complete original text in German of ''Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051217135357/http://tmh.floonet.net/teaho/theego0.html The complete English edition of "The Ego and his Own"], in the translation of Steven T. Byington.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110712234811/http://i-studies.com/library/articles/shorter.shtml Some of Stirner's illuminating "Shorter Essays"], translated into English
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161117035609/http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/enrec.html Recensenten Stirners / Stirner's Critics] bilingual: full text in German / abridged text in English (trans. Frederick M. Gordon)
* [http://calpress.org/2013/08/04/stirners-critics-book-project/ Stirner's Critics by Max Stirner translated by Wolfi Landstreicher, with an introduction by Jason McQuinn] (2013 revision of the only full-text English translation of both "Stirner's Critics" and "The Philosophical Reactionaries" by Wolfi Landstreicher published by CAL Press)
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=21 Archive of texts on Stirner at RevoltLib]

{{Stirner}}
{{anarchism}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stirner, Max}}
[[Category:Max Stirner| ]]
[[Category:1806 births]]
[[Category:1856 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century atheists]]
[[Category:19th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:19th-century German non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:19th-century German people]]
[[Category:19th-century German philosophers]]
[[Category:Anarchist writers]]
[[Category:Atheist philosophers]]
[[Category:Continental philosophers]]
[[Category:Critics of work and the work ethic]]
[[Category:Critics of religions]]
[[Category:Deaths due to insect bites and stings]]
[[Category:Egoist anarchists]]
[[Category:German anarchists]]
[[Category:German anti-capitalists]]
[[Category:German atheism activists]]
[[Category:German atheist writers]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:German political philosophers]]
[[Category:Humboldt University of Berlin alumni]]
[[Category:Individualist anarchists]]
[[Category:Nihilists]]
[[Category:People from Bayreuth]]
[[Category:People from Chełmno]]
[[Category:People from the Kingdom of Bavaria]]
[[Category:People from West Prussia]]
[[Category:Philosophers of ethics and morality]]
[[Category:Philosophers of nihilism]]
[[Category:Philosophy writers]]
[[Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers]]

Arab Winter

2020-01-04T00:01:38Z

Kurt1111S:

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2015}}
{{Infobox civil conflict
|title=Arab Winter
|image= Char Etat islamique Raqqa.jpg
|caption=[[ISIL]] fighters in the [[Syrian Civil War]]
|date= 2012/2014–present
|place=
|causes=
*[[Arab Spring]]
|goals=
*[[Authoritarianism]]
*[[Islamic extremism]]
*[[Monarchism]]
|notes=
|methods=
*[[Civil war|Civil Wars]]
*[[Insurgency]]
|result= [[European migrant crisis]]
|howmany1=
|howmany2=
|fatalities=
|injuries=
|arrests=
}}
The '''Arab Winter'''<ref name=telegraph>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/9753123/Middle-East-review-of-2012-the-Arab-Winter.html |title=Middle East review of 2012: the Arab Winter |work=The Telegraph |accessdate=July 19, 2014|date=2012-12-31 |last1=Spencer |first1=Richard }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|publisher=The Jerusalem Post |url=http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Arab-Winter-is-coming-to-Baghdad-359348 |title=Analysis: Arab Winter is coming to Baghdad |work=The Telegraph |accessdate=October 8, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2014/April/Expert-Warns-of-Americas-Coming-Arab-Winter/ |title=Expert Warns of America's Coming 'Arab Winter' |publisher=CBN |accessdate=October 8, 2014|date=2014-09-08 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-arab-winter |title=The Arab Winter|journal=The New Yorker |accessdate=October 8, 2014|date=2011-12-28}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spu.edu/about-spu/news/articles/2014/may/arab-spring |title=Arab Spring or Arab Winter?|work=The New Yorker |accessdate=October 8, 2014}}</ref> is a term for the resurgence of [[authoritarianism]], [[absolute monarchies]] and [[Islamic extremism]]<ref>{{cite web|author=Yun Ru Phua |url=http://bpr.berkeley.edu/2015/03/30/after-every-winter-comes-spring-tunisias-democratic-flowering/ |title=After Every Winter Comes Spring: Tunisia's Democratic Flowering – Berkeley Political Review |publisher=Bpr.berkeley.edu |date=|accessdate=2017-02-11}}</ref> evolving in the aftermath of the [[Arab Spring]] protests in [[Arab World|Arab countries]].<ref>Ahmed H Adam and Ashley D Robinson. ''Will the Arab Winter spring again in Sudan?''. Al-Jazeera. 11 June 2016. [http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/05/arab-winter-spring-sudan-160531082228922.html] "The Arab Spring that swept across the Middle East and succeeded in overthrowing three dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in 2011 was a pivotal point in the history of nations. Despite the subsequent descent into the "Arab Winter", the peaceful protests of young people were heroic..."</ref> The term "Arab Winter" refers to the events across [[Arab League]] countries in the Mid-East and North Africa, including the [[Syrian Civil War]],<ref name="Fear and Faith in Paradise">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com./books?id=__lUxmzAZ08C&pg=PA296 |title=Fear and Faith in Paradise|accessdate=October 23, 2014|isbn=978-1-4422-1479-8|last1=Karber|first1=Phil|date=2012-06-18}}</ref><ref name="Arab Winter">{{cite web|url=http://americamagazine.org/issue/culture/arab-winter |title=Arab Winter|work=America Staging|accessdate=October 23, 2014|date=2012-12-28}}</ref> the [[Iraqi insurgency (2011–14)|Iraqi insurgency]] and the [[Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)|following civil war]],<ref name="The Jerusalem Post">{{cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Arab-Winter-is-coming-to-Baghdad-359348 |title=Analysis: Arab Winter is coming to Baghdad |work=The Jerusalem Post |accessdate=October 23, 2014}}</ref> the [[Egyptian Crisis (2011–14)|Egyptian Crisis]],<ref name="euronews" /> the [[Libyan Crisis (2011–present)|Libyan Crisis]] and the [[Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)|Crisis in Yemen]].<ref name="Yemen’s Arab winter" /> Events referred to as the Arab Winter include those in [[Egypt]] that led to the removal of [[Mohamed Morsi]] and the seizure of power by General [[Abdel Fattah el-Sisi]] in an anti-[[Muslim Brotherhood]] campaign.<ref name="euronews.com">{{Citation |title=Egypt & Tunisia's new Arab winter |newspaper=Euro news |date=February 8, 2013 |url=http://www.euronews.com/2013/02/08/egypt-and-tunisia-s-new-arab-winter/}}</ref>

According to scholars of the [[University of Warsaw]], the Arab Spring fully devolved into the Arab Winter four years after its onset, in 2014.<ref name="auto">Radoslaw Fiedler, Przemyslaw Osiewicz. ''Transformation processes in Egypt after 2011''. 2015. p182.</ref> The Arab Winter is characterized by the emergence of multiple regional [[civil war]]s, mounting regional instability,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://theconversation.com/from-egypt-to-syria-this-could-be-the-start-of-the-arab-winter-17335 |title=From Egypt to Syria, this could be the start of the Arab Winter|date=April 17, 2014|work=The Conversation |accessdate=October 23, 2014}}</ref> economic and demographic decline of [[Arab world|Arab countries]],<ref name=rivlin /> and ethno-religious sectarian strife.<ref>{{Citation |last=Malmvig |first=Lassen |title=Arab uprisings: regional implication |publisher=IEMED |year=2013 |url=http://www.iemed.org/observatori/arees-danalisi/arxius-adjunts/anuari/iemed-2013/Malmvig%20Lassen%20Arab%20Uprisings%20Regional%20Implications%20EN.pdf}}</ref> According to a study by the [[American University of Beirut]], by the summer of 2014, the Arab Winter had resulted in nearly a quarter of a million deaths and millions of refugees.<ref name="auto1">{{Citation |title=Displacement in the Middle East and North Africa – between the Arab Winter and the Arab Spring |journal=International Affairs |date=August 28, 2013 |place=LB |url=http://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf |access-date=October 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141018201147/http://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf |archive-date=October 18, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Perhaps the most significant event in the Arab Winter was the rise of the extremist group [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]], which controlled large swathes of land in the region from 2014<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Arab-Winter-is-coming-to-Baghdad-359348 | title=Analysis: Arab Winter is coming to Baghdad - Middle East - Jerusalem Post}}</ref> to 2019.

==Definition==
===Geography===
The term "Arab Winter" refers to the events across [[Arab League]] countries in the Mid-East and North Africa, including the [[Syrian Civil War]],<ref name="Fear and Faith in Paradise" /><ref name="Arab Winter"/> the [[Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013)|Iraqi insurgency]] and the [[Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)|following civil war]],<ref name="The Jerusalem Post" /> the [[Egyptian Crisis (2011–14)|Egyptian Crisis]],<ref name=euronews>{{cite web |url=http://www.euronews.com/2013/02/08/egypt-and-tunisia-s-new-arab-winter/ |title=Egypt and Tunisia's new 'Arab winter' |work=Euro news |accessdate=October 23, 2014|date=2013-02-08 }}</ref> the [[Libyan Crisis (2011–present)|Libyan Crisis]] and the [[Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)|Crisis in Yemen]].<ref name="Yemen’s Arab winter">{{cite web|url=http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-s-arab-winter-1470341500 |title=Yemen's Arab winter|work=Middle East Eye |accessdate=October 23, 2014}}</ref> Events referred to as the Arab Winter include those in [[Egypt]] that led to the removal of [[Mohamed Morsi]] and the seizure of power by General [[Abdel Fattah el-Sisi]] in an anti-[[Muslim Brotherhood]] military coup.<ref name="euronews.com" /> Political developments, particularly the restoration of authoritarianism and suppression of [[civil liberties]] in Egypt since [[2013 Egyptian coup d'état|July 3, 2013]], have been described as constituting a "military winter" that functioned in opposition to the goals of the Arab Spring.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/175121/coup-egypt-arab-winter |title=The Coup in Egypt: An Arab Winter?|journal=The Nation|date=July 5, 2013|accessdate=November 1, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|publisher=The Huffington Post |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/egypt-arab-spring_n_4568523.html |title=In Egypt, Arab Spring Gives Way To Military Winter|work=The World Post|date=January 21, 2014 |accessdate=November 1, 2014|last1=Jones |first1=Sophia }}</ref> Various militias and tribes have started fighting in Libya after a breakdown in negotiations.<ref name=Yom /> The [[Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon|arenas of Lebanon]] and [[Bahraini uprising of 2011|Bahrain]] were also identified as areas of the Arab Winter.<ref name=rivlin /> [[Libya]] was named as a scene of the Arab Winter, together with [[Syria]], by Professor Sean Yom.<ref name=Yom>{{cite web|title=Lecture Explores Past and Future Arab Spring |date=October 10, 2014 |url=http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2014/10/10/lecture-explores-past-and-future-arab-spring/ |work=The Daily Gazette |accessdate=October 19, 2014}}</ref> The [[Northern Mali conflict]] was often described as part of the "[[Islamism|Islamist]] Winter".<ref>"In Mali AQ achieved to infiltrate and take over [[Tuareg rebellion (2012)|Tuareg insurgency]]. If AQ succeeds to keep the Arab Spring countries destabilized, this will lead to a viral reproduction of [[Azawad]] scenario. AQ is the "Islamic Winter"." [http://securityobserver.org/the-role-of-al-qaeda-in-mali-a-lesson-for-arab-spring-future/]</ref> Political changes which occurred in [[Tunisia]], involving a change in government, as well as an [[ISIL insurgency in Tunisia|ISIL insurgency]], were also indicated by some as a possible "heading towards Arab Winter".<ref name="euronews.com" />{{clarify|date=September 2015}}

Chinese professor [[Zhang Weiwei (professor)|Zhang Weiwei]] first predicted an "Arab Winter" in his June 2011 debate with [[Francis Fukuyama]], who believed the movement might spread to China.<ref>{{cite web|author=张维为|title=观天下讲坛{{!}} 张维为：话语自信——回望六年前与福山的那场辩论 |url=https://www.guancha.cn/ZhangWeiWei/2017_06_13_412940_s.shtml |website=www.guancha.cn |language=zh-cmn-Hans}}</ref> "My understanding of the Middle East leads me to conclude that the west should not be too happy. It will bring enormous problems to American interest. It is called "Arab Spring" for now, and I guess it will soon turn to be the winter for the Middle East."<ref>{{cite web|title=谁的终结？——福山与张维为对话"中国模式"-张维为、弗朗西斯·福山 |url=https://www.guancha.cn/ZhangWeiWei/2011_11_01_61959.shtml |website=guancha |accessdate=2 August 2018 |language=zh-cmn-Hans|quote=而且我自己对中东的了解使我得出这样的结论，西方千万不要太高兴，这会给美国的利益会带来很多的问题。现在叫中东的春天，我看不久就要变成中东的冬天。}}</ref>

===Beginning date===
According to scholars of the [[University of Warsaw]], the Arab Spring fully devolved into the Arab Winter four years after its onset.<ref name="auto" /> This view was also supported by Prof. James Y. Simms Jr. in his 2017 opinion article for the ''Richmond Times''.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web|url=http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/guest-columnists/arab-spring-to-arab-winter-a-predictable-debacle-in-the/article_74b2f2b1-f269-502d-b25f-7b4d0552d28f.html |title=Arab Spring to Arab Winter: a predictable debacle in the Middle East|author=James Y. Simms, Jr.|website=richmond.com|accessdate=July 7, 2017}}</ref> In early 2016, ''The Economist'' marked the situation across Arab world countries as "worse than ever", marking it as the ongoing Arab Winter.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21685503-five-years-after-wave-uprisings-arab-world-worse-ever |title=The Arab winter|journal=The Economist|accessdate=July 7, 2017|date=2016-01-09}}</ref>

==Impact==
===Economic impact===
According to the [[Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies]], as of January 2014, the cost of Arab Winter upheaval across the Arab World was some $800 billion [[United States dollar|USD]].<ref name=rivlin>{{Citation |title=Iqtisadi |date=Jan 2014 |url=http://www.dayan.org/sites/default/files/Iqtisadi%202014/Iqtisadi_Jan_14_ENG.pdf |last=Rivlin |first=P |publisher=Dayan Research Center |access-date=October 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141023064230/http://www.dayan.org/sites/default/files/Iqtisadi%202014/Iqtisadi_Jan_14_ENG.pdf |archive-date=October 23, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some 16 million people in [[Syria]], [[Egypt]], [[Iraq]], [[Jordan]] and [[Lebanon]] were expected to require humanitarian assistance in 2014.<ref name=rivlin />

According to ''[[The Economist]]'', [[Malta]] has "benefited" from the Arab Winter, as tourists who might otherwise be in Egypt or Tunisia opt for a safer alternative.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21678248-migrants-once-flocked-malta-host-eu-african-migration-summit-not-anymore-high-wall |title=High wall, narrow sea|journal=The Economist|accessdate=July 7, 2017|date=2015-11-14}}</ref>

===Casualties===
According to a study by the [[American University of Beirut]], as of the summer of 2014, the Arab Winter had resulted in nearly a quarter of a million deaths and millions of refugees.<ref name="auto1" />

Political columnist and commentator [[George Will]] reported that as of early 2017, over 30,000 lives had been lost in Libya, 220,000–320,000 had been killed in Syria and 4 million refugees had been produced by the Syrian Civil War alone.<ref name="auto2" />

The Arab Winter is still ongoing as of 2019. Casualties per crisis include:
*[[Syrian Civil War]] - casualty figure at 570,000 killed and counting - Conflict ongoing
*[[Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013)|Iraqi Crisis]] and [[Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)|Iraqi Civil War]] and subsequent [[Iraqi insurgency (2017–present)|Iraqi insurgency]] - casualty figure at 220,000+ killed and counting - Conflict ongoing
*[[Yemeni Crisis]] - casualty figure at 100,000+ killed and counting - Conflict ongoing
*[[Libyan Crisis]] - casualty figure 40,000+ killed and counting - Conflict ongoing
*[[Egyptian Crisis]] and [[Sinai insurgency]] - marked the start of the Arab winter, casualty figure 5,000+ killed and counting - Conflict ongoing

===Migrant crisis===
{{Main|European migrant crisis}}
[[File:Syrian refugee camp on theTurkish border.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish border for displaced people of the Syrian Civil War (2012)]]
The political turmoil and violence in the Middle East and [[North Africa]] resulted in [[European migrant crisis|massive population displacement in the region]].<ref>''“Displacement in the Middle East and North Africa: Between an Arab Winter and the Arab Spring”''. "In the midst of ongoing uprisings, violence, and political turmoil, widespread population displacement took place as a result of the conflict in Libya, the violence in Syria and upheaval in Yemen. In each of these contexts, the new waves of displacement took place in or to areas already struggling with previous waves, leading to multi-layered and complex crises."[https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171009212639/http://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf |date=October 9, 2017 }}</ref> As a result, "boat-people", which was once commonly referred to [[Vietnamese boat people]], became frequently used, including internally displaced persons and asylum-seekers and refugees who had previously been residing in Libya, have headed towards the [[European Union]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Khallaf|first=Shaden|date=August 2013|title=Displacement in the Middle East and North Africa: Between an Arab Winter and the Arab Spring|url=https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf|series=Working Paper Series|publisher=Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut|volume=|issue=17|pages=|journal=|access-date=November 26, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171009212639/http://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/international_affairs/Documents/working_paper_series/20130828_IA_WP_AUB_Paper_on_Displacement_in_Arab_Spring.pdf|archive-date=October 9, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> The attempts by some Libyans and Tunisians to seek safety from the violence by crossing the Mediterranean sea have triggered fears among European politicians and populations of arrivals that might "flood" their shores. This has spurred a flurry of legislative activity and patrolling of the waters to manage arrivals.<ref name=":0" />
{{-}}

==See also==
* [[List of modern conflicts in North Africa]]
* [[Spillover of the Syrian Civil War]]
* [[Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict]]
* [[2018–19 Arab protests]]

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==External links==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEu1WCWFd8 RT – Flames, Fury & Frustration: Arab Spring spins into Arab Winter?]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBaZv0dq7Q RT – CrossTalk: Arab Winter?]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzD9_7Wlbhg Arirang News – Prime Talk: Are we approaching an Arab Winter? Jang Ji-hyang, Asan Institute for Policy Studies]
* [https://news.vice.com/video/arab-winter-syrian-refugees-in-lebanons-bekaa-valley VICE – Arab Winter: Syrian refugees in Lebanon Bekaa Valley]
* [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2017.1313544 Dimitar Mihaylov – Why the Arab Spring Turned into Arab Winter: Understanding the Middle East Crises through Culture, Religion, and Literature]

{{Post-Cold War Asian conflicts}}
{{Post-Cold War African conflicts}}
{{Syrian Civil War}}
{{Ongoing military conflicts}}
{{Middle East conflicts}}
{{Portal bar|Africa|Politics|Asia|War}}

[[Category:Arab Winter| ]]
[[Category:2010s conflicts]]
[[Category:2010s in Africa]]
[[Category:2010s in Asia]]
[[Category:Aftermath of the Arab Spring|Winter]]
[[Category:Arab history]]
[[Category:History of North Africa]]
[[Category:History of the Middle East]]

Appeal to novelty

2019-06-17T21:45:35Z

Kurt1111S: I did some spelligncorection and changed an example. No need to bring polotics into this. Its logical fallcyies dont bring up a canadian prime minister. Theres no need.

{{onesource|date=December 2018}}

The '''appeal to novelty''' (also called '''''argumentum ad novitatem''''') is a [[fallacy]] in which one prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, ''exclusively'' because it is new and modern. In a controversy between [[status quo]] and new inventions, an appeal to novelty argument is not in itself a valid argument. The fallacy may take two forms: overestimating the new and modern, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be best-case, or underestimating [[status quo]], prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be worst-case.

Investigation may prove these claims to be true, but it is a fallacy to prematurely conclude this ''only from the general claim that all novelty is good''.

