ego and existance

8/13/2019 Ego and Existance

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Ego and Existance:

Existentialism and the AbsoluteIndividual in the Philosophy ofMax Stirner and Julius Evola

By Davide Moiso

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T HE AIM of the present dissertation is to explore the connection between Existentialism and the philosophies of theindividual of Max Stirner and Julius Evola. There are three main aim in this dissertation: first of all, to show theinfluence of Max Stirner on existential philosophy, particularly on Nietzsche. Second, to introduce the possibility for the

existential philosophy that, displacing the focus of the transcendence (from outer to inner, and from horizontal tovertical) it is possible to obtain a situation where the individual is living his existence as immanent transcendence,where he is got the possibility, through a determining act of will, which will allow him of the necessary awareness toexperience the world becoming the object experienced, without, nevertheless, belonging to it , remaining an activesubject of his life. In this perspective the Ego will result to be dual. Third, to propose the theory of metalinguistic (notintended in an heideggerian sense) as practical tool to explore the reflex of the Ego's duality, compared and integratedwith some of the considerations Heidegger made about language. The intention here is not to provide a detailedtherapeutic methodology, but just to outline the main points of the possible bridge between Existentialism andMetalinguistic, utilising as ground the integration of existential philosophy with stirnerian and evolian thoughts.

INTRODUCTION

WHEN NIETZSCHE stated that "God is dead", as reaction against the Idealism, that was the principle of the fall of allthe moral values, because the moral assumption, deprived from its sanction, is unable to stand, as the interpretations

and justifications given previously to any norm or value fall.The idea is not different from what Dostojewskij said: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted". (quoted by Evola,

2000) The dead of God is an image, of course, to characterise a historic process, and the formula expresses "themisbelief that becomes everyday reality", a de-sacralisation of existence itself, the total break with the Traditional

world, which started to appear in the Renaissance and in Humanistic historians.The death of God, however, does not seems to offer a good alternative to existential anguish: once God is dead, the

human being is completely, absolutely alone, and his loneliness is paradoxically given by the freedom from God, whichconstitute, as Sartre says, his "condemnation to be free".

It is easy to parallel this with Kirillov, Dostojewskij's character (in "I Fratelli Karamazov [The Brothers Karamazov]",2000) who kills himself to negate the existence of God. The terminal situation is given ultimately by Sartre, when he

declares "even if God exists, nothing would change": the existence (which "precedes the essence") is remitted to itself,

without any outer point of reference that can give a true meaning for the human being.In this situation, it is possible to assume the existence of two stages: the first one is a sort of moral or metaphysicalrebellion. The second one is that, where the same reasons which created this rebellion vanish, they become

inconsistent for a new human being; this is the nihilistic stage, where the dominant theme becomes the sense of theabsurd, of pure irrationality of the human condition.

Between those two perspective, which both originate, (even if following different ways and, therefore, conclusions )from a criticism to the Hegelian universalism and idealism, Stirner and Evola place their philosophies. Stirner,

considered by someone one of the spiritual fathers of the existentialism, as we will see, displace the focus of theexistence on the individual, which "own" a world composed of "ownable"properties. Evola get this individual absolute:
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the experience of the existence of "the other" is my determination, therefore either the rebellion or the nihilisticperspective are getting nothing more than experiences of the Ego who determines them outside of him as non-Ego

(immanently) and then re-absorb them within him (transcendentally).The being-in-the-world becomes therefore an act of self-transcendence (or transcendence of the self within and

through the self), which happens during the immanence of the individual existence. The possible problems, anxietyand anguish are then caused by an attempt to reduce to an immanent position the process of knowledge that happens

within this duality.The conventionality and imprecision of the human language are a reflex of this attempt, and therefore, a reflex of how

man is being-in-the-world.

CHAPTER I

Existential philosophy and psychotherapy: basic concepts

This chapter will try to outline the main themes of existential philosophy and psychology with a short presentation ofthe major exponents of Existentialism. The interpretations of Boss will be particularly recalled.

