I’m relieved that at least a few people mentioned Stirner. The selfishness EY portrays is not representative of selfishness in the sense any of the literature of Philosophical Egoism of which I am aware. His scenario doesn’t even correspond to what a Randian might believe about selfishness.
Max Stirner is the best and most intellectually consistent egoist I’m aware of. Less accomplished but more polemical writers in the same vein include John L. Walker, Benjamin Tucker, John Badcock, Dora Marsden (for a period of time), and Sid Parker.
Max Stirner’s “The Ego and His Own” is available online at various sites, including Gutenberg. Many of the less canonical works can be found at: http://i-studies.com/journal/index.shtml.
Works by Marsden (Freewoman) and Parker (Minus One) are archived there, as well as issues of Non Serviam and i-studies, published by Svein Olav Nyberg. The Nyberg publications contain scattered articles by Prof. Lawrence Stepelevich, the one time president of the Hegel Society of America, who is the best professional philosopher on Stirner that I am aware of (most are just awful), although I’ve heard good things about John F. Welsh’s “Max Stirner’s Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation”.
My own take on Stirner’s Egoism is that it is best distinguished as the antidote to various forms of Moral Objectivism, not Altruism. The Metaethics sequence, which I have not completed yet, leaves me thinking I’ll feel the urge to share a few thoughts on Stirner once I’m done with the sequence.
I’m relieved that at least a few people mentioned Stirner. The selfishness EY portrays is not representative of selfishness in the sense any of the literature of Philosophical Egoism of which I am aware. His scenario doesn’t even correspond to what a Randian might believe about selfishness.
Max Stirner is the best and most intellectually consistent egoist I’m aware of. Less accomplished but more polemical writers in the same vein include John L. Walker, Benjamin Tucker, John Badcock, Dora Marsden (for a period of time), and Sid Parker.
Max Stirner’s “The Ego and His Own” is available online at various sites, including Gutenberg. Many of the less canonical works can be found at: http://i-studies.com/journal/index.shtml.
Works by Marsden (Freewoman) and Parker (Minus One) are archived there, as well as issues of Non Serviam and i-studies, published by Svein Olav Nyberg. The Nyberg publications contain scattered articles by Prof. Lawrence Stepelevich, the one time president of the Hegel Society of America, who is the best professional philosopher on Stirner that I am aware of (most are just awful), although I’ve heard good things about John F. Welsh’s “Max Stirner’s Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation”.
My own take on Stirner’s Egoism is that it is best distinguished as the antidote to various forms of Moral Objectivism, not Altruism. The Metaethics sequence, which I have not completed yet, leaves me thinking I’ll feel the urge to share a few thoughts on Stirner once I’m done with the sequence.