[[Chronological snobbery]] is a form of appeal to novelty, in which one argues that the only relevant knowledge and practices are those established in the last decades. The opposite of an appeal to novelty is an [[appeal to tradition]], in which one argues that the "old ways" are always superior to new ideas.

Appeals to novelty are often successful in a modern world where everyone is eager to be on the "cutting edge" of technology. The [[dot-com bubble]] of the early 2000s could easily be interpreted as a sign of the dangers of naïvely embracing new ideas without first viewing them with a critical eye. Also, [[Advertising|advertisers]] frequently extoll the newness of their products as a reason to buy. Conversely, this is satirised as [[bleeding edge]] technology by skeptics (this may itself be an example of the [[appeal to tradition]] fallacy).

==Explanation==
The appeal to novelty is based on the reasoning that in general people will tend to try to improve the outputs resulting from their efforts. Thus, for example, a company producing a product might be assumed to know about existing flaws and to be seeking to correct them in a future revision. This line of reasoning is obviously flawed for many reasons, most notably that it ignores:
* motive (a new product may be released that is functionally identical to previous products but which is cheaper to produce, or with modifications that have nothing to do with its core use, e.g. aesthetic modifications on a technological product);
* cyclicality (the fashion industry continually rediscovers old styles and markets them as the next new thing);
* population dynamics (the previous product may have been created by an expert who has since been replaced by a [[Newbie|neophyte]]);
* fallibility (while building the new product defects or negative [[side effect]]s can be introduced undetected, effectively rendering it inferior);
* difference between local and general improvement (a new product may be superior to its previous counterpart in its core function but made lacking in other aspects, leading to a general inferior state, e.g. a product dropping some features, or becoming restricted geographically);
* cost (the new product may be better in terms of performance but have low or no [[return on investment]] if used to replace the older one).

== Examples ==
* "If you want to lose weight, your best bet is to follow the latest diet."
* "The department will become more profitable because it has been reorganized."
* "Upgrading all your software to the most recent versions will make your system more reliable."
* "Things are bad with party A in charge, thus party B will bring an improvement if they're elected."
* "If you want to make friends, you have to wear the latest fashion and the trendiest gadgets."
* "Do X because it is Current Year."

==Appeal to novelty fallacy: designation pitfalls==
In some cases, there may exist one or more unnamed – but still universally acknowledged – [[correlation]]s between novelty and positive traits. For example, newer technology has a tendency to be more complex and advanced than older. A correlation may, for example, exist between the newness of a [[computer virus|virus definition file]] and the security of a computer, or between the newness of a computer and its speed and performance. In these precise cases, something may be more likely to be superior ''whenever'' it is new and modern, though not ''exclusively'' because it is new and modern. In some restricted cases, it may even be proven. Thus, what may seem like Appeal to novelty isn't a [[fallacy]] in every case. It is only a fallacy if the invoked correlations are disputed if no correlation has been examined, or if the correlations are [[Correlation does not imply causation|claimed as proofs]].

Whenever something undergoes some sort of continuous decay, valuing novelty is justified as long as novelty restores some ''status quo'' with an anterior state (or improves on it). For instance, new clothes are arguably superior to their identical worn out counterpart, as are newly produced body parts to the old in the case of [[moulting]]. Much the same way, in [[aesthetics]], for example in some arts and music, the value can be held not by the actual product or its performance, but rather by the sentiment of freshness and amazement that it causes; for example, many radio stations play only that music which is currently selling well (or is predicted to sell well following its imminent release), not that which has sold equally well only a few months before. The implication is that it is the currency of the popularity that confers value, rather than any intrinsic quality of the music itself, or of popularity at previous times. If it is the case, a novelty in itself – though not necessarily all forms of novelty – is a key aspect of evaluation. In those cases, if a statement comparing two art forms does mention their respective states of novelty, there is no fallacy (e.g. "Song A is currently a much better bet for your party than song B.").

==See also==
*{{portal-inline|Logic}}
*[[Historian's fallacy]]
*[[Myth of progress]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Red_Herring_Fallacy}}

[[Category:Appeals to emotion|Novelty]]
[[Category:Genetic fallacies]]

Lewis Gordon

2019-06-17T20:49:46Z

Kurt1111S:

{{other people}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{More citations needed|date=June 2019}}
}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Anti-Humanist]]
| era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
| image = Lewis Gordon.jpg
| caption = Gordon in 2019
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1962|05|12}}
| birth_place = [[Jamaica]]<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| death_date =
| death_place =
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[Lehman College|Lehman College, CUNY]] | [[Yale University]]}}
| spouse = Jane Anna Gordon
| school_tradition = [[Black Existentialism]]
| institutions = {{ubl | [[Purdue University]] | [[Brown University]] | [[Temple University]] | [[University of Connecticut]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Maurice Natanson]]
| doctoral_students= [[Rowan Ricardo Phillips]]
| notable_ideas = {{hlist | [[Postcolonial Phenomenology]] | [[Africana phenomenology]] | [[Anti-Blackness]]}}<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| main_interests = {{hlist | [[Africana philosophy]] | [[Black existentialism]] | [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]]}}
| influences = {{hlist | [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] | [[EFrantz Fanon]] | [[Martin Heidegger]] | [[Edmund Husserl]] | [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] | [[Max Weber]]}}
| influenced =
| website = {{url|lewisrgordon.com}}
}}

'''Lewis Ricardo Gordon''' (born May 12, 1962) is an American [[philosopher]] who works in the areas of [[Africana philosophy]], philosophy of human and life sciences, [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]], philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on race and racism, postcolonial phenomenology, Africana and [[black existentialism]], and on the works and thought of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and [[Frantz Fanon]]. His most recent book is titled: ''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought.'' <ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=vfwJCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought|last=Gordon|first=Lewis R.|last2=Cornell|first2=Drucilla|date=2015-01-01|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=9780823266081|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Gordon graduated in 1984 from [[Lehman College]], [[CUNY]], through the Lehman Scholars Program, with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree, ''magna cum laude'' and as a member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He completed his [[Master of Arts]] and [[Master of Philosophy]] degrees in philosophy in 1991 at [[Yale University]], and received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree with distinction from the same university in 1993. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Gordon taught at [[Brown University]], Yale, [[Purdue University]], and [[Temple University]], where he was the [[Laura H. Carnell]] Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy with affiliations in Religious and Judaic Studies. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, with affiliations in Judaic Studies and the Caribbean, Latino/a, and Latin American Studies, at the [[University of Connecticut]] at [[Storrs, Connecticut|Storrs]]. He also is Visiting Euro philosophy Professor at [[Toulouse University]], France, and Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in Political and International Studies at [[Rhodes University]] in South Africa (2014–2016).

At Temple, he was Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought (ISRST), which is devoted to research on the complexity and social dimensions of race and racism. The ISRST's many projects include developing a consortium on Afro-Latin American Studies, a Philadelphia Blues People Project, semiological studies of indigeneity, a Black Civil Society project, symposia on race, sexuality, and sexual health, and ongoing work in Africana philosophy. Gordon was Executive Editor of volumes I-V of ''[[Radical Philosophy Review]]: Journal of the Radical Philosophy Association'' and co-editor of the [[Routledge]] book series on [[Africana philosophy]]. Additionally, he is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Gordon is the founder of the Center for [[African Jews|Afro-Jewish]] Studies, the only such research center, which focuses on developing and providing reliable sources of information on [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African]] and African Diasporic Jewish or [[Hebrews|Hebrew]]-descended populations. Gordon states: "In actuality, there is no such thing as pure Jewish blood. Jews are a creolized [mixed-race] people. It's been that way since at least the time we left [[Egypt]] as a [culturally] mixed Egyptian and African [i.e., from other parts of Africa] people."

Gordon founded the Second Chance Program at [[Herbert H. Lehman High School|Lehman High School]] in the [[Bronx, New York]]. He is married to Jane Anna Gordon.

== Philosophy and work in theory ==

===Black existentialism===
Gordon is considered among the leading scholars in [[black existentialism]].<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 56| pages = 72–84| last1 = Linwood G. Vereen| last2 = Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove| last3 = Michael D. Hannon| last4 = Lisa A. Wines| last5 = Natasha Howard| last6 = Isaac Burt| title = Black Existentialism: Extending the Discourse on Meaning and Existence | journal = Journal of Humanistic Counseling| date = April 2017| doi = 10.1002/johc.12045}}</ref> He first came to prominence in this subject because of his first book, ''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (1995), which was an [[existentialism|existential]] [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] study of anti-black racism, and his anthology ''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'' (1997). The book is written in four parts, with a series of short chapters that at times take the form of phenomenological vignettes. Bad faith, as Gordon reads it, is a coextensive phenomenon reflective of the metastability of the human condition. It is a denial of human reality, an effort to evade freedom, a flight from responsibility, a choice against choice, an assertion of being the only point of view on the world, an assertion of being the world, an effort to deny having a point of view, a flight from displeasing truths to pleasing falsehoods, a form of misanthropy, an act of believing what one does not believe, a form of spirit of seriousness, sincerity, an effort to disarm evidence (a Gordon innovation), a form of sedimented or institutional version of all of these, and (another Gordon innovation) a flight from and war against social reality. Gordon rejects notions of disembodied [[consciousness]] (which he argues are forms of bad faith) and articulates a theory of the body-in-bad-faith. Gordon also rejects authenticity discourses. He sees them as trapped in expectations of sincerity, which also is a form of bad faith. He proposes, instead, critical good faith, which he argues requires respect for evidence and accountability in the social world, a world of intersubjective relations.

=== The question of racism ===
[[Racism]], Gordon argues,{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} requires the rejection of another human being's humanity. Since the other human being is a human being, such a rejection is a contradiction of reality. A racist must, then, deny reality, and since communication is possible between a racist and the people who are the object of racial hatred, then social reality is also what is denied in racist assertions. A racist, then, attempts to avoid social reality. Gordon argues that since people could only "appear" if embodied, then racism is an attack on embodied realities. It is an effort to make embodied realities bodies without points of view or make points of views without bodies. Racism is also a form of the spirit of seriousness, by which Gordon means the treatment of values as material features of the world instead of expressions of human freedom and responsibility. Racism ascribes to so-called racially inferior people intrinsic values that emanate from their flesh. A result of the spirit of seriousness is racist rationality. Here, Gordon, in agreement with [[Frantz Fanon]], argues that racists are not irrational people but instead hyper-rational expressions of racist rationality. He rejects, in other words, theories that regard racism as a function of bad emotions or passions. Such phenomena, he suggests, emerge as a consequence of racist thinking, not its cause. Effect emerges, in other words, to affect how one negotiates reality. If one is not willing to deal with time, a highly emotional response squeezes all time into a single moment, which leads to the overflow of what one prefers to believe over what one is afraid of facing.

Gordon analyzes a variety of issues in the study of anti-black racism, such as black antiblack racists, exoticism, racial “qualities,” and theological-ethical dimensions of racism. He prefers to focus on anti-black racism instead of “[[white supremacy]]” because, he points out, that anti-black racism could exist without white supremacy. There are many people who reject white supremacy but affirm notions of black inferiority. A prime example is that there are black antiblack racists. Gordon analyzes this phenomenon through a discussion of black use of the word “[[nigger]],” which he argues is bad faith effort at black self-exceptionalism—of, in the case of the user of the term, not being its object. Exoticism is the other extreme. It is a rejection of the humanity of black people under the pretense of loving black people. The exoticist valorizes black people because he or she regards black people as, like animals, incapable of valid judgment.

=== Theology and history-ethics ===
Gordon argues{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} that in theological form, studies of anti-black racism reveal that a particular assumption of [[Western world|Western]] [[ethical]] thought must be rejected – the notion of similarity as a condition of ethical obligation. That black woman could worship a god with whom they are neither similar nor could ever be identical demonstrates that love does not require similarity. Gordon argues that the ethical issue against anti-black racism is not one of seeing the similarity between blacks and whites but of being able, simply, to respect and see the ethical importance of blacks as blacks. The fight against racism, in other words, does not require the elimination of race or noticing the racial difference but instead demands to respect the humanity of the people who exemplify racial difference. In ''Existence in Black'', Gordon outlines themes of black existentialism in the text's introduction. He argues that black existentialism addresses many of the same themes of European existentialism but with some key differences. For instance, although both sets argue that the notion of a human being makes no sense outside of human communities and that individuals make no sense without society and societies make no sense without individuals, European existentialists had to defend individuality more because they were normative in their societies, whereas black existentialists had to focus on community more in order to demonstrate their membership in the human community. The question of individuality for black existentialists becomes one of showing that not all black people are the same. Themes of anguish, dread, freedom, absurdity, and death are examined, as well, through the historical reality of anti-black racism and [[colonialism]] and, along with it, the meaning of black suffering and the legitimacy of black existence. The logic of anti-black racism demands blacks offering justifications for their existence that are not posed for whites.

Gordon points{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} these dynamics out through discussions of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]]'s observation that black people are often treated as problems instead of people who face problems in the world and Frantz Fanon's call for black people to become actional through transcending the dialectics of seeking white recognition. Gordon also argues that black existential philosophy is an area of thought, which means that contributions to its development can come from anyone who understands its problematics. In other words, one does not have to be black to contribute to this area of thought. ''Existence in Black'' reflects his point since it has articles by other authors from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds discussing themes ranging from African and [[wikt:Afro-Caribbean|Afro-Caribbean]] existential struggles with beliefs in predestination to black [[feminist]] struggles with postmodern anti-essentialist thought. Gordon's chapter in the book focuses on the problem of black invisibility, which he points out is paradoxical since it is a function of black people being hyper-visible. Gordon's place in this area of thought was solidified in 2000 with the publication of his book ''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought''. That book explores themes of existence—which he points out, from its Latin etymology, means to stand out or to appear—over the course of examining a set of new philosophical themes that emerge from their convergence with realities faced by African diasporic peoples. Gordon argues that traditional philosophical questions are not the only ones that philosophers should look at. Gordon examines, as a matter of philosophical interest, topics ranging from the stratification of blacks in biographical discourses to the difficulty of studying black people as human beings. He rejects the notion that existential philosophy is incompatible with religious thought. To support his position, he examines how religion poses not only unique questions of paths to be taken in struggles for liberation, but also of the conditions that make religious practices such as worship possible. He ends that work with a reflection on writing, in which he advances his own commitment to transcendental philosophical approaches, those, in other words, that explore the conditions by which and through which certain phenomena are able to manifest themselves or become possible. Crucial here is that Gordon does not pit existential philosophy against transcendental philosophy but, instead, argues for both.

=== Phenomenology and colonialism ===
Gordon is also known{{By whom|date=February 2012}} as the founder of postcolonial [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and the leading proponent of Africana phenomenology which has enabled him to make a mark in Fanon Studies. Gordon was able to develop [[postcolonial]] phenomenology, which he sometimes refers to as Africana phenomenology or de-colonial phenomenology, through making a series of important innovations to [[Husserl]]ian and [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartrian]] phenomenologies. The first, and perhaps most important, is his transformation of parenthesizing and bracketing of the natural attitude into what he calls "ontological suspension". Although Husserl called for a suspension of the natural attitude, his goal was primarily [[epistemology|epistemological]]. Gordon's interest is, however, primarily concerned with errors that occur from inappropriate [[ontological]] assertions. He is also concerned with metaphysics, which he, unlike many contemporary thinkers, does not reject. Instead, he sees the continuation of [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] metaphysics, which advances a notion of substance that is governed by the essence that leads to the definition in the form of essential being, as a problem. Gordon wants to talk about the social world and the meanings constructed by it without reducing it to a [[physicalism|physicalist]] ontology. The notion of ontological suspension, which he claims is compatible with [[Husserl#The elaboration of phenomenology|Husserlian phenomenology]], advances this effort. He also advances phenomenology as a form of radically self-reflective thought, which means that it must question even its methodological assumptions. Because of this, it must resist epistemological colonization, and it is in this sense that phenomenology is itself postcolonial or decolonizing. Because of this, Gordon refused for some time in his career to refer to his work as “philosophy,” for that would mean colonizing it with a disciplinary set of assumptions. He preferred to call his work “radical thought,” which for him meant being willing to go to the roots of reality in a critical way. From these moves, Gordon was able to generate a set of theoretical concepts that have become useful to those who have adopted his theoretical lexicon: his unique formulation of crisis; his theory of [[epistemic closure]]; his theory of disciplinary decadence and teleological suspension of disciplinarity; and his analysis of maturation and tragedy.

Most of these ideas first emerged in the work that gave Gordon a reputation in Fanon studies—namely, ''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (1995). Gordon introduced a new stage in Fanon studies by announcing that he was not interested in writing on Fanon but instead working with Fanon on the advancement of his (Gordon's) own intellectual project. Fanon was thus an occasion or point of departure but not the main object of the study. The work is, then, a statement more of Gordon's philosophy than that of Fanon, who, in this text, is more a major influence. The book offers several innovations to the question of colonialism and the human sciences. First, Gordon argues that crises are really human communities refusing to make the choices necessary for the transformation of realities created by human agency. In short, they are forms of choices against choice or choosing not to choose, which amounts to bad faith. History, he argued, must transcend the imposition of world history (and thus become structured as a crisis) and move toward an existential-historical understanding of human communities on the basis of critical good faith. Phenomena such as racism and colonialism, because they attempt to erase the humanity of the colonized and object of racism, place challenges on whether it is possible to study human communities without collapsing into acts of discursive, imperial practices.

Gordon has also made an important contribution to the understanding around the work of [[Steve Biko]] by way of a new introduction to Biko's classic text ''[[I Write What I Like]]''.<ref>[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction by Lewis Gordon] to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''.</ref>

=== Essentialism and race ===
For some scholars,{{who|date=February 2012}} [[essentialism]] means that one cannot study race and racism and colonialism properly because of they, in effect, lack essences. Gordon argues that although human beings are incomplete, are without laws of nature, it does not follow that they cannot be studied and understood with reasonable accuracy. Drawing upon the thought of [[Max Weber]], [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alfred Schutz]], and [[Frantz Fanon]], Gordon argued that the task is to develop accurate portrayals or to thematize everyday life. He argues that racism and colonialism are everyday phenomena and, as such, are lived as "normal" aspects of modern life. Even under severe conditions, human beings find ways to live as though under ordinary conditions. This ordinariness can get to a point of distorting reality. In the case of racism, one group of people are allowed to live an ordinary life under ordinary conditions while another group or other groups are expected to do so under extraordinary conditions. Institutional bad faith renders those extraordinary conditions invisible and advances as a norm the false notion a shared ordinary set of conditions. This is the meaning behind the colloquial notion of "double standards". Gordon here also advances a theory that provides an answer to [[social constructivism|social constructivists]] in the study of race. What they fail to understand, Gordon argues, is that sociality is also constructed, which makes social constructivism redundant.

Many social constructivists{{who|date=February 2012}} also treat the identification of constructive as the conclusion of the argument instead of its beginning. For Gordon, identifying that something is constructed does not mean showing that the phenomenon is false or fictional. Human beings construct many "real" things, such as language and meaning and the forms of life generated by such activities and concepts. Many people are able, for instance, to act on race concepts (not racist ones) with a fair degree of accuracy. What this means is simply that they know how to read the social world and the bodies through which that world is manifested. The error that many critics make is that they demand the false criterion of universality and infallibility to the practice of racial identification. Gordon argues that such a demand would not work for the identification of most social phenomena. What is required is not universality nor infallibility but generality. Gordon defends this claim by making the distinction between a law and a principle. Law is absolute, without exceptions, categorical. A principle is general and has exceptions. For things human, principles are more appropriate ascriptions than laws. Gordon argues that these ideas emerged through his reading of Fanon's notions of sociogenesis.