Existentialism is philosophical movement or tendency, emphasising individual existence, freedom, and choice, thatinfluenced many diverse writers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Major Themes

Because of the diversity of positions associated with existentialism, the term is impossible to define precisely. Certainthemes common to virtually all existentialist writers can, however, be identified. The term itself suggests one major

theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice.

Moral Individualism

Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the same for everyone; insofar as oneapproaches moral perfection, one resembles other morally perfect individuals. The 19th-century Danish philosopher

Sren Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted against this tradition by insisting that thehighest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. As he wrote in his journal, "I must find a truth

that is true for me . . . the idea for which I can live or die." (Mathieu, 1969)Other existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard's belief that one must choose one's own way without the aid of

universal, objective standards.Against the traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgement of right and wrong, existentialists have

argued that no objective, rational basis can be found for moral decisions. The 19th-century German philosopherFriedrich Nietzsche further contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations.

Subjectivity

All existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in stressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding


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questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, accordingly, that personal experience and acting on one'sown convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding of a situation by someone involved in

that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspective of the individualagent has also made existentialists suspicious of systematic reasoning. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and other

existentialist writers have been deliberately unsystematic in the exposition of their philosophies, preferring to expressthemselves in aphorisms, dialogues, parables, and other literary forms. Despite their anti-rationalist position, however,

most existentialists cannot be said to be irrationalists in the sense of denying all validity to rational thought. They haveheld that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the most important questions in life are not accessibleto reason or science. Furthermore, they have argued that even science is not as rational as is commonly supposed.

Nietzsche, for instance, asserted that the scientific assumption of an orderly universe is for the most part a usefulfiction.

Choice and Commitment

Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialist writing is that of choice. Humanity's primary distinction, in the viewof most existentialists, is the freedom to choose. Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a fixednature, or essence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes choices that create his or her ownnature. In the formulation of the 20th-century French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence.

Choice is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal to choose is a choice. Freedomof choice entails commitment and responsibility. Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists

have argued, they must accept the risk and responsibility of following their commitment wherever it leads.

Dread and Anxiety

Kierkegaard held that it is spiritually crucial to recognise that one experiences not only a fear of specific objects butalso a feeling of general apprehension, which he called dread. He interpreted it as God's way of calling each individualto make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word anxiety (German: Angst) has a similarly crucial role

in the work of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual's confrontationwith nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate justification for the choices he or she must make. In thephilosophy of Sartre, the word nausea is used for the individual's recognition of the pure contingency of the universe,and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every

moment.

History

Existentialism as a distinct philosophical and literary movement belongs to the 19th and 20th centuries, but elementsof existentialism can be found in the thought (and life) of Socrates, in the Bible, and in the work of many Pre-modern

philosophers and writers.

Pascal

The first to anticipate the major concerns of modern existentialism was the 17th-century French philosopher BlaisePascal. Pascal rejected the rigorous rationalism of his contemporary Ren Descartes, asserting, in his

Penses (1670), that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and humanity is a form of pride.


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Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of paradoxes: the human self, which combines mind andbody, is itself a paradox and contradiction.

Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, generally regarded as the founder of modern existentialism, reacted against the systematic absoluteidealism of the 19th-century German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, who claimed to have worked out a total rationalunderstanding of humanity and history. Kierkegaard, on the contrary, stressed the ambiguity and absurdity of the

human situation. The individual's response to this situation must be to live a totally committed life, and this commitmentcan only be understood by the individual who has made it. The individual therefore must always be prepared to defy

the norms of society for the sake of the higher authority of a personally valid way of life. Kierkegaard ultimatelyadvocated a "leap of faith" into a Christian way of life, which, although incomprehensible and full of risk, was the only

commitment he believed could save the individual from despair.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche, who was not acquainted with the work of Kierkegaard, influenced subsequent existentialist thought throughhis criticism of traditional metaphysical and moral assumptions and through his espousal of tragic pessimism and the

life-affirming individual will that opposes itself to the moral conformity of the majority. In contrast to Kierkegaard, whoseattack on conventional morality led him to advocate a radically individualistic Christianity, Nietzsche proclaimed the

"death of God" and went on to reject the entire Judeo-Christian moral tradition in favour of a heroic pagan ideal.