Other ideas he borrows from Fanon are his rejection of the dialectics of recognition and his unique view on racism's impact on ethics and the concept of the Other. Like Fanon, Gordon argues that to seek white recognition leads to dependency on whites. It also means to make whites the standard of value. Yet Gordon rejects the thesis that racism is about a Self–Other dialectic. Antiblack racists do not see blacks as the Other or others, in Gordon's view. Such relations only exist between whites and whomever else they see as human beings or genuine others. Thus, the struggle against anti-black racism is ironically for blacks to become others. This displacement of otherness means that the fight against racism is governed not by moral laws but by tragic ones in which innocence becomes irrelevant. Gordon concludes the work with a look at how two scholars read Fanon's importance: [[Henry Louis Gates, Jr.]], argued that only Fanon's biography is of any contemporary interest, and that is as good literature. [[Cedric Robinson]] argued that Gates failed to see the political dimensions of Fanon's thought and that he should be read as a Marxist-oriented revolutionary. Gordon points out that both scholars were committing acts of disciplinary decadence by, in effect, condemning other disciplines for not being theirs. It was at the end of that book that the concept of disciplinary decadence was introduced. He returned to the concept most recently in his book ''Disciplinary Decadence'' (2006). Gordon's reputation in Fanon Studies grew through his co-edited anthology, ''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (1996), and his many articles over the past decade on various dimensions of Fanon's thought. In those works, he introduced what he calls “five stages of Fanon’s studies,” and he offers a variety of unique readings of Fanon's work. He has shown connections between Du Bois and Fanon on double consciousness; he has written on how Fanon's critique of white normativity leads to the question of whether modern society has any notion of a normal black person; Fanon, he argues, seeks a coherent notion of how it is possible.

Gordon's writings have continued expansion of his and related philosophical approaches and lexicon. In his book of social criticism, ''Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (1997), he explored problems in [[critical race theory]] and philosophy and introduced one of his most famous thought experiments. In the chapter "Sex, Race, and Matrices of Desire", Gordon purports to have created a racial-gender-sex-sexuality matrix and used it to challenge our assumptions of the mixture. A white woman in that matrix, for instance, is mixed because her whiteness makes her masculine but her womanness makes her black. Or certain relationships are transformed, where same-sex interracial relationships are not necessarily homosexual or lesbian ones. What is striking about the book is a theme that some of his critics noticed in his earlier books, and that is the role of music in his prose and analysis. Gordon here builds on his argument about the everyday in his earlier work to argue that danger of most theories of social transformation is that they fail to take seriously the aesthetic dimensions of everyday life. Moral and political thought and economy are good at constructing contexts in which people could sustain biological and social life, but they are terrible at articulating what it means to live in a livable world. Gordon argues that a genuinely emancipatory society creates spaces for the ordinary celebration of everyday pleasure. In his more recent work, Gordon has been arguing about the geography of reason and the importance of contingency in social life. However, it needs to be noted that the legitimacy of his "mixture-matrix" is largely dependent upon his controversial applications of semiotics to race and gender.

=== Reason and rationality ===
A problem of Western thought, Gordon argues, is that it has yoked reason to instrumental rationality and created an antiblack notion of reason's geographical landscape. Shifting the geography of reason, he argues, would entail a war on the kinds of decadence that treat any human community as incapable of manifesting reason. But more, Gordon argues that reason is broader than rationality since it must be used to assess rationality. Rationality could only attempt to impose consistency on reason, but the reason could point out that maximum consistency, although rational, may be unreasonable. Gordon's recent work has been a development of these issues. His co-edited books with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (2005) and ''A Companion to African-American Studies'' (2006), offer some important new concepts in the ongoing development of his thought. In the first, he offers a comprehensive treatment of African-American philosophy and the importance of Africana existential phenomenological thought through a critique of [[Audre Lorde]]'s admonition of using the master's tools. The two Gordons' response is that (1) tools should not only be used to tear down houses but also to build them up; (2) the master's tools are not the only tools available; and (3) the construction of alternative houses (theoretical models, philosophies) could decenter the value of the master's house, denuding it of mastery. In his essay "African-American Philosophy, Race, and Racism", which is his main contribution in that volume, he provides a comprehensive and concise statement of his work to date. In the introduction to the ''Companion'', he and Jane Gordon formulate a theory of African-American Studies as a form of double consciousness. But the key here is the introduction of their concept "the pedagogical imperative". This imperative refers to a teacher's duty to learn and keep learning the broadest and most accurate picture of reality available to humankind. The editors also advance a theory of internationalism, localism, and market nihilism in the face of the rise of an independent managerial class to describe the dynamics of the contemporary academy.

== Classification of Gordon's contributions to sociology and philosophy ==
Gordon considers all of his works to be part of a [[humanism|humanist]] tradition. The role of intellectuals, in his view, is to challenge the limits of human knowledge and, in so doing, achieve some advancement in what he calls "the ''Geist'' war". For him, the importance of intellectual work could be summarized by his claim that one "achieves" as a human being for humanity but one always fails alone. Gordon's work has also been characterized as a form of existential [[sociology]]. The sociological dimensions of his writings have received much attention, and the readers of his most recent book, ''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (2006), have described it as a work that is not only in philosophy (of disciplinarity) but also in education and the sociology of the formations of disciplines themselves. Gordon, however, describes what he is attempting to do as a teleological suspension of disciplinarity.

==Published works==
Gordon has produced approximately 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Books by Gordon currently in print are:

*''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought'' (Fordham University Press, 2015)
* with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in the Modern Age'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2009)
*''An Introduction to Africana Philosophy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
*''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2006)
*''A Companion to African American Studies'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Blackwell, 2006)
*''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Paradigm Publishers, 2005)
*''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought'' (Routledge, 2000)
*''Her Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). Winner of Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
*''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'', (ed.) (Routledge, 1997)
*''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (ed. with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renée T. White) (Blackwell, 1996)
*''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (Routledge, 1995)
*''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (Humanity Books, 1995/1999)

===Online articles by Lewis Gordon===
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.pdf Du Bois's Humanistic Philosophy of the Human Sciences], 2000
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.pdf A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies: An Interview with Lewis Gordon by Linda Martin Alcoff], 2003
*[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''], 2005
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.2.pdf Africa-America Philosophy, Race and the Geography of Reason], 2006
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.Fanon_.pdf Through the Hellish Zone of Non-Being: Thinking Through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth], 2007
*[http://www.truthout.org/the-market-colonization-intellectuals58310 The Market Colonization of Intellectuals],''Truthout'', 2010
*[http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come Of Illicit Appearance: The L.A. Riots/Rebellion as a Portent of Things to Come], ''Truthout'', 12 May 2012
*[http://www.icesi.edu.co/revista_transpasando_fronteras/images/stories/trans-pasando_fronteras/02_Manifiesto.pdf Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Lewis Gordon, "To not become slaves of knowledge of others"], 2011 (original title: "Manifiesto de Transdiciplinariedad. Para no volvernos esclavos del conocimiento de otros"), in the student journal [[:es:Trans-pasando Fronteras|Trans-pasando Fronteras]] (URL visited 29 August 2012)

==See also==
* {{section link|Africana philosophy|List of Africana philosophers}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101123232008/http://www.memphis.edu/moch/counterpoint.htm Lewis Gordon interview on Counterpoint Radio] with Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities at the [[University of Memphis]].

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Lewis}}
[[Category:Fanon scholars]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1962 births]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:University of the West Indies academics]]
[[Category:American Jews]]
[[Category:American humanists]]
[[Category:Jewish philosophers]]
[[Category:Existentialists]]
[[Category:Marxist humanists]]
[[Category:Temple University faculty]]
[[Category:African-American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]

Lewis Gordon

2019-06-17T20:46:14Z

Kurt1111S:

{{other people}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{more footnotes|date=April 2009}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2019}}
}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Anti-Humanist]]
| era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
| image = Lewis Gordon.jpg
| caption = Gordon in 2019
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1962|05|12}}
| birth_place = [[Jamaica]]<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| death_date =
| death_place =
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[Lehman College|Lehman College, CUNY]] | [[Yale University]]}}
| spouse = Jane Anna Gordon
| school_tradition = [[Black Existentialism]]
| institutions = {{ubl | [[Purdue University]] | [[Brown University]] | [[Temple University]] | [[University of Connecticut]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Maurice Natanson]]
| doctoral_students= [[Rowan Ricardo Phillips]]
| notable_ideas = {{hlist | [[Postcolonial Phenomenology]] | [[Africana phenomenology]] | [[Anti-Blackness]]}}<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| main_interests = {{hlist | [[Africana philosophy]] | [[Black existentialism]] | [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]]}}
| influences = {{hlist | [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] | [[EFrantz Fanon]] | [[Martin Heidegger]] | [[Edmund Husserl]] | [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] | [[Max Weber]]}}
| influenced =
| website = {{url|lewisrgordon.com}}
}}

'''Lewis Ricardo Gordon''' (born May 12, 1962) is an American [[philosopher]] who works in the areas of [[Africana philosophy]], philosophy of human and life sciences, [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]], philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on race and racism, postcolonial phenomenology, Africana and [[black existentialism]], and on the works and thought of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and [[Frantz Fanon]]. His most recent book is titled: ''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought.'' <ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=vfwJCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought|last=Gordon|first=Lewis R.|last2=Cornell|first2=Drucilla|date=2015-01-01|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=9780823266081|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Gordon graduated in 1984 from [[Lehman College]], [[CUNY]], through the Lehman Scholars Program, with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree, ''magna cum laude'' and as a member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He completed his [[Master of Arts]] and [[Master of Philosophy]] degrees in philosophy in 1991 at [[Yale University]], and received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree with distinction from the same university in 1993. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Gordon taught at [[Brown University]], Yale, [[Purdue University]], and [[Temple University]], where he was the [[Laura H. Carnell]] Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy with affiliations in Religious and Judaic Studies. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, with affiliations in Judaic Studies and the Caribbean, Latino/a, and Latin American Studies, at the [[University of Connecticut]] at [[Storrs, Connecticut|Storrs]]. He also is Visiting Euro philosophy Professor at [[Toulouse University]], France, and Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in Political and International Studies at [[Rhodes University]] in South Africa (2014–2016).

At Temple, he was Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought (ISRST), which is devoted to research on the complexity and social dimensions of race and racism. The ISRST's many projects include developing a consortium on Afro-Latin American Studies, a Philadelphia Blues People Project, semiological studies of indigeneity, a Black Civil Society project, symposia on race, sexuality, and sexual health, and ongoing work in Africana philosophy. Gordon was Executive Editor of volumes I-V of ''[[Radical Philosophy Review]]: Journal of the Radical Philosophy Association'' and co-editor of the [[Routledge]] book series on [[Africana philosophy]]. Additionally, he is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Gordon is the founder of the Center for [[African Jews|Afro-Jewish]] Studies, the only such research center, which focuses on developing and providing reliable sources of information on [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African]] and African Diasporic Jewish or [[Hebrews|Hebrew]]-descended populations. Gordon states: "In actuality, there is no such thing as pure Jewish blood. Jews are a creolized [mixed-race] people. It's been that way since at least the time we left [[Egypt]] as a [culturally] mixed Egyptian and African [i.e., from other parts of Africa] people."

Gordon founded the Second Chance Program at [[Herbert H. Lehman High School|Lehman High School]] in the [[Bronx, New York]]. He is married to Jane Anna Gordon.

== Philosophy and work in theory ==

===Black existentialism===
Gordon is considered among the leading scholars in [[black existentialism]].<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 56| pages = 72–84| last1 = Linwood G. Vereen| last2 = Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove| last3 = Michael D. Hannon| last4 = Lisa A. Wines| last5 = Natasha Howard| last6 = Isaac Burt| title = Black Existentialism: Extending the Discourse on Meaning and Existence | journal = Journal of Humanistic Counseling| date = April 2017| doi = 10.1002/johc.12045}}</ref> He first came to prominence in this subject because of his first book, ''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (1995), which was an [[existentialism|existential]] [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] study of anti-black racism, and his anthology ''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'' (1997). The book is written in four parts, with a series of short chapters that at times take the form of phenomenological vignettes. Bad faith, as Gordon reads it, is a coextensive phenomenon reflective of the metastability of the human condition. It is a denial of human reality, an effort to evade freedom, a flight from responsibility, a choice against choice, an assertion of being the only point of view on the world, an assertion of being the world, an effort to deny having a point of view, a flight from displeasing truths to pleasing falsehoods, a form of misanthropy, an act of believing what one does not believe, a form of spirit of seriousness, sincerity, an effort to disarm evidence (a Gordon innovation), a form of sedimented or institutional version of all of these, and (another Gordon innovation) a flight from and war against social reality. Gordon rejects notions of disembodied [[consciousness]] (which he argues are forms of bad faith) and articulates a theory of the body-in-bad-faith. Gordon also rejects authenticity discourses. He sees them as trapped in expectations of sincerity, which also is a form of bad faith. He proposes, instead, critical good faith, which he argues requires respect for evidence and accountability in the social world, a world of intersubjective relations.

=== The question of racism ===
[[Racism]], Gordon argues,{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} requires the rejection of another human being's humanity. Since the other human being is a human being, such a rejection is a contradiction of reality. A racist must, then, deny reality, and since communication is possible between a racist and the people who are the object of racial hatred, then social reality is also what is denied in racist assertions. A racist, then, attempts to avoid social reality. Gordon argues that since people could only "appear" if embodied, then racism is an attack on embodied realities. It is an effort to make embodied realities bodies without points of view or make points of views without bodies. Racism is also a form of the spirit of seriousness, by which Gordon means the treatment of values as material features of the world instead of expressions of human freedom and responsibility. Racism ascribes to so-called racially inferior people intrinsic values that emanate from their flesh. A result of the spirit of seriousness is racist rationality. Here, Gordon, in agreement with [[Frantz Fanon]], argues that racists are not irrational people but instead hyper-rational expressions of racist rationality. He rejects, in other words, theories that regard racism as a function of bad emotions or passions. Such phenomena, he suggests, emerge as a consequence of racist thinking, not its cause. Effect emerges, in other words, to affect how one negotiates reality. If one is not willing to deal with time, a highly emotional response squeezes all time into a single moment, which leads to the overflow of what one prefers to believe over what one is afraid of facing.

Gordon analyzes a variety of issues in the study of anti-black racism, such as black antiblack racists, exoticism, racial “qualities,” and theological-ethical dimensions of racism. He prefers to focus on anti-black racism instead of “[[white supremacy]]” because, he points out, that anti-black racism could exist without white supremacy. There are many people who reject white supremacy but affirm notions of black inferiority. A prime example is that there are black antiblack racists. Gordon analyzes this phenomenon through a discussion of black use of the word “[[nigger]],” which he argues is bad faith effort at black self-exceptionalism—of, in the case of the user of the term, not being its object. Exoticism is the other extreme. It is a rejection of the humanity of black people under the pretense of loving black people. The exoticist valorizes black people because he or she regards black people as, like animals, incapable of valid judgment.

=== Theology and history-ethics ===
Gordon argues{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} that in theological form, studies of anti-black racism reveal that a particular assumption of [[Western world|Western]] [[ethical]] thought must be rejected – the notion of similarity as a condition of ethical obligation. That black woman could worship a god with whom they are neither similar nor could ever be identical demonstrates that love does not require similarity. Gordon argues that the ethical issue against anti-black racism is not one of seeing the similarity between blacks and whites but of being able, simply, to respect and see the ethical importance of blacks as blacks. The fight against racism, in other words, does not require the elimination of race or noticing the racial difference but instead demands to respect the humanity of the people who exemplify racial difference. In ''Existence in Black'', Gordon outlines themes of black existentialism in the text's introduction. He argues that black existentialism addresses many of the same themes of European existentialism but with some key differences. For instance, although both sets argue that the notion of a human being makes no sense outside of human communities and that individuals make no sense without society and societies make no sense without individuals, European existentialists had to defend individuality more because they were normative in their societies, whereas black existentialists had to focus on community more in order to demonstrate their membership in the human community. The question of individuality for black existentialists becomes one of showing that not all black people are the same. Themes of anguish, dread, freedom, absurdity, and death are examined, as well, through the historical reality of anti-black racism and [[colonialism]] and, along with it, the meaning of black suffering and the legitimacy of black existence. The logic of anti-black racism demands blacks offering justifications for their existence that are not posed for whites.

Gordon points{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} these dynamics out through discussions of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]]'s observation that black people are often treated as problems instead of people who face problems in the world and Frantz Fanon's call for black people to become actional through transcending the dialectics of seeking white recognition. Gordon also argues that black existential philosophy is an area of thought, which means that contributions to its development can come from anyone who understands its problematics. In other words, one does not have to be black to contribute to this area of thought. ''Existence in Black'' reflects his point since it has articles by other authors from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds discussing themes ranging from African and [[wikt:Afro-Caribbean|Afro-Caribbean]] existential struggles with beliefs in predestination to black [[feminist]] struggles with postmodern anti-essentialist thought. Gordon's chapter in the book focuses on the problem of black invisibility, which he points out is paradoxical since it is a function of black people being hyper-visible. Gordon's place in this area of thought was solidified in 2000 with the publication of his book ''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought''. That book explores themes of existence—which he points out, from its Latin etymology, means to stand out or to appear—over the course of examining a set of new philosophical themes that emerge from their convergence with realities faced by African diasporic peoples. Gordon argues that traditional philosophical questions are not the only ones that philosophers should look at. Gordon examines, as a matter of philosophical interest, topics ranging from the stratification of blacks in biographical discourses to the difficulty of studying black people as human beings. He rejects the notion that existential philosophy is incompatible with religious thought. To support his position, he examines how religion poses not only unique questions of paths to be taken in struggles for liberation, but also of the conditions that make religious practices such as worship possible. He ends that work with a reflection on writing, in which he advances his own commitment to transcendental philosophical approaches, those, in other words, that explore the conditions by which and through which certain phenomena are able to manifest themselves or become possible. Crucial here is that Gordon does not pit existential philosophy against transcendental philosophy but, instead, argues for both.

=== Phenomenology and colonialism ===
Gordon is also known{{By whom|date=February 2012}} as the founder of postcolonial [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and the leading proponent of Africana phenomenology which has enabled him to make a mark in Fanon Studies. Gordon was able to develop [[postcolonial]] phenomenology, which he sometimes refers to as Africana phenomenology or de-colonial phenomenology, through making a series of important innovations to [[Husserl]]ian and [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartrian]] phenomenologies. The first, and perhaps most important, is his transformation of parenthesizing and bracketing of the natural attitude into what he calls "ontological suspension". Although Husserl called for a suspension of the natural attitude, his goal was primarily [[epistemology|epistemological]]. Gordon's interest is, however, primarily concerned with errors that occur from inappropriate [[ontological]] assertions. He is also concerned with metaphysics, which he, unlike many contemporary thinkers, does not reject. Instead, he sees the continuation of [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] metaphysics, which advances a notion of substance that is governed by the essence that leads to the definition in the form of essential being, as a problem. Gordon wants to talk about the social world and the meanings constructed by it without reducing it to a [[physicalism|physicalist]] ontology. The notion of ontological suspension, which he claims is compatible with [[Husserl#The elaboration of phenomenology|Husserlian phenomenology]], advances this effort. He also advances phenomenology as a form of radically self-reflective thought, which means that it must question even its methodological assumptions. Because of this, it must resist epistemological colonization, and it is in this sense that phenomenology is itself postcolonial or decolonizing. Because of this, Gordon refused for some time in his career to refer to his work as “philosophy,” for that would mean colonizing it with a disciplinary set of assumptions. He preferred to call his work “radical thought,” which for him meant being willing to go to the roots of reality in a critical way. From these moves, Gordon was able to generate a set of theoretical concepts that have become useful to those who have adopted his theoretical lexicon: his unique formulation of crisis; his theory of [[epistemic closure]]; his theory of disciplinary decadence and teleological suspension of disciplinarity; and his analysis of maturation and tragedy.

Most of these ideas first emerged in the work that gave Gordon a reputation in Fanon studies—namely, ''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (1995). Gordon introduced a new stage in Fanon studies by announcing that he was not interested in writing on Fanon but instead working with Fanon on the advancement of his (Gordon's) own intellectual project. Fanon was thus an occasion or point of departure but not the main object of the study. The work is, then, a statement more of Gordon's philosophy than that of Fanon, who, in this text, is more a major influence. The book offers several innovations to the question of colonialism and the human sciences. First, Gordon argues that crises are really human communities refusing to make the choices necessary for the transformation of realities created by human agency. In short, they are forms of choices against choice or choosing not to choose, which amounts to bad faith. History, he argued, must transcend the imposition of world history (and thus become structured as a crisis) and move toward an existential-historical understanding of human communities on the basis of critical good faith. Phenomena such as racism and colonialism, because they attempt to erase the humanity of the colonized and object of racism, place challenges on whether it is possible to study human communities without collapsing into acts of discursive, imperial practices.

Gordon has also made an important contribution to the understanding around the work of [[Steve Biko]] by way of a new introduction to Biko's classic text ''[[I Write What I Like]]''.<ref>[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction by Lewis Gordon] to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''.</ref>

=== Essentialism and race ===
For some scholars,{{who|date=February 2012}} [[essentialism]] means that one cannot study race and racism and colonialism properly because of they, in effect, lack essences. Gordon argues that although human beings are incomplete, are without laws of nature, it does not follow that they cannot be studied and understood with reasonable accuracy. Drawing upon the thought of [[Max Weber]], [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alfred Schutz]], and [[Frantz Fanon]], Gordon argued that the task is to develop accurate portrayals or to thematize everyday life. He argues that racism and colonialism are everyday phenomena and, as such, are lived as "normal" aspects of modern life. Even under severe conditions, human beings find ways to live as though under ordinary conditions. This ordinariness can get to a point of distorting reality. In the case of racism, one group of people are allowed to live an ordinary life under ordinary conditions while another group or other groups are expected to do so under extraordinary conditions. Institutional bad faith renders those extraordinary conditions invisible and advances as a norm the false notion a shared ordinary set of conditions. This is the meaning behind the colloquial notion of "double standards". Gordon here also advances a theory that provides an answer to [[social constructivism|social constructivists]] in the study of race. What they fail to understand, Gordon argues, is that sociality is also constructed, which makes social constructivism redundant.

Many social constructivists{{who|date=February 2012}} also treat the identification of constructive as the conclusion of the argument instead of its beginning. For Gordon, identifying that something is constructed does not mean showing that the phenomenon is false or fictional. Human beings construct many "real" things, such as language and meaning and the forms of life generated by such activities and concepts. Many people are able, for instance, to act on race concepts (not racist ones) with a fair degree of accuracy. What this means is simply that they know how to read the social world and the bodies through which that world is manifested. The error that many critics make is that they demand the false criterion of universality and infallibility to the practice of racial identification. Gordon argues that such a demand would not work for the identification of most social phenomena. What is required is not universality nor infallibility but generality. Gordon defends this claim by making the distinction between a law and a principle. Law is absolute, without exceptions, categorical. A principle is general and has exceptions. For things human, principles are more appropriate ascriptions than laws. Gordon argues that these ideas emerged through his reading of Fanon's notions of sociogenesis.

Other ideas he borrows from Fanon are his rejection of the dialectics of recognition and his unique view on racism's impact on ethics and the concept of the Other. Like Fanon, Gordon argues that to seek white recognition leads to dependency on whites. It also means to make whites the standard of value. Yet Gordon rejects the thesis that racism is about a Self–Other dialectic. Antiblack racists do not see blacks as the Other or others, in Gordon's view. Such relations only exist between whites and whomever else they see as human beings or genuine others. Thus, the struggle against anti-black racism is ironically for blacks to become others. This displacement of otherness means that the fight against racism is governed not by moral laws but by tragic ones in which innocence becomes irrelevant. Gordon concludes the work with a look at how two scholars read Fanon's importance: [[Henry Louis Gates, Jr.]], argued that only Fanon's biography is of any contemporary interest, and that is as good literature. [[Cedric Robinson]] argued that Gates failed to see the political dimensions of Fanon's thought and that he should be read as a Marxist-oriented revolutionary. Gordon points out that both scholars were committing acts of disciplinary decadence by, in effect, condemning other disciplines for not being theirs. It was at the end of that book that the concept of disciplinary decadence was introduced. He returned to the concept most recently in his book ''Disciplinary Decadence'' (2006). Gordon's reputation in Fanon Studies grew through his co-edited anthology, ''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (1996), and his many articles over the past decade on various dimensions of Fanon's thought. In those works, he introduced what he calls “five stages of Fanon’s studies,” and he offers a variety of unique readings of Fanon's work. He has shown connections between Du Bois and Fanon on double consciousness; he has written on how Fanon's critique of white normativity leads to the question of whether modern society has any notion of a normal black person; Fanon, he argues, seeks a coherent notion of how it is possible.

Gordon's writings have continued expansion of his and related philosophical approaches and lexicon. In his book of social criticism, ''Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (1997), he explored problems in [[critical race theory]] and philosophy and introduced one of his most famous thought experiments. In the chapter "Sex, Race, and Matrices of Desire", Gordon purports to have created a racial-gender-sex-sexuality matrix and used it to challenge our assumptions of the mixture. A white woman in that matrix, for instance, is mixed because her whiteness makes her masculine but her womanness makes her black. Or certain relationships are transformed, where same-sex interracial relationships are not necessarily homosexual or lesbian ones. What is striking about the book is a theme that some of his critics noticed in his earlier books, and that is the role of music in his prose and analysis. Gordon here builds on his argument about the everyday in his earlier work to argue that danger of most theories of social transformation is that they fail to take seriously the aesthetic dimensions of everyday life. Moral and political thought and economy are good at constructing contexts in which people could sustain biological and social life, but they are terrible at articulating what it means to live in a livable world. Gordon argues that a genuinely emancipatory society creates spaces for the ordinary celebration of everyday pleasure. In his more recent work, Gordon has been arguing about the geography of reason and the importance of contingency in social life. However, it needs to be noted that the legitimacy of his "mixture-matrix" is largely dependent upon his controversial applications of semiotics to race and gender.

=== Reason and rationality ===
A problem of Western thought, Gordon argues, is that it has yoked reason to instrumental rationality and created an antiblack notion of reason's geographical landscape. Shifting the geography of reason, he argues, would entail a war on the kinds of decadence that treat any human community as incapable of manifesting reason. But more, Gordon argues that reason is broader than rationality since it must be used to assess rationality. Rationality could only attempt to impose consistency on reason, but the reason could point out that maximum consistency, although rational, may be unreasonable. Gordon's recent work has been a development of these issues. His co-edited books with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (2005) and ''A Companion to African-American Studies'' (2006), offer some important new concepts in the ongoing development of his thought. In the first, he offers a comprehensive treatment of African-American philosophy and the importance of Africana existential phenomenological thought through a critique of [[Audre Lorde]]'s admonition of using the master's tools. The two Gordons' response is that (1) tools should not only be used to tear down houses but also to build them up; (2) the master's tools are not the only tools available; and (3) the construction of alternative houses (theoretical models, philosophies) could decenter the value of the master's house, denuding it of mastery. In his essay "African-American Philosophy, Race, and Racism", which is his main contribution in that volume, he provides a comprehensive and concise statement of his work to date. In the introduction to the ''Companion'', he and Jane Gordon formulate a theory of African-American Studies as a form of double consciousness. But the key here is the introduction of their concept "the pedagogical imperative". This imperative refers to a teacher's duty to learn and keep learning the broadest and most accurate picture of reality available to humankind. The editors also advance a theory of internationalism, localism, and market nihilism in the face of the rise of an independent managerial class to describe the dynamics of the contemporary academy.

== Classification of Gordon's contributions to sociology and philosophy ==
Gordon considers all of his works to be part of a [[humanism|humanist]] tradition. The role of intellectuals, in his view, is to challenge the limits of human knowledge and, in so doing, achieve some advancement in what he calls "the ''Geist'' war". For him, the importance of intellectual work could be summarized by his claim that one "achieves" as a human being for humanity but one always fails alone. Gordon's work has also been characterized as a form of existential [[sociology]]. The sociological dimensions of his writings have received much attention, and the readers of his most recent book, ''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (2006), have described it as a work that is not only in philosophy (of disciplinarity) but also in education and the sociology of the formations of disciplines themselves. Gordon, however, describes what he is attempting to do as a teleological suspension of disciplinarity.

==Published works==
Gordon has produced approximately 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Books by Gordon currently in print are:

*''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought'' (Fordham University Press, 2015)
* with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in the Modern Age'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2009)
*''An Introduction to Africana Philosophy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
*''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2006)
*''A Companion to African American Studies'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Blackwell, 2006)
*''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Paradigm Publishers, 2005)
*''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought'' (Routledge, 2000)
*''Her Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). Winner of Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
*''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'', (ed.) (Routledge, 1997)
*''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (ed. with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renée T. White) (Blackwell, 1996)
*''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (Routledge, 1995)
*''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (Humanity Books, 1995/1999)

===Online articles by Lewis Gordon===
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.pdf Du Bois's Humanistic Philosophy of the Human Sciences], 2000
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.pdf A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies: An Interview with Lewis Gordon by Linda Martin Alcoff], 2003
*[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''], 2005
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.2.pdf Africa-America Philosophy, Race and the Geography of Reason], 2006
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.Fanon_.pdf Through the Hellish Zone of Non-Being: Thinking Through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth], 2007
*[http://www.truthout.org/the-market-colonization-intellectuals58310 The Market Colonization of Intellectuals],''Truthout'', 2010
*[http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come Of Illicit Appearance: The L.A. Riots/Rebellion as a Portent of Things to Come], ''Truthout'', 12 May 2012
*[http://www.icesi.edu.co/revista_transpasando_fronteras/images/stories/trans-pasando_fronteras/02_Manifiesto.pdf Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Lewis Gordon, "To not become slaves of knowledge of others"], 2011 (original title: "Manifiesto de Transdiciplinariedad. Para no volvernos esclavos del conocimiento de otros"), in the student journal [[:es:Trans-pasando Fronteras|Trans-pasando Fronteras]] (URL visited 29 August 2012)

==See also==
* {{section link|Africana philosophy|List of Africana philosophers}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101123232008/http://www.memphis.edu/moch/counterpoint.htm Lewis Gordon interview on Counterpoint Radio] with Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities at the [[University of Memphis]].

{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Fanon scholars]]
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[[Category:1962 births]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:University of the West Indies academics]]
[[Category:American Jews]]
[[Category:American humanists]]
[[Category:Jewish philosophers]]
[[Category:Existentialists]]
[[Category:Marxist humanists]]
[[Category:Temple University faculty]]
[[Category:African-American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]

Lewis Gordon

2019-06-17T20:42:09Z

Kurt1111S:

{{other people}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{more footnotes|date=April 2009}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2019}}
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{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Anti-Humanist]]
| era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
| image = Lewis Gordon.jpg
| caption = Gordon in 2019
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1962|05|12}}
| birth_place = [[Jamaica]]<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| death_date =
| death_place =
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[Lehman College|Lehman College, CUNY]] | [[Yale University]]}}
| spouse = Jane Anna Gordon
| school_tradition = [[Black Existentialism]]
| institutions = {{ubl | [[Purdue University]] | [[Brown University]] | [[Temple University]] | [[University of Connecticut]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Maurice Natanson]]
| doctoral_students= [[Rowan Ricardo Phillips]]
| notable_ideas = {{hlist | [[Postcolonial Phenomenology]] | [[Africana phenomenology]]}}<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| main_interests = {{hlist | [[Africana philosophy]] | [[Black existentialism]] | [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]]}}
| influences = {{hlist | [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] | [[EFrantz Fanon]] | [[Martin Heidegger]] | [[Edmund Husserl]] | [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] | [[Max Weber]]}}
| influenced =
| website = {{url|lewisrgordon.com}}
}}

'''Lewis Ricardo Gordon''' (born May 12, 1962) is an American [[philosopher]] who works in the areas of [[Africana philosophy]], philosophy of human and life sciences, [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]], philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on race and racism, postcolonial phenomenology, Africana and [[black existentialism]], and on the works and thought of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and [[Frantz Fanon]]. His most recent book is titled: ''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought.'' <ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=vfwJCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought|last=Gordon|first=Lewis R.|last2=Cornell|first2=Drucilla|date=2015-01-01|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=9780823266081|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Gordon graduated in 1984 from [[Lehman College]], [[CUNY]], through the Lehman Scholars Program, with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree, ''magna cum laude'' and as a member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He completed his [[Master of Arts]] and [[Master of Philosophy]] degrees in philosophy in 1991 at [[Yale University]], and received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree with distinction from the same university in 1993. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Gordon taught at [[Brown University]], Yale, [[Purdue University]], and [[Temple University]], where he was the [[Laura H. Carnell]] Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy with affiliations in Religious and Judaic Studies. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, with affiliations in Judaic Studies and the Caribbean, Latino/a, and Latin American Studies, at the [[University of Connecticut]] at [[Storrs, Connecticut|Storrs]]. He also is Visiting Euro philosophy Professor at [[Toulouse University]], France, and Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in Political and International Studies at [[Rhodes University]] in South Africa (2014–2016).

At Temple, he was Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought (ISRST), which is devoted to research on the complexity and social dimensions of race and racism. The ISRST's many projects include developing a consortium on Afro-Latin American Studies, a Philadelphia Blues People Project, semiological studies of indigeneity, a Black Civil Society project, symposia on race, sexuality, and sexual health, and ongoing work in Africana philosophy. Gordon was Executive Editor of volumes I-V of ''[[Radical Philosophy Review]]: Journal of the Radical Philosophy Association'' and co-editor of the [[Routledge]] book series on [[Africana philosophy]]. Additionally, he is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Gordon is the founder of the Center for [[African Jews|Afro-Jewish]] Studies, the only such research center, which focuses on developing and providing reliable sources of information on [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African]] and African Diasporic Jewish or [[Hebrews|Hebrew]]-descended populations. Gordon states: "In actuality, there is no such thing as pure Jewish blood. Jews are a creolized [mixed-race] people. It's been that way since at least the time we left [[Egypt]] as a [culturally] mixed Egyptian and African [i.e., from other parts of Africa] people."

Gordon founded the Second Chance Program at [[Herbert H. Lehman High School|Lehman High School]] in the [[Bronx, New York]]. He is married to Jane Anna Gordon.

== Philosophy and work in theory ==

===Black existentialism===
Gordon is considered among the leading scholars in [[black existentialism]].<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 56| pages = 72–84| last1 = Linwood G. Vereen| last2 = Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove| last3 = Michael D. Hannon| last4 = Lisa A. Wines| last5 = Natasha Howard| last6 = Isaac Burt| title = Black Existentialism: Extending the Discourse on Meaning and Existence | journal = Journal of Humanistic Counseling| date = April 2017| doi = 10.1002/johc.12045}}</ref> He first came to prominence in this subject because of his first book, ''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (1995), which was an [[existentialism|existential]] [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] study of anti-black racism, and his anthology ''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'' (1997). The book is written in four parts, with a series of short chapters that at times take the form of phenomenological vignettes. Bad faith, as Gordon reads it, is a coextensive phenomenon reflective of the metastability of the human condition. It is a denial of human reality, an effort to evade freedom, a flight from responsibility, a choice against choice, an assertion of being the only point of view on the world, an assertion of being the world, an effort to deny having a point of view, a flight from displeasing truths to pleasing falsehoods, a form of misanthropy, an act of believing what one does not believe, a form of spirit of seriousness, sincerity, an effort to disarm evidence (a Gordon innovation), a form of sedimented or institutional version of all of these, and (another Gordon innovation) a flight from and war against social reality. Gordon rejects notions of disembodied [[consciousness]] (which he argues are forms of bad faith) and articulates a theory of the body-in-bad-faith. Gordon also rejects authenticity discourses. He sees them as trapped in expectations of sincerity, which also is a form of bad faith. He proposes, instead, critical good faith, which he argues requires respect for evidence and accountability in the social world, a world of intersubjective relations.

=== The question of racism ===
[[Racism]], Gordon argues,{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} requires the rejection of another human being's humanity. Since the other human being is a human being, such a rejection is a contradiction of reality. A racist must, then, deny reality, and since communication is possible between a racist and the people who are the object of racial hatred, then social reality is also what is denied in racist assertions. A racist, then, attempts to avoid social reality. Gordon argues that since people could only "appear" if embodied, then racism is an attack on embodied realities. It is an effort to make embodied realities bodies without points of view or make points of views without bodies. Racism is also a form of the spirit of seriousness, by which Gordon means the treatment of values as material features of the world instead of expressions of human freedom and responsibility. Racism ascribes to so-called racially inferior people intrinsic values that emanate from their flesh. A result of the spirit of seriousness is racist rationality. Here, Gordon, in agreement with [[Frantz Fanon]], argues that racists are not irrational people but instead hyper-rational expressions of racist rationality. He rejects, in other words, theories that regard racism as a function of bad emotions or passions. Such phenomena, he suggests, emerge as a consequence of racist thinking, not its cause. Effect emerges, in other words, to affect how one negotiates reality. If one is not willing to deal with time, a highly emotional response squeezes all time into a single moment, which leads to the overflow of what one prefers to believe over what one is afraid of facing.

Gordon analyzes a variety of issues in the study of anti-black racism, such as black antiblack racists, exoticism, racial “qualities,” and theological-ethical dimensions of racism. He prefers to focus on anti-black racism instead of “[[white supremacy]]” because, he points out, that anti-black racism could exist without white supremacy. There are many people who reject white supremacy but affirm notions of black inferiority. A prime example is that there are black antiblack racists. Gordon analyzes this phenomenon through a discussion of black use of the word “[[nigger]],” which he argues is bad faith effort at black self-exceptionalism—of, in the case of the user of the term, not being its object. Exoticism is the other extreme. It is a rejection of the humanity of black people under the pretense of loving black people. The exoticist valorizes black people because he or she regards black people as, like animals, incapable of valid judgment.

=== Theology and history-ethics ===
Gordon argues{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} that in theological form, studies of anti-black racism reveal that a particular assumption of [[Western world|Western]] [[ethical]] thought must be rejected – the notion of similarity as a condition of ethical obligation. That black woman could worship a god with whom they are neither similar nor could ever be identical demonstrates that love does not require similarity. Gordon argues that the ethical issue against anti-black racism is not one of seeing the similarity between blacks and whites but of being able, simply, to respect and see the ethical importance of blacks as blacks. The fight against racism, in other words, does not require the elimination of race or noticing the racial difference but instead demands to respect the humanity of the people who exemplify racial difference. In ''Existence in Black'', Gordon outlines themes of black existentialism in the text's introduction. He argues that black existentialism addresses many of the same themes of European existentialism but with some key differences. For instance, although both sets argue that the notion of a human being makes no sense outside of human communities and that individuals make no sense without society and societies make no sense without individuals, European existentialists had to defend individuality more because they were normative in their societies, whereas black existentialists had to focus on community more in order to demonstrate their membership in the human community. The question of individuality for black existentialists becomes one of showing that not all black people are the same. Themes of anguish, dread, freedom, absurdity, and death are examined, as well, through the historical reality of anti-black racism and [[colonialism]] and, along with it, the meaning of black suffering and the legitimacy of black existence. The logic of anti-black racism demands blacks offering justifications for their existence that are not posed for whites.

Gordon points{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} these dynamics out through discussions of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]]'s observation that black people are often treated as problems instead of people who face problems in the world and Frantz Fanon's call for black people to become actional through transcending the dialectics of seeking white recognition. Gordon also argues that black existential philosophy is an area of thought, which means that contributions to its development can come from anyone who understands its problematics. In other words, one does not have to be black to contribute to this area of thought. ''Existence in Black'' reflects his point since it has articles by other authors from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds discussing themes ranging from African and [[wikt:Afro-Caribbean|Afro-Caribbean]] existential struggles with beliefs in predestination to black [[feminist]] struggles with postmodern anti-essentialist thought. Gordon's chapter in the book focuses on the problem of black invisibility, which he points out is paradoxical since it is a function of black people being hyper-visible. Gordon's place in this area of thought was solidified in 2000 with the publication of his book ''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought''. That book explores themes of existence—which he points out, from its Latin etymology, means to stand out or to appear—over the course of examining a set of new philosophical themes that emerge from their convergence with realities faced by African diasporic peoples. Gordon argues that traditional philosophical questions are not the only ones that philosophers should look at. Gordon examines, as a matter of philosophical interest, topics ranging from the stratification of blacks in biographical discourses to the difficulty of studying black people as human beings. He rejects the notion that existential philosophy is incompatible with religious thought. To support his position, he examines how religion poses not only unique questions of paths to be taken in struggles for liberation, but also of the conditions that make religious practices such as worship possible. He ends that work with a reflection on writing, in which he advances his own commitment to transcendental philosophical approaches, those, in other words, that explore the conditions by which and through which certain phenomena are able to manifest themselves or become possible. Crucial here is that Gordon does not pit existential philosophy against transcendental philosophy but, instead, argues for both.