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher, developed the 20th century notion of existential phenomenology.Heidegger's original treatment of such themes as human finitude, death, nothingness, and authenticity led to hisassociation with existentialism.

He began his career as an assistant to Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, and was also influenced byKierkegaard and Nietzsche.

Although influenced by Husserl, Heidegger rejected his attempt to put philosophy on a conclusive rationalistic basis.He argued, instead, that humanity finds itself in an incomprehensible, indifferent world, and that human beings can

never hope to understand why they are here.He believed that each individual must choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction, aware of the certainty of

death and the ultimate meaninglessness of one's life.In his most important and influential work, Being and Time (1927), Heidegger formulated what he considered the

essential philosophical questions: What is it, "to be," and what kind of "being" do human beings have?Heidegger's theory of 'being and time' may be summarised as follows: Individuals are thrown into a world that they

have not made, but which consists of potentially useful things, including cultural as well as natural objects.Because these objects come to humanity from the past, and are used in the present for the sake of future goals,

Heidegger posited a fundamental relation between the mode of being of objects and humanity, and of the structure oftime.

The individual, he claimed, is always in danger of being submerged in the world of objects and everyday routine, andthe conventional, shallow behaviour of the crowd.

Ultimately, a feeling of dread (Angst) brings the individual to a confrontation with death and the ultimatemeaninglessness of life.

But only in this confrontation can an authentic sense of "Being" and of freedom be attained.After 1930, Heidegger expanded his thoughts on Being, including new ideas which were later expressed in such works


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as An Introduction to Metaphysics (1953).He felt that modern technological society had fostered a purely manipulative attitude, which had deprived Being, and

human life, of meaning-a condition he called nihilism.Humanity had forgotten its true vocation, and needed to recover the deeper understanding of Being to be receptive to

new understandings of human existence.Although his work had a crucial influence on the French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques

Derrida, Heidegger eventually repudiated the existentialist interpretations of his work.Because of his early public support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Heidegger's professional activities were

restricted after World War II and controversy followed him until his retirement in 1959.

Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), philosopher, dramatist, novelist, and political journalist, and the leading exponent ofFrench existentialism.

Sartre gave the term existentialism general currency by using it for his own philosophy and by becoming the leadingfigure of a distinct movement in France that became internationally influential after World War II.

His philosophic work combined the phenomenology of Husserl, the metaphysics of Hegel and Heidegger, and thesocial theory of Marx into a single view.

Sartre's philosophy was explicitly atheistic and pessimistic; he declared that human beings require a rational basis fortheir lives but are unable to achieve one, and thus human life, he concluded, is a "futile passion."

Sartre nevertheless insisted that his existentialism is a form of humanism, and he strongly emphasised humanfreedom, choice, and responsibility.

In his early philosophic work, Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre conceived humans as beings who create their ownworld by rebelling against authority and by accepting personal responsibility for their actions, unaided by society,

traditional morality, or religious faith.His theory of existential psychoanalysis asserted the inescapable responsibility of all individuals for their own decisionsand made the recognition of one's absolute freedom of choice the necessary condition for authentic human existence.

His plays and novels also expressed the belief that freedom and acceptance of personal responsibility are the mainvalues in life, and that individuals must rely on their creative powers rather than on social or religious authority.In his later philosophic work, Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960), Sartre's emphasis shifted from existentialist

freedom and subjectivity to Marxist social determinism; here he tried to reconcile existentialist concepts with a Marxistanalysis of society and history.

Sartre argued that the influence of modern society over the individual is so great as to produce serialisation, by whichhe meant loss of self.