=== Phenomenology and colonialism ===
Gordon is also known{{By whom|date=February 2012}} as the founder of postcolonial [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and the leading proponent of Africana phenomenology which has enabled him to make a mark in Fanon Studies. Gordon was able to develop [[postcolonial]] phenomenology, which he sometimes refers to as Africana phenomenology or de-colonial phenomenology, through making a series of important innovations to [[Husserl]]ian and [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartrian]] phenomenologies. The first, and perhaps most important, is his transformation of parenthesizing and bracketing of the natural attitude into what he calls "ontological suspension". Although Husserl called for a suspension of the natural attitude, his goal was primarily [[epistemology|epistemological]]. Gordon's interest is, however, primarily concerned with errors that occur from inappropriate [[ontological]] assertions. He is also concerned with metaphysics, which he, unlike many contemporary thinkers, does not reject. Instead, he sees the continuation of [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] metaphysics, which advances a notion of substance that is governed by the essence that leads to the definition in the form of essential being, as a problem. Gordon wants to talk about the social world and the meanings constructed by it without reducing it to a [[physicalism|physicalist]] ontology. The notion of ontological suspension, which he claims is compatible with [[Husserl#The elaboration of phenomenology|Husserlian phenomenology]], advances this effort. He also advances phenomenology as a form of radically self-reflective thought, which means that it must question even its methodological assumptions. Because of this, it must resist epistemological colonization, and it is in this sense that phenomenology is itself postcolonial or decolonizing. Because of this, Gordon refused for some time in his career to refer to his work as “philosophy,” for that would mean colonizing it with a disciplinary set of assumptions. He preferred to call his work “radical thought,” which for him meant being willing to go to the roots of reality in a critical way. From these moves, Gordon was able to generate a set of theoretical concepts that have become useful to those who have adopted his theoretical lexicon: his unique formulation of crisis; his theory of [[epistemic closure]]; his theory of disciplinary decadence and teleological suspension of disciplinarity; and his analysis of maturation and tragedy.

Most of these ideas first emerged in the work that gave Gordon a reputation in Fanon studies—namely, ''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (1995). Gordon introduced a new stage in Fanon studies by announcing that he was not interested in writing on Fanon but instead working with Fanon on the advancement of his (Gordon's) own intellectual project. Fanon was thus an occasion or point of departure but not the main object of the study. The work is, then, a statement more of Gordon's philosophy than that of Fanon, who, in this text, is more a major influence. The book offers several innovations to the question of colonialism and the human sciences. First, Gordon argues that crises are really human communities refusing to make the choices necessary for the transformation of realities created by human agency. In short, they are forms of choices against choice or choosing not to choose, which amounts to bad faith. History, he argued, must transcend the imposition of world history (and thus become structured as a crisis) and move toward an existential-historical understanding of human communities on the basis of critical good faith. Phenomena such as racism and colonialism, because they attempt to erase the humanity of the colonized and object of racism, place challenges on whether it is possible to study human communities without collapsing into acts of discursive, imperial practices.

Gordon has also made an important contribution to the understanding around the work of [[Steve Biko]] by way of a new introduction to Biko's classic text ''[[I Write What I Like]]''.<ref>[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction by Lewis Gordon] to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''.</ref>

=== Essentialism and race ===
For some scholars,{{who|date=February 2012}} [[essentialism]] means that one cannot study race and racism and colonialism properly because of they, in effect, lack essences. Gordon argues that although human beings are incomplete, are without laws of nature, it does not follow that they cannot be studied and understood with reasonable accuracy. Drawing upon the thought of [[Max Weber]], [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alfred Schutz]], and [[Frantz Fanon]], Gordon argued that the task is to develop accurate portrayals or to thematize everyday life. He argues that racism and colonialism are everyday phenomena and, as such, are lived as "normal" aspects of modern life. Even under severe conditions, human beings find ways to live as though under ordinary conditions. This ordinariness can get to a point of distorting reality. In the case of racism, one group of people are allowed to live an ordinary life under ordinary conditions while another group or other groups are expected to do so under extraordinary conditions. Institutional bad faith renders those extraordinary conditions invisible and advances as a norm the false notion a shared ordinary set of conditions. This is the meaning behind the colloquial notion of "double standards". Gordon here also advances a theory that provides an answer to [[social constructivism|social constructivists]] in the study of race. What they fail to understand, Gordon argues, is that sociality is also constructed, which makes social constructivism redundant.

Many social constructivists{{who|date=February 2012}} also treat the identification of constructive as the conclusion of the argument instead of its beginning. For Gordon, identifying that something is constructed does not mean showing that the phenomenon is false or fictional. Human beings construct many "real" things, such as language and meaning and the forms of life generated by such activities and concepts. Many people are able, for instance, to act on race concepts (not racist ones) with a fair degree of accuracy. What this means is simply that they know how to read the social world and the bodies through which that world is manifested. The error that many critics make is that they demand the false criterion of universality and infallibility to the practice of racial identification. Gordon argues that such a demand would not work for the identification of most social phenomena. What is required is not universality nor infallibility but generality. Gordon defends this claim by making the distinction between a law and a principle. Law is absolute, without exceptions, categorical. A principle is general and has exceptions. For things human, principles are more appropriate ascriptions than laws. Gordon argues that these ideas emerged through his reading of Fanon's notions of sociogenesis.

Other ideas he borrows from Fanon are his rejection of the dialectics of recognition and his unique view on racism's impact on ethics and the concept of the Other. Like Fanon, Gordon argues that to seek white recognition leads to dependency on whites. It also means to make whites the standard of value. Yet Gordon rejects the thesis that racism is about a Self–Other dialectic. Antiblack racists do not see blacks as the Other or others, in Gordon's view. Such relations only exist between whites and whomever else they see as human beings or genuine others. Thus, the struggle against anti-black racism is ironically for blacks to become others. This displacement of otherness means that the fight against racism is governed not by moral laws but by tragic ones in which innocence becomes irrelevant. Gordon concludes the work with a look at how two scholars read Fanon's importance: [[Henry Louis Gates, Jr.]], argued that only Fanon's biography is of any contemporary interest, and that is as good literature. [[Cedric Robinson]] argued that Gates failed to see the political dimensions of Fanon's thought and that he should be read as a Marxist-oriented revolutionary. Gordon points out that both scholars were committing acts of disciplinary decadence by, in effect, condemning other disciplines for not being theirs. It was at the end of that book that the concept of disciplinary decadence was introduced. He returned to the concept most recently in his book ''Disciplinary Decadence'' (2006). Gordon's reputation in Fanon Studies grew through his co-edited anthology, ''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (1996), and his many articles over the past decade on various dimensions of Fanon's thought. In those works, he introduced what he calls “five stages of Fanon’s studies,” and he offers a variety of unique readings of Fanon's work. He has shown connections between Du Bois and Fanon on double consciousness; he has written on how Fanon's critique of white normativity leads to the question of whether modern society has any notion of a normal black person; Fanon, he argues, seeks a coherent notion of how it is possible.

Gordon's writings have continued expansion of his and related philosophical approaches and lexicon. In his book of social criticism, ''Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (1997), he explored problems in [[critical race theory]] and philosophy and introduced one of his most famous thought experiments. In the chapter "Sex, Race, and Matrices of Desire", Gordon purports to have created a racial-gender-sex-sexuality matrix and used it to challenge our assumptions of the mixture. A white woman in that matrix, for instance, is mixed because her whiteness makes her masculine but her womanness makes her black. Or certain relationships are transformed, where same-sex interracial relationships are not necessarily homosexual or lesbian ones. What is striking about the book is a theme that some of his critics noticed in his earlier books, and that is the role of music in his prose and analysis. Gordon here builds on his argument about the everyday in his earlier work to argue that danger of most theories of social transformation is that they fail to take seriously the aesthetic dimensions of everyday life. Moral and political thought and economy are good at constructing contexts in which people could sustain biological and social life, but they are terrible at articulating what it means to live in a livable world. Gordon argues that a genuinely emancipatory society creates spaces for the ordinary celebration of everyday pleasure. In his more recent work, Gordon has been arguing about the geography of reason and the importance of contingency in social life. However, it needs to be noted that the legitimacy of his "mixture-matrix" is largely dependent upon his controversial applications of semiotics to race and gender.

=== Reason and rationality ===
A problem of Western thought, Gordon argues, is that it has yoked reason to instrumental rationality and created an antiblack notion of reason's geographical landscape. Shifting the geography of reason, he argues, would entail a war on the kinds of decadence that treat any human community as incapable of manifesting reason. But more, Gordon argues that reason is broader than rationality since it must be used to assess rationality. Rationality could only attempt to impose consistency on reason, but the reason could point out that maximum consistency, although rational, may be unreasonable. Gordon's recent work has been a development of these issues. His co-edited books with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (2005) and ''A Companion to African-American Studies'' (2006), offer some important new concepts in the ongoing development of his thought. In the first, he offers a comprehensive treatment of African-American philosophy and the importance of Africana existential phenomenological thought through a critique of [[Audre Lorde]]'s admonition of using the master's tools. The two Gordons' response is that (1) tools should not only be used to tear down houses but also to build them up; (2) the master's tools are not the only tools available; and (3) the construction of alternative houses (theoretical models, philosophies) could decenter the value of the master's house, denuding it of mastery. In his essay "African-American Philosophy, Race, and Racism", which is his main contribution in that volume, he provides a comprehensive and concise statement of his work to date. In the introduction to the ''Companion'', he and Jane Gordon formulate a theory of African-American Studies as a form of double consciousness. But the key here is the introduction of their concept "the pedagogical imperative". This imperative refers to a teacher's duty to learn and keep learning the broadest and most accurate picture of reality available to humankind. The editors also advance a theory of internationalism, localism, and market nihilism in the face of the rise of an independent managerial class to describe the dynamics of the contemporary academy.

== Classification of Gordon's contributions to sociology and philosophy ==
Gordon considers all of his works to be part of a [[humanism|humanist]] tradition. The role of intellectuals, in his view, is to challenge the limits of human knowledge and, in so doing, achieve some advancement in what he calls "the ''Geist'' war". For him, the importance of intellectual work could be summarized by his claim that one "achieves" as a human being for humanity but one always fails alone. Gordon's work has also been characterized as a form of existential [[sociology]]. The sociological dimensions of his writings have received much attention, and the readers of his most recent book, ''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (2006), have described it as a work that is not only in philosophy (of disciplinarity) but also in education and the sociology of the formations of disciplines themselves. Gordon, however, describes what he is attempting to do as a teleological suspension of disciplinarity.

==Published works==
Gordon has produced approximately 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Books by Gordon currently in print are:

*''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought'' (Fordham University Press, 2015)
* with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in the Modern Age'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2009)
*''An Introduction to Africana Philosophy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
*''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2006)
*''A Companion to African American Studies'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Blackwell, 2006)
*''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Paradigm Publishers, 2005)
*''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought'' (Routledge, 2000)
*''Her Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). Winner of Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
*''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'', (ed.) (Routledge, 1997)
*''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (ed. with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renée T. White) (Blackwell, 1996)
*''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (Routledge, 1995)
*''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (Humanity Books, 1995/1999)

===Online articles by Lewis Gordon===
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.pdf Du Bois's Humanistic Philosophy of the Human Sciences], 2000
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.pdf A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies: An Interview with Lewis Gordon by Linda Martin Alcoff], 2003
*[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''], 2005
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.2.pdf Africa-America Philosophy, Race and the Geography of Reason], 2006
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.Fanon_.pdf Through the Hellish Zone of Non-Being: Thinking Through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth], 2007
*[http://www.truthout.org/the-market-colonization-intellectuals58310 The Market Colonization of Intellectuals],''Truthout'', 2010
*[http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come Of Illicit Appearance: The L.A. Riots/Rebellion as a Portent of Things to Come], ''Truthout'', 12 May 2012
*[http://www.icesi.edu.co/revista_transpasando_fronteras/images/stories/trans-pasando_fronteras/02_Manifiesto.pdf Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Lewis Gordon, "To not become slaves of knowledge of others"], 2011 (original title: "Manifiesto de Transdiciplinariedad. Para no volvernos esclavos del conocimiento de otros"), in the student journal [[:es:Trans-pasando Fronteras|Trans-pasando Fronteras]] (URL visited 29 August 2012)

==See also==
* {{section link|Africana philosophy|List of Africana philosophers}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101123232008/http://www.memphis.edu/moch/counterpoint.htm Lewis Gordon interview on Counterpoint Radio] with Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities at the [[University of Memphis]].

{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Fanon scholars]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1962 births]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:University of the West Indies academics]]
[[Category:American Jews]]
[[Category:American humanists]]
[[Category:Jewish philosophers]]
[[Category:Existentialists]]
[[Category:Marxist humanists]]
[[Category:Temple University faculty]]
[[Category:African-American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]

Lewis Gordon

2019-06-10T22:10:56Z

Kurt1111S: Added Photo. Updated Birth Date, Birth Place, School_Traditionalism,Noteable Ideas

{{other people}}
{{more footnotes|date=April 2009}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region = [[Anti-Humanist]]
| era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
| image = [[File:Lewis Gordon.jpg|thumb|Photograph of Lewis Gordon Circa 2019]]
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth|year=1962|month=5|day=12}}
| birth_place = [[Jamacia]]<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| death_date =
| death_place =
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[Lehman College|Lehman College, CUNY]] | [[Yale University]]}}
| spouse = Jane Anna Gordon
| school_tradition = [[Black Existentialism]]
| institutions = {{ubl | [[Purdue University]] | [[Brown University]] | [[Temple University]] | [[University of Connecticut]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Maurice Natanson]]
| doctoral_students= [[Rowan Ricardo Phillips]]
| notable_ideas = {{hlist | [[Founder of Postcolonial Phenomenology]] | [[Africana phenomenology]]}}<ref>https://prabook.com/web/lewis.gordon/3743513</ref>
| main_interests = {{hlist | [[Africana philosophy]] | [[Black existentialism]] | [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]]}}
| influences = {{hlist | [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] | [EFrantz Fanon]] | [[Martin Heidegger]] | [[Edmund Husserl]] | [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] | [[Max Weber]]}}
| influenced =
| website = {{http://www.lewisrgordon.com}}
}}

'''Lewis Ricardo Gordon''' (born May 12th, 1962) is an American [[philosopher]] who works in the areas of [[Africana philosophy]], philosophy of human and life sciences, [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]], philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on race and racism, postcolonial phenomenology, Africana and [[black existentialism]], and on the works and thought of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and [[Frantz Fanon]]. His most recent book is titled: ''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought.'' <ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=vfwJCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought|last=Gordon|first=Lewis R.|last2=Cornell|first2=Drucilla|date=2015-01-01|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=9780823266081|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Gordon graduated in 1984 from [[Lehman College]], [[CUNY]], through the Lehman Scholars Program, with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree, ''magna cum laude'' and as a member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He completed his [[Master of Arts]] and [[Master of Philosophy]] degrees in philosophy in 1991 at [[Yale University]], and received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree with distinction from the same university in 1993. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Gordon taught at [[Brown University]], Yale, [[Purdue University]], and [[Temple University]], where he was the [[Laura H. Carnell]] Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy with affiliations in Religious and Judaic Studies. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, with affiliations in Judaic Studies and the Caribbean, Latino/a, and Latin American Studies, at the [[University of Connecticut]] at [[Storrs, Connecticut|Storrs]]. He also is Visiting Euro philosophy Professor at [[Toulouse University]], France, and Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in Political and International Studies at [[Rhodes University]] in South Africa (2014–2016).

At Temple, he was Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought (ISRST), which is devoted to research on the complexity and social dimensions of race and racism. The ISRST's many projects include developing a consortium on Afro-Latin American Studies, a Philadelphia Blues People Project, semiological studies of indigeneity, a Black Civil Society project, symposia on race, sexuality, and sexual health, and ongoing work in Africana philosophy. Gordon was Executive Editor of volumes I-V of ''[[Radical Philosophy Review]]: Journal of the Radical Philosophy Association'' and co-editor of the [[Routledge]] book series on [[Africana philosophy]]. Additionally, he is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Gordon is the founder of the Center for [[African Jews|Afro-Jewish]] Studies, the only such research center, which focuses on developing and providing reliable sources of information on [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African]] and African Diasporic Jewish or [[Hebrews|Hebrew]]-descended populations. Gordon states: "In actuality, there is no such thing as pure Jewish blood. Jews are a creolized [mixed-race] people. It's been that way since at least the time we left [[Egypt]] as a [culturally] mixed Egyptian and African [i.e., from other parts of Africa] people."

Gordon founded the Second Chance Program at [[Herbert H. Lehman High School|Lehman High School]] in the [[Bronx, New York]]. He is married to Jane Anna Gordon.

== Philosophy and work in theory ==

===Black existentialism===
Gordon is considered among the leading scholars in [[black existentialism]].<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 56| pages = 72–84| last1 = Linwood G. Vereen| last2 = Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove| last3 = Michael D. Hannon| last4 = Lisa A. Wines| last5 = Natasha Howard| last6 = Isaac Burt| title = Black Existentialism: Extending the Discourse on Meaning and Existence | journal = Journal of Humanistic Counseling| date = April 2017| doi = 10.1002/johc.12045}}</ref> He first came to prominence in this subject because of his first book, ''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (1995), which was an [[existentialism|existential]] [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] study of anti-black racism, and his anthology ''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'' (1997). The book is written in four parts, with a series of short chapters that at times take the form of phenomenological vignettes. Bad faith, as Gordon reads it, is a coextensive phenomenon reflective of the metastability of the human condition. It is a denial of human reality, an effort to evade freedom, a flight from responsibility, a choice against choice, an assertion of being the only point of view on the world, an assertion of being the world, an effort to deny having a point of view, a flight from displeasing truths to pleasing falsehoods, a form of misanthropy, an act of believing what one does not believe, a form of spirit of seriousness, sincerity, an effort to disarm evidence (a Gordon innovation), a form of sedimented or institutional version of all of these, and (another Gordon innovation) a flight from and war against social reality. Gordon rejects notions of disembodied [[consciousness]] (which he argues are forms of bad faith) and articulates a theory of the body-in-bad-faith. Gordon also rejects authenticity discourses. He sees them as trapped in expectations of sincerity, which also is a form of bad faith. He proposes, instead, critical good faith, which he argues requires respect for evidence and accountability in the social world, a world of intersubjective relations.

=== The question of racism ===
[[Racism]], Gordon argues,{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} requires the rejection of another human being's humanity. Since the other human being is a human being, such a rejection is a contradiction of reality. A racist must, then, deny reality, and since communication is possible between a racist and the people who are the object of racial hatred, then social reality is also what is denied in racist assertions. A racist, then, attempts to avoid social reality. Gordon argues that since people could only "appear" if embodied, then racism is an attack on embodied realities. It is an effort to make embodied realities bodies without points of view or make points of views without bodies. Racism is also a form of the spirit of seriousness, by which Gordon means the treatment of values as material features of the world instead of expressions of human freedom and responsibility. Racism ascribes to so-called racially inferior people intrinsic values that emanate from their flesh. A result of the spirit of seriousness is racist rationality. Here, Gordon, in agreement with [[Frantz Fanon]], argues that racists are not irrational people but instead hyper-rational expressions of racist rationality. He rejects, in other words, theories that regard racism as a function of bad emotions or passions. Such phenomena, he suggests, emerge as a consequence of racist thinking, not its cause. Effect emerges, in other words, to affect how one negotiates reality. If one is not willing to deal with time, a highly emotional response squeezes all time into a single moment, which leads to the overflow of what one prefers to believe over what one is afraid of facing.

Gordon analyzes a variety of issues in the study of anti-black racism, such as black antiblack racists, exoticism, racial “qualities,” and theological-ethical dimensions of racism. He prefers to focus on anti-black racism instead of “[[white supremacy]]” because, he points out, that anti-black racism could exist without white supremacy. There are many people who reject white supremacy but affirm notions of black inferiority. A prime example is that there are black antiblack racists. Gordon analyzes this phenomenon through a discussion of black use of the word “[[nigger]],” which he argues is bad faith effort at black self-exceptionalism—of, in the case of the user of the term, not being its object. Exoticism is the other extreme. It is a rejection of the humanity of black people under the pretense of loving black people. The exoticist valorizes black people because he or she regards black people as, like animals, incapable of valid judgment.

=== Theology and history-ethics ===
Gordon argues{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} that in theological form, studies of anti-black racism reveal that a particular assumption of [[Western world|Western]] [[ethical]] thought must be rejected – the notion of similarity as a condition of ethical obligation. That black woman could worship a god with whom they are neither similar nor could ever be identical demonstrates that love does not require similarity. Gordon argues that the ethical issue against anti-black racism is not one of seeing the similarity between blacks and whites but of being able, simply, to respect and see the ethical importance of blacks as blacks. The fight against racism, in other words, does not require the elimination of race or noticing the racial difference but instead demands to respect the humanity of the people who exemplify racial difference. In ''Existence in Black'', Gordon outlines themes of black existentialism in the text's introduction. He argues that black existentialism addresses many of the same themes of European existentialism but with some key differences. For instance, although both sets argue that the notion of a human being makes no sense outside of human communities and that individuals make no sense without society and societies make no sense without individuals, European existentialists had to defend individuality more because they were normative in their societies, whereas black existentialists had to focus on community more in order to demonstrate their membership in the human community. The question of individuality for black existentialists becomes one of showing that not all black people are the same. Themes of anguish, dread, freedom, absurdity, and death are examined, as well, through the historical reality of anti-black racism and [[colonialism]] and, along with it, the meaning of black suffering and the legitimacy of black existence. The logic of anti-black racism demands blacks offering justifications for their existence that are not posed for whites.

Gordon points{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} these dynamics out through discussions of [[W. E. B. Du Bois]]'s observation that black people are often treated as problems instead of people who face problems in the world and Frantz Fanon's call for black people to become actional through transcending the dialectics of seeking white recognition. Gordon also argues that black existential philosophy is an area of thought, which means that contributions to its development can come from anyone who understands its problematics. In other words, one does not have to be black to contribute to this area of thought. ''Existence in Black'' reflects his point since it has articles by other authors from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds discussing themes ranging from African and [[wikt:Afro-Caribbean|Afro-Caribbean]] existential struggles with beliefs in predestination to black [[feminist]] struggles with postmodern anti-essentialist thought. Gordon's chapter in the book focuses on the problem of black invisibility, which he points out is paradoxical since it is a function of black people being hyper-visible. Gordon's place in this area of thought was solidified in 2000 with the publication of his book ''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought''. That book explores themes of existence—which he points out, from its Latin etymology, means to stand out or to appear—over the course of examining a set of new philosophical themes that emerge from their convergence with realities faced by African diasporic peoples. Gordon argues that traditional philosophical questions are not the only ones that philosophers should look at. Gordon examines, as a matter of philosophical interest, topics ranging from the stratification of blacks in biographical discourses to the difficulty of studying black people as human beings. He rejects the notion that existential philosophy is incompatible with religious thought. To support his position, he examines how religion poses not only unique questions of paths to be taken in struggles for liberation, but also of the conditions that make religious practices such as worship possible. He ends that work with a reflection on writing, in which he advances his own commitment to transcendental philosophical approaches, those, in other words, that explore the conditions by which and through which certain phenomena are able to manifest themselves or become possible. Crucial here is that Gordon does not pit existential philosophy against transcendental philosophy but, instead, argues for both.

=== Phenomenology and colonialism ===
Gordon is also known{{By whom|date=February 2012}} as the founder of postcolonial [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenology]] and the leading proponent of Africana phenomenology which has enabled him to make a mark in Fanon Studies. Gordon was able to develop [[postcolonial]] phenomenology, which he sometimes refers to as Africana phenomenology or de-colonial phenomenology, through making a series of important innovations to [[Husserl]]ian and [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartrian]] phenomenologies. The first, and perhaps most important, is his transformation of parenthesizing and bracketing of the natural attitude into what he calls "ontological suspension". Although Husserl called for a suspension of the natural attitude, his goal was primarily [[epistemology|epistemological]]. Gordon's interest is, however, primarily concerned with errors that occur from inappropriate [[ontological]] assertions. He is also concerned with metaphysics, which he, unlike many contemporary thinkers, does not reject. Instead, he sees the continuation of [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] metaphysics, which advances a notion of substance that is governed by the essence that leads to the definition in the form of essential being, as a problem. Gordon wants to talk about the social world and the meanings constructed by it without reducing it to a [[physicalism|physicalist]] ontology. The notion of ontological suspension, which he claims is compatible with [[Husserl#The elaboration of phenomenology|Husserlian phenomenology]], advances this effort. He also advances phenomenology as a form of radically self-reflective thought, which means that it must question even its methodological assumptions. Because of this, it must resist epistemological colonization, and it is in this sense that phenomenology is itself postcolonial or decolonizing. Because of this, Gordon refused for some time in his career to refer to his work as “philosophy,” for that would mean colonizing it with a disciplinary set of assumptions. He preferred to call his work “radical thought,” which for him meant being willing to go to the roots of reality in a critical way. From these moves, Gordon was able to generate a set of theoretical concepts that have become useful to those who have adopted his theoretical lexicon: his unique formulation of crisis; his theory of [[epistemic closure]]; his theory of disciplinary decadence and teleological suspension of disciplinarity; and his analysis of maturation and tragedy.

Most of these ideas first emerged in the work that gave Gordon a reputation in Fanon studies—namely, ''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (1995). Gordon introduced a new stage in Fanon studies by announcing that he was not interested in writing on Fanon but instead working with Fanon on the advancement of his (Gordon's) own intellectual project. Fanon was thus an occasion or point of departure but not the main object of the study. The work is, then, a statement more of Gordon's philosophy than that of Fanon, who, in this text, is more a major influence. The book offers several innovations to the question of colonialism and the human sciences. First, Gordon argues that crises are really human communities refusing to make the choices necessary for the transformation of realities created by human agency. In short, they are forms of choices against choice or choosing not to choose, which amounts to bad faith. History, he argued, must transcend the imposition of world history (and thus become structured as a crisis) and move toward an existential-historical understanding of human communities on the basis of critical good faith. Phenomena such as racism and colonialism, because they attempt to erase the humanity of the colonized and object of racism, place challenges on whether it is possible to study human communities without collapsing into acts of discursive, imperial practices.

Gordon has also made an important contribution to the understanding around the work of [[Steve Biko]] by way of a new introduction to Biko's classic text ''[[I Write What I Like]]''.<ref>[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction by Lewis Gordon] to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''.</ref>

=== Essentialism and race ===
For some scholars,{{who|date=February 2012}} [[essentialism]] means that one cannot study race and racism and colonialism properly because of they, in effect, lack essences. Gordon argues that although human beings are incomplete, are without laws of nature, it does not follow that they cannot be studied and understood with reasonable accuracy. Drawing upon the thought of [[Max Weber]], [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alfred Schutz]], and [[Frantz Fanon]], Gordon argued that the task is to develop accurate portrayals or to thematize everyday life. He argues that racism and colonialism are everyday phenomena and, as such, are lived as "normal" aspects of modern life. Even under severe conditions, human beings find ways to live as though under ordinary conditions. This ordinariness can get to a point of distorting reality. In the case of racism, one group of people are allowed to live an ordinary life under ordinary conditions while another group or other groups are expected to do so under extraordinary conditions. Institutional bad faith renders those extraordinary conditions invisible and advances as a norm the false notion a shared ordinary set of conditions. This is the meaning behind the colloquial notion of "double standards". Gordon here also advances a theory that provides an answer to [[social constructivism|social constructivists]] in the study of race. What they fail to understand, Gordon argues, is that sociality is also constructed, which makes social constructivism redundant.

Many social constructivists{{who|date=February 2012}} also treat the identification of constructive as the conclusion of the argument instead of its beginning. For Gordon, identifying that something is constructed does not mean showing that the phenomenon is false or fictional. Human beings construct many "real" things, such as language and meaning and the forms of life generated by such activities and concepts. Many people are able, for instance, to act on race concepts (not racist ones) with a fair degree of accuracy. What this means is simply that they know how to read the social world and the bodies through which that world is manifested. The error that many critics make is that they demand the false criterion of universality and infallibility to the practice of racial identification. Gordon argues that such a demand would not work for the identification of most social phenomena. What is required is not universality nor infallibility but generality. Gordon defends this claim by making the distinction between a law and a principle. Law is absolute, without exceptions, categorical. A principle is general and has exceptions. For things human, principles are more appropriate ascriptions than laws. Gordon argues that these ideas emerged through his reading of Fanon's notions of sociogenesis.

Other ideas he borrows from Fanon are his rejection of the dialectics of recognition and his unique view on racism's impact on ethics and the concept of the Other. Like Fanon, Gordon argues that to seek white recognition leads to dependency on whites. It also means to make whites the standard of value. Yet Gordon rejects the thesis that racism is about a Self–Other dialectic. Antiblack racists do not see blacks as the Other or others, in Gordon's view. Such relations only exist between whites and whomever else they see as human beings or genuine others. Thus, the struggle against anti-black racism is ironically for blacks to become others. This displacement of otherness means that the fight against racism is governed not by moral laws but by tragic ones in which innocence becomes irrelevant. Gordon concludes the work with a look at how two scholars read Fanon's importance: [[Henry Louis Gates, Jr.]], argued that only Fanon's biography is of any contemporary interest, and that is as good literature. [[Cedric Robinson]] argued that Gates failed to see the political dimensions of Fanon's thought and that he should be read as a Marxist-oriented revolutionary. Gordon points out that both scholars were committing acts of disciplinary decadence by, in effect, condemning other disciplines for not being theirs. It was at the end of that book that the concept of disciplinary decadence was introduced. He returned to the concept most recently in his book ''Disciplinary Decadence'' (2006). Gordon's reputation in Fanon Studies grew through his co-edited anthology, ''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (1996), and his many articles over the past decade on various dimensions of Fanon's thought. In those works, he introduced what he calls “five stages of Fanon’s studies,” and he offers a variety of unique readings of Fanon's work. He has shown connections between Du Bois and Fanon on double consciousness; he has written on how Fanon's critique of white normativity leads to the question of whether modern society has any notion of a normal black person; Fanon, he argues, seeks a coherent notion of how it is possible.

Gordon's writings have continued expansion of his and related philosophical approaches and lexicon. In his book of social criticism, ''Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (1997), he explored problems in [[critical race theory]] and philosophy and introduced one of his most famous thought experiments. In the chapter "Sex, Race, and Matrices of Desire", Gordon purports to have created a racial-gender-sex-sexuality matrix and used it to challenge our assumptions of the mixture. A white woman in that matrix, for instance, is mixed because her whiteness makes her masculine but her womanness makes her black. Or certain relationships are transformed, where same-sex interracial relationships are not necessarily homosexual or lesbian ones. What is striking about the book is a theme that some of his critics noticed in his earlier books, and that is the role of music in his prose and analysis. Gordon here builds on his argument about the everyday in his earlier work to argue that danger of most theories of social transformation is that they fail to take seriously the aesthetic dimensions of everyday life. Moral and political thought and economy are good at constructing contexts in which people could sustain biological and social life, but they are terrible at articulating what it means to live in a livable world. Gordon argues that a genuinely emancipatory society creates spaces for the ordinary celebration of everyday pleasure. In his more recent work, Gordon has been arguing about the geography of reason and the importance of contingency in social life. However, it needs to be noted that the legitimacy of his "mixture-matrix" is largely dependent upon his controversial applications of semiotics to race and gender.

=== Reason and rationality ===
A problem of Western thought, Gordon argues, is that it has yoked reason to instrumental rationality and created an antiblack notion of reason's geographical landscape. Shifting the geography of reason, he argues, would entail a war on the kinds of decadence that treat any human community as incapable of manifesting reason. But more, Gordon argues that reason is broader than rationality since it must be used to assess rationality. Rationality could only attempt to impose consistency on reason, but the reason could point out that maximum consistency, although rational, may be unreasonable. Gordon's recent work has been a development of these issues. His co-edited books with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (2005) and ''A Companion to African-American Studies'' (2006), offer some important new concepts in the ongoing development of his thought. In the first, he offers a comprehensive treatment of African-American philosophy and the importance of Africana existential phenomenological thought through a critique of [[Audre Lorde]]'s admonition of using the master’s tools. The two Gordons' response is that (1) tools should not only be used to tear down houses but also to build them up; (2) the master's tools are not the only tools available; and (3) the construction of alternative houses (theoretical models, philosophies) could decenter the value of the master's house, denuding it of mastery. In his essay "African-American Philosophy, Race, and Racism", which is his main contribution in that volume, he provides a comprehensive and concise statement of his work to date. In the introduction to the ''Companion'', he and Jane Gordon formulate a theory of African-American Studies as a form of double consciousness. But the key here is the introduction of their concept "the pedagogical imperative". This imperative refers to a teacher's duty to learn and keep learning the broadest and most accurate picture of reality available to humankind. The editors also advance a theory of internationalism, localism, and market nihilism in the face of the rise of an independent managerial class to describe the dynamics of the contemporary academy.

== Classification of Gordon's contributions to sociology and philosophy ==
Gordon considers all of his works to be part of a [[humanism|humanist]] tradition. The role of intellectuals, in his view, is to challenge the limits of human knowledge and, in so doing, achieve some advancement in what he calls "the ''Geist'' war". For him, the importance of intellectual work could be summarized by his claim that one "achieves" as a human being for humanity but one always fails alone. Gordon's work has also been characterized as a form of existential [[sociology]]. The sociological dimensions of his writings have received much attention, and the readers of his most recent book, ''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (2006), have described it as a work that is not only in philosophy (of disciplinarity) but also in education and the sociology of the formations of disciplines themselves. Gordon, however, describes what he is attempting to do as a teleological suspension of disciplinarity.

==Published works==
Gordon has produced approximately 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Books by Gordon currently in print are:

*''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought'' (Fordham University Press, 2015)
* with Jane Anna Gordon, ''Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in the Modern Age'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2009)
*''An Introduction to Africana Philosophy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
*''Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times'' (Paradigm Publishers, 2006)
*''A Companion to African American Studies'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Blackwell, 2006)
*''Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice'' (ed. with Jane Anna Gordon) (Paradigm Publishers, 2005)
*''Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought'' (Routledge, 2000)
*''Her Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). Winner of Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
*''Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy'', (ed.) (Routledge, 1997)
*''Fanon: A Critical Reader'' (ed. with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renée T. White) (Blackwell, 1996)
*''Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences'' (Routledge, 1995)
*''Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism'' (Humanity Books, 1995/1999)

===Online articles by Lewis Gordon===
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.pdf Du Bois's Humanistic Philosophy of the Human Sciences], 2000
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.pdf A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies: An Interview with Lewis Gordon by Linda Martin Alcoff], 2003
*[http://abahlali.org/node/3039 New Introduction to Steve Biko's ''I Write What I Like''], 2005
*[http://abahlali.org/files/lewis.2.pdf Africa-America Philosophy, Race and the Geography of Reason], 2006
*[http://abahlali.org/files/Gordon.Fanon_.pdf Through the Hellish Zone of Non-Being: Thinking Through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth], 2007
*[http://www.truthout.org/the-market-colonization-intellectuals58310 The Market Colonization of Intellectuals],''Truthout'', 2010
*[http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come Of Illicit Appearance: The L.A. Riots/Rebellion as a Portent of Things to Come], ''Truthout'', 12 May 2012
*[http://www.icesi.edu.co/revista_transpasando_fronteras/images/stories/trans-pasando_fronteras/02_Manifiesto.pdf Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Lewis Gordon, "To not become slaves of knowledge of others"], 2011 (original title: "Manifiesto de Transdiciplinariedad. Para no volvernos esclavos del conocimiento de otros"), in the student journal [[:es:Trans-pasando Fronteras|Trans-pasando Fronteras]] (URL visited 29 August 2012)

==See also==
* {{section link|Africana philosophy|List of Africana philosophers}}

==References==
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
* {{Official website}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101123232008/http://www.memphis.edu/moch/counterpoint.htm Lewis Gordon interview on Counterpoint Radio] with Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities at the [[University of Memphis]].

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Lewis}}
[[Category:Fanon scholars]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1962 births]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:University of the West Indies academics]]
[[Category:American Jews]]
[[Category:American humanists]]
[[Category:Jewish philosophers]]
[[Category:Existentialists]]
[[Category:Marxist humanists]]
[[Category:Temple University faculty]]
[[Category:African-American Jews]]
[[Catagory:Afro-Pessimism]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]

Burr–Hamilton duel

2017-10-24T13:11:29Z

Kurt1111S:

{{Infobox civilian attack
|title = Burr–Hamilton Duel
|image = Hamilton-burr-duel.jpg
|caption = A 20th-century artistic rendering of the July 11, 1804 duel between [[Aaron Burr]] and [[Alexander Hamilton]] by J. Mund
|location = [[Weehawken, New Jersey]], U.S.
|target = [[Alexander Hamilton]], [[Aaron Burr]]
|date = July 11, 1804
|type = [[Duel]]
|weapons = Wogdon pistols
|fatalities = 1 (Hamilton)
|injuries = None
|perps = [[Aaron Burr]], [[Alexander Hamilton]]
}}

The '''Burr–Hamilton duel''' was fought between prominent [[Politics of the United States|American politicians]] [[James Camroon]], the sitting [[Vice President of the United States]], and [[Alexander Hamilton]], the former [[United States Secretary of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury]], at [[Weehawken, New Jersey]] on July 11, 1804.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jul11.html |title=Today in History: July 11 |publisher=Library of Congress |accessdate=April 23, 2007}}</ref> The duel was the culmination of a long and bitter rivalry between the two men. Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton, who was carried to the home of [[William Bayard Jr.|William Bayard]], where he died the next day.

==Background==
[[File:Schuyler.jpg|thumb|right|[[Philip Schuyler]], Hamilton's father-in-law, lost his Senate seat to Burr.]]
The Burr–Hamilton duel is one of the most famous personal conflicts in [[History of the United States|American history]]. It was a [[Duel#Pistol duel|draw duel]] which arose from long-standing personal bitterness that developed between the two men over the course of several years. Tensions reached a boiling point with Hamilton's [[journalism|journalistic]] defamation of Burr's character during the 1804 [[Governor of New York|New York gubernatorial race]], in which Burr was a candidate. The duel was fought at a time when the practice was being outlawed in the northern United States, and it had immense political ramifications. Burr survived the duel and was [[indictment|indicted]] for [[murder]] in both [[New York (state)|New York]] and [[New Jersey]], though these charges were later either dismissed or resulted in [[acquittal]]. The harsh criticism and animosity directed toward him following the duel brought an end to his political career. The [[Federalist Party]], already weakened by the defeat of [[John Adams]] in the [[United States presidential election, 1800|presidential election of 1800]], was further weakened by Hamilton's death.