Individual power and freedom, he claimed, can only be regained through group revolutionary action.Sartre's philosophical views, which he related to life, literature, psychology, and political action, stimulated so much

popular interest that existentialism became a world-wide movement.

Existentialism and Theology

Although existentialist thought encompasses the uncompromising atheism of Nietzsche and Sartre and theagnosticism of Heidegger, its origin in the intensely religious philosophies of Pascal and Kierkegaard foreshadowed itsprofound influence on 20th-century theology. The 20th-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers, although he rejected

explicit religious doctrines, influenced contemporary theology through his preoccupation with transcendence and the


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limits of human experience. The German Protestant theologians Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, the French RomanCatholic theologian Gabriel Marcel, the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, and the German Jewishphilosopher Martin Buber inherited many of Kierkegaard's concerns, especially that a personal sense of authenticity

and commitment is essential to religious faith.

Existentialism and Literature

A number of existentialist philosophers used literary forms to convey their thought, and existentialism has been as vitaland as extensive a movement in literature as in philosophy. The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky isprobably the greatest existentialist literary figure. In Notes from the Underground (1864), the alienated antihero ragesagainst the optimistic assumptions of rationalist humanism. The view of human nature that emerges in this and othernovels of Dostoyevsky is that it is unpredictable and perversely self-destructive (like the already quoted character of

Kirillov); only Christian love can save humanity from itself, but such love cannot be understood philosophically. As thecharacter Alyosha says in The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky ,1879-80/2000), "We must love life more than the

meaning of it."In the 20th century, the novels of the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Kafka, such as The Trial (1925; trans. 1937) andThe Castle (1926; trans. 1930), present isolated men confronting vast, elusive, menacing bureaucracies; Kafka's

themes of anxiety, guilt, and solitude reflect the influence of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche. The influenceof Nietzsche is also discernible in the novels of the French writers Andr Malraux and in the plays of Sartre. The work

of the French writer Albert Camus is usually associated with existentialism because of the prominence in it of suchthemes as the apparent absurdity and futility of life, the indifference of the universe, and the necessity of engagement

in a just cause.Existentialist themes are also reflected in the theater of the absurd, notably in the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugne

Ionesco. In the United States, the influence of existentialism on literature has been more indirect and diffuse, buttraces of Kierkegaard's thought can be found in the novels of Walker Percy and John Updike, and various existentialist

themes are apparent in the work of such diverse writers as Norman Mailer, John Barth, and Arthur Miller.

Existential Psychology

The followers of existential philosophy who have translated these thoughts into statements about personality includethe Europeans Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, and Victor Frankl. Major American theorists include Rollo May and

Paul Tillich, but I will also include some writings of Salvatore Maddi. The following notes represent an attempt at asynthesis of the writings of many theorists, with a particular focus on Boss.(notes from "The False Dasein: From

Heidegger to Sartre and Psychoanalysis." By Jon Mills Published in the Journal of PhenomenologicalPsychology, 1997, 28(1), 42-65.

Core of Personal i ty

I. Core Tendency :

To achieve authentic being. Being signifies the special quality of human mentality ( intentionality), that makes life aseries of decisions, each involving an alternative that precipitates persons into an unknown future and an alternative


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that pushes them back into a routine, predictable past. Choosing the future brings ontological anxiety (fear of theunknown), whereas choosing the safe status quo brings ontological guilt (sense of missed opportunity). Authenticity

involves accepting this painful state of affairs and finding the courage or hardiness to persist in the face of ontologicalanxiety and choose the future, thereby minimising ontological guilt.

II. Cor e Characteris tics

A. Being-in-the -wo rld: This concept emphasises the unity of person and environment, since, in this heavilyphenomenological position, both are subjectively defined. Being-in-the-world has three components:

1. Umwelt ("world around")- the natural world of biological urge and drive.2. Mitwelt ("with-world")- the social, interactive, interpersonal aspects of existence.3. Eigenwelt ("own world")- the subjective, phenomenological world of the self.