The duel was the final skirmish of a long conflict between [[Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republicans]] and [[Federalist Party|Federalists]]. The conflict began in 1791 when Burr won a [[United States Senate]] seat from [[Philip Schuyler]], Hamilton's father-in-law, who would have supported Federalist policies. (Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury at the time.) The [[Electoral College (United States)|Electoral College]] then deadlocked in the [[United States presidential election, 1800|election of 1800]], during which Hamilton's maneuvering in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] caused [[Thomas Jefferson]] to be named president and Burr vice-president.<ref>See, for example, ''[http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/early-republic/resources/%E2%80%9Cjefferson-every-view-less-dangerous-burr%E2%80%9D-hamilton-election "Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800]'' (Letter from Alexander Hamilton to Harrison Gray Otis, December 23, 1800).</ref>

Hamilton’s animosity toward Burr was severe and well-documented in personal letters to his friend and compatriot [[James McHenry]]. The following quotation from one of these letters on January 4, 1801 exemplifies his bitterness:
<blockquote>Nothing has given me so much chagrin as the Intelligence that the Federal party were thinking seriously of supporting Mr. Burr for president. I should consider the execution of the plan as devoting the country and signing their own death warrant. Mr. Burr will probably make stipulations, but he will laugh in his sleeve while he makes them and will break them the first moment it may serve his purpose.<ref name="Steiner">Bernard C. Steiner and James McHenry, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ki4DAAAAYAAJ The life and correspondence of James McHenry]'' (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1907).</ref></blockquote>

In a more extensive letter written shortly afterward, Hamilton details the many charges that he has against Burr, calling him a "profligate, a voluptuary in the extreme”, accusing him of corruptly serving the interests of the [[Holland Land Company]] while a member of the legislature, criticizing his military commission and accusing him of resigning under false pretenses, and many more serious accusations.<ref name="Steiner"/>

[[File:Morgan Lewis (portrait by Henry Inman).png|thumb|right|[[Morgan Lewis (governor)|Morgan Lewis]], endorsed by Hamilton, defeated Burr in the 1804 New York gubernatorial election.]]

It became clear that Jefferson would drop Burr from his ticket in the [[U.S. presidential election, 1804|1804 election]], so the Vice President ran for the [[Governor of New York|governorship of New York]] instead.{{citation needed|date = January 2017}} Hamilton campaigned vigorously against Burr, who was running as an independent, causing him to lose to [[Morgan Lewis (governor)|Morgan Lewis]], a Democratic-Republican endorsed by Hamilton.{{Citation needed|date = January 2017}}

Both men had been involved in duels in the past. Hamilton had been a principal in 10 shotless duels prior to his fatal encounter with Burr, including duels with [[William Gordon (New Hampshire politician)|William Gordon]] (1779), [[Aedanus Burke]] (1790), [[John Francis Mercer]] (1792–1793), [[James Nicholson (naval officer)|James Nicholson]] (1795), [[James Monroe]] (1797), and Ebenezer Purdy/[[George Clinton (vice president)|George Clinton]] (1804). He also served as a second to [[John Laurens]] in a 1779 duel with [[Charles Lee (general)|General Charles Lee]], and to legal client John Auldjo in a 1787 duel with [[William Pierce (politician)|William Pierce]].<ref>Freeman, 1996, pp. 294–295.</ref> Hamilton also claimed that he had one previous honor dispute with Burr;<ref>Nathaniel Pendleton to Van Ness. June 26, 1804. ''Hamilton Papers'', 26:270.</ref> Burr stated that there were two.<ref>Burr to Charles Biddle; July 18, 2004. ''Papers of Aaron Burr'', 2: 887.</ref><ref>Additionally, Hamilton's son [[Philip Hamilton|Philip]] was killed in a November 23, 1801 duel with George I. Eacker, initiated after Philip and his friend Richard Price engaged in "[[Hooliganism|hooliganish]]" behavior in Eacker's box at the [[Park Theatre (Manhattan, New York)|Park Theatre]]. This was in response to a speech that Eacker had made on July 3, 1801 that was critical of Hamilton. Philip and his friend both challenged Eacker to duels when he called them "damned rascals" (Fleming, 1999, pp. 7–9). Price's duel (also at Weehawken) resulted in nothing more than four missed shots, and Hamilton advised his son to ''[[delope]]'' (throw away his shot). However, both Philip and Eacker stood shotless for a minute after the command "present", then Philip leveled his pistol, causing Eacker to fire, mortally wounding Philip and sending his shot awry.</ref>

===Election of 1800===
{{main article|United States presidential election, 1800}}

Burr and Hamilton first came into public opposition during the United States presidential election of 1800. Burr ran for Vice President on the Democratic-Republican ticket, along with presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, against President John Adams (the Federalist incumbent) and his vice presidential running mate [[Charles Cotesworth Pinckney|Charles C. Pinckney]]. Electoral College rules at the time gave each elector two votes for president; the candidate who received the second most votes became vice president. The Democratic-Republican Party, therefore, planned to have 72 of their 73 electors vote for both Jefferson and Burr, with the remaining elector voting only for Jefferson. However, the electors failed to execute this plan, so Burr and Jefferson tied with 73 votes each. The Constitution stipulates that, if no candidate wins a majority, the election is moved to the [[United States House of Representatives]]—which was controlled by the Federalists, at this point, many of whom were loathe to vote for Jefferson. Hamilton, however, regarded Burr as far more dangerous than Jefferson and used all his influence to ensure Jefferson's election. On the 36th ballot, the House of Representatives gave Jefferson the presidency, with Burr becoming vice president.

===Charles Cooper's letter===
{{Wikisourcehas|original texts related to|[[s:Hamilton-Burr duel correspondences|Hamilton-Burr duel correspondences]]}}
On April 24, 1804, a letter was published in the ''Albany Register'' in the context of opposing Burr's candidacy.<ref>Cooper, Charles D. April 24, 1804. Albany Register.</ref> It was originally sent from [[Charles D. Cooper]] to Hamilton's father-in-law, former U.S. Sen. Philip Schuyler,<ref>Cooper to Philip Schuyler. ''Hamilton Papers''. April 23, 1804. 26: 246.</ref> and made reference to a previous statement by Cooper: "General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government." Cooper went on to emphasize that he could describe in detail "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr" at a political dinner.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7lYSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA806 |title=Life of Alexander Hamilton |publisher= |accessdate=April 20, 2015|author1=Hamilton |first1=John Church |year=1879 }}</ref>

Burr responded in a letter delivered by William P. Van Ness, pointing particularly to the "more despicable" phrase, and demanded "a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expression which would warrant the assertion of Dr. Cooper." Hamilton's verbose reply on June 20, 1804 indicated that he could not be held responsible for Cooper's interpretation of his words (yet did not fault that interpretation), concluding that Hamilton would "abide the consequences" should Burr remain unsatisfied.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0205 |title=From Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr, 20 June 1804 |website=Founders.archives.gov |date=2016-06-29 |accessdate=2016-07-09}}</ref> A recurring theme in their correspondence is that Burr seeks avowal or disavowal of ''anything'' that could justify Cooper's characterization, while Hamilton protests that there are no ''specifics''.

Burr's reply on June 21, 1804, also delivered by Van Ness, stated that "political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0207 |title=To Alexander Hamilton from Aaron Burr, 21 June 1804 |website=Founders.archives.gov |date=2016-06-29 |accessdate=2016-07-09}}</ref> Hamilton replied that he had "no other answer to give than that which has already been given". This letter was delivered to Nathaniel Pendleton on June 22 but did not reach Burr until June 25.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0210 |title=From Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr, 22 June 1804 |website=Founders.archives.gov |date=2016-06-29 |accessdate=2016-07-09}}</ref> The delay was due to negotiation between Pendleton and Van Ness in which Pendleton submitted the following paper:

{{quote|General Hamilton says he cannot imagine what Dr. Cooper may have alluded, unless it were to a conversation at Mr. Taylor's, in Albany, last winter (at which he and General Hamilton were present). General Hamilton cannot recollect distinctly the particulars of that conversation, so as to undertake to repeat them, without running the risk of varying or omitting what might be deemed important circumstances. The expressions are entirely forgotten, and the specific ideas imperfectly remembered; but to the best of his recollection it consisted of comments on the political principles and views of Colonel Burr, and the results that might be expected from them in the event of his election as Governor, without reference to any particular instance of past conduct or private character.<ref>Winfield, 1875, pp. 216–217.</ref>}}  Eventually, Burr issued a formal challenge, and Hamilton accepted.<ref>Winfield, 1875, p. 217.</ref> Many historians have considered the causes of the duel to be flimsy and have thus either characterized Hamilton as "suicidal", Burr as "malicious and murderous," or both.<ref>Freeman, 1996, p. 290.</ref> Thomas Fleming offers the theory that Burr may have been attempting to recover his honor by challenging Hamilton, whom he considered to be the only gentleman among his detractors, in response to the slanderous attacks against his character published during the 1804 gubernatorial campaign.<ref>Fleming, p. 281</ref>

==The duel==
In the early morning hours of July 11, 1804, Burr and Hamilton departed from [[Manhattan]] by separate boats and rowed across the [[Hudson River]] to a spot known as the [[Weehawken, New Jersey|Heights of Weehawken]] in [[New Jersey]], a popular dueling ground below the towering cliffs of the [[New Jersey Palisades|Palisades]].<ref name="teachinghistory">Buescher, John. "[http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24404 Burr-Hamilton Duel]." [http://www.teachinghistory.org Teachinghistory.org]. Accessed July 11, 2011.</ref> Dueling had been prohibited in both New York and New Jersey; Hamilton and Burr agreed to take the duel to Weehawken, however, because New Jersey was not as aggressive in prosecuting dueling participants as New York. The same site was used for eighteen known duels between 1700 and 1845.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, p. 3.</ref> In an attempt to shield the participants from prosecution, procedures were implemented to give all witnesses [[plausible deniability]]. For example, the pistols were transported to the island in a [[Portmanteau (luggage)|portmanteau]], enabling the rowers to say under oath that they had not seen any pistols. (They also stood with their backs to the duelists.)<ref>Chernow, p. 700.</ref>

Burr, [[William Peter Van Ness|William P. Van Ness]] (his [[Duel#Offense and satisfaction|second]]), Matthew L. Davis, and another (often identified as John Swarthout) plus their rowers reached the site at 6:30 a.m. whereupon Swarthout and Van Ness started to clear the underbrush from the dueling ground. Hamilton, Judge [[Nathaniel Pendleton]] (his second), and [[David Hosack]] arrived a few minutes before seven. Lots were cast for the choice of position and which second should start the duel; both were won by Hamilton's second, who chose the upper edge of the ledge (which faced the city) for Hamilton.<ref name="Winfield 219">Winfield, 1874, p. 219.</ref> However, according to historian and author [[Joseph Ellis]], Hamilton had been challenged and therefore had choice of both weapon and position. Under this account, it was Hamilton himself who chose the upstream or north side position. The duel took place near the area where Phillip Hamilton had dueled and lost three years before his father. <ref name="Ellis 24">Ellis, Joseph. Founding Brothers. p. 24</ref>

All first-hand accounts of the duel agree that two shots were fired; however, Hamilton and Burr's seconds disagreed on the intervening time between the shots. It was common for both principals in a duel to fire a shot at the ground to exemplify courage, and then the duel could come to an end. Hamilton apparently fired a shot above Burr's head. Burr returned fire and hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above the right hip. The large-caliber lead ball ricocheted off Hamilton's third or second [[False ribs|false rib]], fracturing it, and caused considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and [[Thoracic diaphragm|diaphragm]], before becoming lodged in his first or second [[lumbar vertebra]]. According to Pendleton's account, Hamilton collapsed almost immediately, dropping the pistol involuntarily, and Burr moved toward Hamilton in a speechless manner (which Pendleton deemed to be indicative of regret) before being hustled away behind an umbrella by Van Ness because Hosack and the rowers were already approaching.<ref>Winfield, 1874, pp. 219–220.</ref>

It is entirely uncertain which principal fired first, as both seconds' backs were to the duel in accordance with the pre-arranged regulations of the duel and so that the men could later testify that they "saw no fire". After much research to determine the actual events of the duel, historian Joseph Ellis gives his best guess:

{{quote|Hamilton did fire his weapon intentionally, and he fired first. But he [[delope|aimed to miss]] Burr, sending his ball into the tree above and behind Burr's location. In so doing, he did not withhold his shot, but he did waste it, thereby honoring his pre-duel pledge. Meanwhile, Burr, who did not know about the pledge, did know that a projectile from Hamilton's gun had whizzed past him and crashed into the tree to his rear. According to the principles of the [[code duello]], Burr was perfectly justified in taking deadly aim at Hamilton and firing to kill.}}

===David Hosack's account===
Hosack wrote his account on August 17, about one month after the duel had taken place. Hosack testified that he had only seen Hamilton and the two seconds disappear "into the wood", heard two shots, and rushed to find a wounded Hamilton when his name was called. Hosack also testified that he had not seen Burr, who had been hidden behind an umbrella by Van Ness, his second.<ref>''William P. Van Ness vs. The People''. 1805.</ref> In a letter to [[William Coleman (editor)|William Coleman]], Hosack gives a very clear picture of the events:

{{quote|When called to him upon his receiving the fatal wound, I found him half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of Mr. Pendleton. His countenance of death I shall never forget. He had at that instant just strength to say, 'This is a mortal wound, doctor;' when he sunk away, and became to all appearance lifeless. I immediately stripped up his clothes, and soon, alas I ascertained that the direction of the ball must have been through some vital part. His pulses were not to be felt, his respiration was entirely suspended, and, upon laying my hand on his heart and perceiving no motion there, I considered him as irrecoverably gone. I, however, observed to Mr. Pendleton, that the only chance for his reviving was immediately to get him upon the water. We therefore lifted him up, and carried him out of the wood to the margin of the bank, where the bargemen aided us in conveying him into the boat, which immediately put off. During all this time I could not discover the least symptom of returning life. I now rubbed his face, lips, and temples with [[spirits of hartshorn]], applied it to his neck and breast, and to the wrists and palms of his hands, and endeavoured to pour some into his mouth.<ref name="Hosack Coleman">Dr. David Hosack to William Coleman, August 17, 1804</ref>|sign=|source=}}

Hosack goes on to say that in a few minutes Hamilton had revived, either from the hartshorn or fresh air. Hosack finishes his letter:

{{quote|Soon after recovering his sight, he happened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and observing the one that he had had in his hand lying on the outside, he said, "Take care of that pistol; it is undischarged, and still cocked; it may go off and do harm. Pendleton knows" (attempting to turn his head towards him) 'that I did not intend to fire at him.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Pendleton, understanding his wish, 'I have already made Dr. Hosack acquainted with your determination as to that' He then closed his eyes and remained calm, without any disposition to speak; nor did he say much afterward, except in reply to my questions. He asked me once or twice how I found his pulse; and he informed me that his lower extremities had lost all feeling, manifesting to me that he entertained no hopes that he should long survive.<ref name="Hosack Coleman" />}}

===Statement to the press===
Pendleton and Van Ness issued a press statement about the events of the duel. The statement printed out the agreed upon dueling rules and events that transpired, that being given the order to present, both participants were free to open fire. After first fire had been given, the opposite's second would count to three and the opponent would fire, or sacrifice his shot.<ref name="URL">{{cite web|url=http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/hamilton/hamil43.htm |title=Document: Joint statement on the Duel < A Biography of Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) < Biographies < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyond |website=Odur.let.rug.nl |date= |accessdate=2016-07-09}}</ref> Pendleton and Van Ness disagree as to who fired the first shot, but concur that both men had fired "within a few seconds of each other" (as they must have: neither Pendleton nor Van Ness mention counting down).<ref name="URL" />

In Pendleton's amended version of the statement, he and a friend went to the site of the duel the day after Hamilton's death to discover where Hamilton's shot went. The statement reads: <blockquote>They [Mr. Pendleton and an accomplice] ascertained that the ball passed through the limb of a cedar tree, at an elevation of about twelve feet and a half, perpendicularly from the ground, between thirteen and fourteen feet from the mark on which General Hamilton stood, and about four feet wide of the direct line between him and Col. Burr, on the right side; he having fallen on the left.<ref name="ReferenceA">Nathaniel Pendleton's Amended Version of His and William P. Ness's Statement of July 11, 1804</ref></blockquote>

===Hamilton's intentions===
Hamilton wrote a letter before the duel entitled ''Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr''<ref>The letter is not dated, but the consensus among Hamilton's contemporaries (including Burr) and historians suggests that it was written July 10, 1804, the night before the duel. See: Freeman, 1996, note 1.</ref> in which he stated that he was "strongly opposed to the practice of dueling" for both religious and practical reasons. "I have resolved," it continued, "if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hamilton|first1=Alexander|title=Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr, (28 June –
10 July 1804)|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0241|website=Founders Online}}</ref><ref>Hamilton, 1804, 26:278.</ref>

Hamilton regained consciousness after being shot, and told Dr. Hosack that his gun was still loaded and that "Pendleton knows I did not mean to fire at him." This is evidence for the theory that Hamilton intended not to fire, honoring his pre-duel pledge, and only fired accidentally upon being hit.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
Such an intention would have violated the protocol of the code duello. When Burr later learned of this, he responded: "Contemptible, if true."<ref>Joseph Wheelan, ''Jefferson's Vendetta: The Pursuit of Aaron Burr and the Judiciary'', New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005, {{ISBN|0-7867-1437-9}}, p. 90</ref> Hamilton could have thrown his shot away by firing into the ground, thus possibly signaling Burr of his purpose.

Modern historians have debated to what extent Hamilton's statements and letter represent his true beliefs, and how much of this was a deliberate attempt to permanently ruin Burr if Hamilton were to be killed. An example of this may be seen in what a historian has considered to be deliberate attempts to provoke Burr on the dueling ground, specifically Ogden's perspective that

{{quote|Hamilton performed a series of deliberately provocative actions to ensure a lethal outcome. As they were taking their places, he asked that the proceedings stop, adjusted his spectacles, and slowly, repeatedly, sighted along his pistol to test his aim.<ref>Ogden, 1979, p. 60.</ref>}}

===Burr's intentions===
There is good reason to think that Burr had every intention of killing Hamilton.<ref>Winfield. 1874. p. 220.</ref> The afternoon after the duel, Burr was quoted as saying that had his vision not been impaired by the morning [[mist]], he would have shot Hamilton in the [[heart]].<ref>''N.Y. Spectator''. July 28, 1824.</ref> According to the account of noted English philosopher [[Jeremy Bentham]], who met with Burr in England in 1808 (four years after the fact), Burr claimed to have been certain of his ability to kill Hamilton, and Bentham concluded that Burr was "little better than a murderer."<ref>Sabine. 1857. p. 212.</ref>

There is, however, much evidence in Burr's defense. Had Hamilton apologized for his "more despicable opinion of Mr. Burr",<ref>[http://www.wright.edu/studentorgs/pat/doc/burrhamilton.pdf Steven C. Smith. My Friend Hamilton-Whom I Shot] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127044046/http://www.wright.edu/studentorgs/pat/doc/burrhamilton.pdf |date=November 27, 2007 }}</ref> all would have been forgotten. However neither principal could avoid the confrontation honorably, and thus each was forced into the duel: Burr to regain his honor and Hamilton to sustain his.<ref>Joanne B. Freedman. Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel</ref>

Furthermore, Burr was unsure of Hamilton's intentions (as historians still are today). Seeing Hamilton fire into the brush above his head, Burr could not be sure if Hamilton had thrown away his shot or simply missed his target. According to the principles of the [[code duello]], Burr was entirely justified in taking aim at Hamilton, under the hypothesis that Hamilton had shot first. Continuing this line of reasoning, it is not clear that Burr did more than react to hearing Hamilton fire before he had any time to realize where the shot had gone.

Burr certainly knew of Hamilton's publicly opposing his ascension to the vice-presidency in 1800. Hamilton made confidential statements against him, such as those enumerated in Hamilton's private letter to Supreme Court Justice Rutledge. In the attachment to that letter, Hamilton had argued against Burr's character on repetitive scores, for example "suspected on strong grounds of having corruptly served the views of the Holland Company ... his very friends do not insist on his integrity ... he will court and employ able and daring scoundrels ... his conduct indicates [he seeks] Supreme power in his own person ... will in all likelihood attempt a usurpation."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YbnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA251 |title=The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine |publisher= |accessdate=April 20, 2015|year=1900 }}</ref>

===Pistols===
[[File:Hamilton-Burr pistols.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Wogdon & Barton|Wogdon]] pistols used in the duel]]
[[File:Philip Hamilton.jpg|thumb|Philip Hamilton, killed in a duel three years before the Burr–Hamilton duel]]
The pistols used in the duel belonged to Hamilton's brother-in-law [[John Barker Church]], who was a business partner of both Hamilton and Burr.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}}

Later legend claimed that these pistols were the same ones used in a 1799 duel between Church and Burr, in which neither man was injured.<ref name="auto">{{cite web|author1=Merrill Lindsay|authorlink1=Pistols shed light on famed duel|title=Smithsonian magazine article|url=http://www.aaronburrassociation.org/Smithsonian.htm|website=The Aaron Burr Association|accessdate=23 March 2017|ref=Smithsonian Magazine|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318124114/http://www.aaronburrassociation.org/Smithsonian.htm|archivedate=18 March 2017|pages=94–97|language=English|date=November 1976}}</ref><ref name="auto1">Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow, p. 590</ref> Burr, however, wrote in his memoirs that he supplied the duelling pistols for his duel with Church, and that they belonged to him.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Burr|first1=Aaron|last2=Davis|first2=Matthew Livingston|title=Memoirs of Aaron Burr: With Miscellaneous Selections from His Correspondence, Volume 1|date=1837|publisher=Harper & Brothers|page=417|url=https://books.google.com/?id=il4SAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA417|accessdate=11 February 2016}}</ref><ref name="auto1"/>

The [[Wogdon & Barton|Wogdon]] [[duelling pistol]]s incorporated a [[Trigger (firearms)#Set trigger|hair-trigger]] feature that could be pre-set by the user.<ref name="auto"/><ref>For the [[United States Bicentennial]] anniversary in 1976, Chase Manhattan allowed the pistols to be removed and loaned to the U.S. Bicentennial Society of Richmond. A subsequent article in the Smithsonian magazine said that close examination of the pistols had revealed a secret hair trigger:[http://www.aaronburrassociation.org/Smithsonian.htm "Pistols shed light on famed duel"] (from the Smithsonian magazine; November 1976). However, for the preceding twenty years, English duelling pistols had been customarily fitted with hair triggers (known as set triggers). Pistols made by Robert Wogdon were no exception. They cannot therefore be said to have had 'secret' hair triggers: ''The British Duelling Pistol''; John Atkinson, Arms and Armour Press; 1978.</ref> Hamilton, familiar with the weapons, would have known about and been able to use the hair trigger. However, when asked by Pendleton before the duel if he would use the "hair-spring", Hamilton reportedly replied, "Not this time."<ref name="Winfield 219" /> The "hair-spring" feature gives an advantage because it reduces the force required to engage the trigger, preventing unintentional hand movement while firing. It may also make people who are not familiar with the reduced force miss the target.

In 1801, three years before the Burr–Hamilton duel, Hamilton's son Philip used the Church weapons in a duel in which he died.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}}

The pistols reposed at Church's estate [[Belvidere (Belmont, New York)|Belvidere]] until the late 19th century.<ref name="nrhpinv_ny">{{cite web|url=http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=236|title=National Register of Historic Places Registration: Belvidere|date=August 1971|accessdate=2009-06-14|author=Robert Bromeley and Mrs. Patrick W. Harrington|publisher=[[New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation]]|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929074647/http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=236|archivedate=2011-09-29|df=}} ''See also:'' {{cite web|url=http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=237|title=Unfiled NHL Nomination Form for Villa Belvidere|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814064035/http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=237|archivedate=2012-08-14|df=}}</ref> In 1930, the pistols were sold to the [[Chase Manhattan Bank]], now part of [[JP Morgan Chase|JPMorgan Chase & Co.]] and are on display in the investment bank's headquarters at [[270 Park Avenue]] in [[New York City]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/jpmorgans-expanding-campus/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 | title=JPMorgan’s Expanding Footprint | publisher=''[[The New York Times]]'' | work=[[DealBook]] | date=March 16, 2008 | accessdate=July 3, 2014}}</ref>

==Aftermath==
The mortally wounded Hamilton was taken to the home of [[William Bayard Jr.|William Bayard]] in New York, where he received [[Holy Communion|communion]] from Bishop [[Benjamin Moore (bishop)|Benjamin Moore]].<ref>Fleming, Thomas. ''Duel – Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America'', New York: Basic Books, 1999, pp. 328–329</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/blogs/archivists-mailbag/last-hours-alexander-hamilton |title=The Last Hours of Alexander Hamilton |date=July 9, 2014 |publisher=Trinity Church Wall Street}}</ref> The next day, after having seen his wife, [[Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton]], and children, he died in the presence of more than 20 friends and family members and was buried in the [[Trinity Churchyard Cemetery]] in Manhattan (Hamilton was an [[Episcopal Church in the United States of America|Episcopalian]] at his death).<ref>Chernow.{{page needed|date=October 2017}}</ref> [[Gouverneur Morris]], a political ally of Hamilton's, gave the eulogy at his funeral and established a private fund to support his widow and children.

Burr was charged with murder in [[New York (state)|New York]] and [[New Jersey]], but neither charge reached trial. In [[Bergen County, New Jersey]], a [[grand jury]] indicted Burr for [[murder]] in November 1804,<ref name="teachinghistory" /> but the [[New Jersey Supreme Court]] quashed the indictment on a motion from Colonel Ogden.<ref>''Centinel of Freedom''. November 24 hi , 1807, cited in Winfield, 1874, p. 220.</ref> Burr fled to Saint Simons Island, Georgia. He stayed at the plantation of Pierce Butler at Hampton Point,
but soon returned to [[Washington, D.C.]] to complete his term of service as Vice President. He presided over the [[Samuel Chase#Impeachment|Samuel Chase impeachment trial]] "with the dignity and impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil" according to a Washington newspaper. Burr's heartfelt farewell speech in March 1805 moved some of his harshest critics in the Senate to tears.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Indicted_Vice_President_Bids_Senate_Farewell.htm |title=1801: Indicted Vice President Bids Senate Farewell – March 2, 1805 |date=May 29, 2014 |accessdate=April 20, 2015}}</ref>

[[File:Hamiltonmonumentmap.jpg|thumb|left|An 1841 map showing the location of a Hamilton monument]]
With his political career apparently over, Burr went west, where he became involved in "[[Filibuster (military)|filibuster]]" plans, which some{{who|date=July 2012}} later claimed were intended to establish a new independent empire carved out of the [[Louisiana territory]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}} [[James Wilkinson|General James Wilkinson]], who had worked with Burr, later had a change of heart and betrayed their plans to President Jefferson. Another man Burr allegedly tried to recruit, [[William Eaton (soldier)|William Eaton]], accused Burr in letters to Jefferson, resulting in Burr's [[Burr conspiracy|arrest and trial for treason]]. Although he was acquitted of all charges, Burr's reputation was further damaged and he spent the following years in Europe. He finally returned to [[New York City]] in 1812, where he resumed his law practice and spent the remainder of his life in relative obscurity.

===Monuments===
[[File:HamiltonRestingRock.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Boulder where Hamilton may have rested]]
[[File:HamiltonBust.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Bust of Hamilton from 1935]]
The first memorial to the duel was constructed in 1806 by the [[Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York|Saint Andrew's Society]], of which Hamilton was formerly a member.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.standrewsny.org/NotedMembers|website=St. Andrew's Society of New York |title=Noted Members}}</ref> A 14-foot [[marble]] [[cenotaph]], consisting of an [[obelisk]] topped by a flaming urn and a plaque with a quote from [[Horace]] surrounded by an iron fence, was constructed approximately where Hamilton was believed to have fallen.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, pp. 3–4.</ref> Duels continued to be fought at the site and the marble was slowly vandalized and removed for souvenirs, leaving nothing remaining by 1820. The memorial's plaque survived, turning up in a junk store and finding its way to the [[New-York Historical Society]] in [[Manhattan]], where it still resides.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, p. 4.</ref>

From 1820 to 1857, the site was marked by two stones with the names Hamilton and Burr placed where they were thought to have stood during the duel. When a road from [[Hoboken, New Jersey|Hoboken]] to [[Fort Lee, New Jersey|Fort Lee]] was built through the site in 1858, an inscription on a boulder where a mortally wounded Hamilton was thought to have rested—one of the many pieces of graffiti left by visitors—was all that remained. No primary accounts of the duel confirm the boulder anecdote. In 1870, [[railroad]] tracks were built directly through the site, and the boulder was hauled to the top of the Palisades, where it remains today.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, p. 5.</ref> In 1894, an iron fence was built around the boulder, supplemented by a bust of Hamilton and a plaque. The bust was thrown over the cliff on October 14, 1934 by vandals and the head was never recovered; a new bust was installed on July 12, 1935.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, p. 6.</ref>

The plaque was stolen by vandals in the 1980s and an abbreviated version of the text was inscribed on the indentation left in the boulder, which remained until the 1990s when a granite pedestal was added in front of the boulder and the bust was moved to the top of the pedestal. New markers were added on July 11, 2004, the 200th anniversary of the duel.<ref>Demontreux, 2004, pp. 7–9.</ref>

===Anti-dueling movement in New York state===
In the months and years following the duel, a movement started to end the practice. [[Eliphalet Nott]], the pastor at an Albany church attended by Hamilton's father-in-law, [[Philip Schuyler]], gave a sermon that was soon reprinted, "A Discourse, Delivered in the North Dutch Church, in the City of Albany, Occasioned by the Ever to be Lamented Death of General Alexander Hamilton, July 29, 1804". In 1806, [[Lyman Beecher]] delivered an anti-dueling sermon, later reprinted in 1809 by the Anti-Dueling Association of New York. The covers and some pages of both pamphlets:
<gallery perrow="5" widths="115px">
Image:AntiDuelingPamphletEliphaletNott1804.jpg|1804 Anti-dueling sermon by an acquaintance of [[Alexander Hamilton]]
Image:EliphaletNottSermonDeathOfAlexanderHamiltonPartialText1809.jpg|Opening text of 1804 sermon
Image:TheRemedyForDuelingSermonLymanBeecherPamphlet1809.jpg|Anti-Dueling Association of New York pamphlet, ''Remedy'', 1809
Image:AntiDuelingAssocOfNYResolutions1809.jpg|Resolutions, Anti-Dueling Association of N.Y., from ''Remedy'' pamphlet, 1809
Image:AntiDuellingAssocOfNYAddressToNY1809.jpg|Address to the electorate, from ''Remedy'' pamphlet
</gallery>

==In popular culture==
The rules of dueling researched by historian [[Joanne B. Freeman]] provided inspiration for the song "[[Ten Duel Commandments]]" in the Broadway musical '' [[Hamilton (musical)|Hamilton]].''<ref>{{cite web|publisher=University of Virginia|title=''Alumna's Research Guided Fiery Lyrics and Duels of Broadway Hit 'Hamilton''|access-date=April 9, 2017|url=https://www.news.virginia.edu/content/alumnas-research-guided-fiery-lyrics-and-duels-broadway-hit-hamilton}}</ref> The songs "[[Your Obedient Servant (song)|Your Obedient Servant]]" and "[[The World Was Wide Enough]]" also reference the duel. The musical compresses the timeline for Burr and Hamilton's grievance, depicting Burr's challenge as a result of Hamilton's endorsement of Jefferson rather than the gubernatorial election. In ''Hamilton'', the duel is the penultimate scene, before the show's finale is sung.

The duel is referenced in the [[The Lonely Island|Lonely Island]] song [[Lazy Sunday (The Lonely Island song)|Lazy Sunday]], in which [[Andy Samberg]] and [[Chris Parnell]] rap "You could call us Aaron Burr from the way we're droppin' Hamiltons."

The first episode of the [[webseries]]-turned-television-series ''[[Drunk History]]'' featured a humorous retelling of the story with [[Michael Cera]] portraying Hamilton and [[Jake Johnson]] portraying Burr.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Konner|first1=Jeremy|title=Drunk History Vol. 1: Featuring Michael Cera|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560571/|publisher=[[IMDB]]|accessdate=16 March 2017|date=28 July 2010}}</ref>

In his historical novel ''Burr'' (1973), author Gore Vidal depicts an elderly Aaron Burr returning to the dueling ground in Weehawken thirty years after the fateful event. Burr then acts out the duel for the novel's protagonist before describing the personal consequences he would endure in its immediate aftermath. Vidal alleges that the reason Burr challenged Hamilton to the duel was that Hamilton had publicly accused Burr of having incestuous sexual relations with his (Burr's) daughter.

In the science-fiction novel ''The Lincoln Hunters'' (1958) by Wilson Tucker the duel is mentioned by one of the time-traveler characters.

[[Aaron Burr (advertisement)|A famous "GOT MILK?" commercial]] highlighted the Hamilton-Burr Duel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Aaron+Burr+Got+Milk+commercial&view=detail&mid=FF2199723A60ADC35B0BFF2199723A60ADC35B0B&FORM=VIRE|title=Aaron Burr Got Milk commercial |website=Bing.com|access-date=2016-07-08}}</ref> The ad, directed by [[Michael Bay]] and created by [[Goodby Silverstein & Partners]], won a Gold [[Clio Award]] in 1994 and was inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame in 2009.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/aaron-burr-got-milk|title=Aaron Burr Got Milk|website=Theinspirationroom.com|access-date=2016-07-17}}</ref> Leslie Odom Jr. parodied this commercial for the musical ''Hamilton''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-KoAi3Nl9Q|title=Leslie Odom Jr. Got Milk Commercial Parody}}</ref>

Historian [[Daniele Bolelli]] covered the story of the duel on an episode of the "History on Fire" podcast.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2016/2/29/episode-6-the-duel/ | title=The Duel}}</ref>

==Legacy==
In 2004, for the duel's bicentennial anniversary, kin of Burr and Hamilton held a [[re-enactment]] of the famous duel, near the Hudson River. In the re-enactment, Douglas Hamilton, fifth-great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, faced Antonio Burr, a descendant of Aaron Burr’s cousin. More than 1,000 people attended the re-enactment, including an estimated 60 descendants of Hamilton and 40 members of the Aaron Burr Association.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5416375/ns/us_news/t/hamilton-burr-kin-re-enact-famous-fatal-duel/ |title=Hamilton, Burr kin re-enact famous, fatal duel |work=MSNBC |accessdate=April 20, 2015}}</ref>

Since 2012, around the 11,12 and 14 of July each year, the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society has been hosting the CelebrateHAMILTON program, to commemorate the Burr-Hamilton Duel and Alexander Hamilton's life and legacy with events at the Hamilton Memorial overlooking the duel site and other locations in Weehawken, including “Not throwing away any shots: Understanding the Burr-Hamilton duel", a presentation by History Professor at Yale, Dr. Joanne Freeman at Elk's Lodge, Weehawken, NJ as part of the CelebrateHAMILTON 2015.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Brenzel|first1=Kathryn|title=Burr killed Hamilton 211 years ago during famous duel in Weehawken|url=http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/07/211_years_ago_burr_killed_hamilton_in_famous_duel.html|website=Nj.com|publisher=NJ Advance Media}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of feuds in the United States]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* Berg, Al and Sherman, Lauren. 2004. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220534/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/pistols.pdf Pistols at Weehawken]." Weehawken Historical Commission.
* Chernow, Ron. ''Alexander Hamilton''. The Penguin Press, 2004.
* Coleman, William. 1804. ''A Collection of Facts and Documents, relative to the death of Major-General Alexander Hamilton''. New York.
* Cooke, Syrett and Jean G, eds. 1960. ''Interview in Weehawken: The Burr-Hamilton Duel as Told in the Original Documents''. Middletown, Connecticut.
* Cooper to Philip Schuyler. April 23, 1804. 26: 246.
* Cooper, Charles D. April 24, 1804. ''Albany Register''.
* Davis, Matthew L. ''Memoirs of Aaron Burr'' (free ebook available from [[Project Gutenberg]]).
* Demontreux, Willie. 2004. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110728172702/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/Duel2004%20Monument.pdf The Changing Face of the Hamilton Monument]." Weehawken Historical Commission.
* [[Joseph Ellis|Ellis, Joseph J.]] 2000. ''[[Founding Brothers|Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.]]'' ''(Chapter One: The Duel)'', [[Alfred A. Knopf]]. New York. {{ISBN|0-375-40544-5}}
* Flagg, Thomas R. 2004. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220536/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/flagg.pdf An Investigation into the Location of the Weehawken Dueling Ground]." Weehawken Historical Commission.
* Fleming, Thomas. 1999. ''The Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America''. New York: Perseus Books. {{ISBN|0-465-01736-3}}
* Frazier, Ian. February 16, 2004. "[http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040216fa_fact3 Route 3]." ''The New Yorker''.
* Freeman, Joanne B. 1996. ''Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton duel'', The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 53 (2): 289–318.
* Hamilton, Alexander. "Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr," [June 28 – July 10], 26: 278.
* Hamilton, Alexander. ''The Papers of Alexander Hamilton''. Harold C. Syrett, ed. 27 vols. New York: 1961–1987
* Lindsay, Merrill. 1976. [http://www.aaronburrassociation.org/Smithsonian.htm "Pistols Shed Light on Famed Duel."] ''Smithsonian'', VI (November): 94–98.
* McGrath, Ben. May 31, 2004. "[http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040607ta_talk_mcgrath Reënactment: Burr vs. Hamilton]." ''The New Yorker''.
* New York Evening Post. July 17, 1804. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220601/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/hamobit.pdf Funeral Obsequies]." From the Collection of the New York Historical Society.
* Ogden, Thomas H. (1979). "On Projective Identifications," in ''[[International Journal of Psychoanalysis]]'', 60, 357. Cf. Rogow, A Fatal Friendship, 327, note 29.
* PBS. 1996. ''[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/filmmore/transcript/index.html American Experience: The Duel]''. Documentary transcript.
* Reid, John. 1898. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220618/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/Duel-JohnReid.pdf Where Hamilton Fell: The Exact Location of the Famous Duelling Ground]." Weehawken Historical Commission.
* {{Cite journal | doi = 10.2307/3124381 | last1 = Rorabaugh | first1 = W.J. | year = 1995 | title = The Political Duel in the Early Republic: Burr v. Hamilton| journal = Journal of the Early Republic | volume = 15 | issue = 1| pages = 1–23 | jstor = 3124381 }}
* Sabine, Lorenzo. ''Notes on Duels and Duelling''. Boston.
* Van Ness, William P. 1804. ''A Correct Statement of the Late Melancholy Affair of Honor, Between General Hamilton and Col. Burr. New York.
* ''William P. Ness vs. The People.'' January 1805. Duel papers, William P. Ness papers, New York Historical Society.
* {{Cite journal|last1=Wilson |first1=James Grant |year=1869 |title=The Weehawken Dueling Ground |url=http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/appleton.htm |journal=Literature, Science, and Art |volume=1 |issue=11 |pages=339–340 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711192714/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/appleton.htm |archivedate=2007-07-11 |df= }}
* Winfield, Charles H. 1874. ''History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time''. New York: Kennard and Hay. Chapter 8, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220610/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/winfieldch8duels.pdf Duels]." pp. 200–231.

==External links==
* [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/index.html American Experience – The Duel] – Official PBS Hamilton-Burr Duel Documentary site
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060105040510/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/ Duel 2004] – A site dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the duel.
* {{Find a Grave|437}} Alexander Hamilton
* {{Find a Grave|151}} Aaron Burr

{{Alexander Hamilton}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burr-Hamilton Duel}}
[[Category:1804 in New Jersey]]
[[Category:1804 in the United States]]
[[Category:1935 sculptures]]
[[Category:Alexander Hamilton|Duel]]
[[Category:Dueling]]
[[Category:Monuments and memorials in New Jersey]]
[[Category:Political history of the United States]]
[[Category:Political violence in the United States]]
[[Category:Weehawken, New Jersey]]
[[Category:July 1804 events]]