B. Six onto log ica l pr inc ip les:

1. Every person is centred in self and lives life through the meaning he or she places on that centre.2. Every person is responsible for mobilising the courage to protect the self, to affirm it, and to enhance its

continued existence.3. People need other people with whom they can empathise and from whom they can learn.4. People are vigilant about potential dangers to their identities.5. People can be aware of themselves thinking and feeling at one moment and may be aware of themselves as

the person who thinks and feels in the next moment.6. Anxiety originates, in part, out of a person's awareness that one's being can end.

II I. The goals of integrat ion :

Man conceives of the human being as conscious of self, capable of intentionality, and needing to make choices. To dothis we must recognise and confront the paradoxes of our lives. A paradox is two opposing things posited against eachother all the while the fact is that they cannot exist without each other. Thus, good and evil; life and death; and beautyand ugliness appear to be at odds with each other, but the very confrontation with one breathes life and meaning into

the other. The goals of integration include confronting one's potentialities for the daimonic, power, love, intentionality,freedom and destiny, and courage and creativity.

1. The Daimonic: This is defined as "any natural function that has the power to take over the whole person".Sex, anger, and power can become evil when they take over the self without integration. We are capable ofboth good and evil.

2. Power: Life can bee seen as a conflict between achieving a sense of significance of one's self on the onehand, and the feeling of powerlessness on the other. Violence has its breeding ground in impotence and


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apathy. As we make people powerless, we encourage violence, rather than control it.3. Intentionality: Intentionality underlies any decision. It is "the structure which gives meaning to experience". It

is the capacity to participate in knowing. How a piece of paper is perceived will differ depending on whetherone intends to write on it or to make a paper airplane. May holds that we cannot know the truth until we havetaken a stand on it.

4. Freedom and Destiny: Freedom is the capacity to pause (and make a choice) between a stimulus and a

response. In the debate between dispositional and situational factors, there is a third alternative - humanbeings can choose when and whether they are to be acted upon or do the acting. To the extent that one isunaware of one's responses, then determinism may be the appropriate term. The shift from determinism todestiny occurs when a person is self-conscious about what is happening to him or her. To accept one's destinyis to accept personal responsibility.

5. Courage: Courage is the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Courage is necessary in order to makebeing and becoming possible. The paradox of courage is that we must be fully committed but at the same timeaware that we might be wrong.

Periphery of Personality

Personal i ty types emp hasis ing sel f -def in i t ion and wor ld view:

I. Authenticity or individuality (ideal type) involves the self-definition as someone with a mental life permittingcomprehension and influence over one's social and biological experiences. The world view is characterised byconsidering society the creation of persons and properly in their service.

The individualist's functioning has unity and shows subtly, taste, intimacy, and love. Doubt (or ontological

anxiety) is experienced as a natural concomitant of creating one's own meaning and does not undermine thedecision-making process. There is a minimum of ontological guilt, or sense of missed opportunity.II. Conformism (non-ideal type) is the expression in adulthood of not having learned courage in early

development, and, hence, being unable to learn from failures. The self-definition is nothing more than a playerof social roles and an embodiment of biological needs. Expression of symbolization, imagination, andjudgement, is inhibited, leading to stereotyped, fragmentary functioning. Biological experiencing is exaggeratedand gross, and social experiencing is contractual rather than intimate. The conformist feels worthless andinsecure because of the build-up of ontological guilt through frequently choosing the past rather than thefuture. The relevant world view stresses materialism and pragmatism. This type represents a vulnerability toexistential sickness, which tendency becomes an actuality when environmental stresses occur that aresufficient to disconfirm the conformist's self-definition and world view.

Being-in-the-world

The depth of Heideggers re-evaluation of human existence is reflected in his evident need to used a new word -Dasein - to indicate the human being.

Heideggers masterwork, "Being and Time" is devoted to explaining and illuminating what is meant by the term Dasein.What a thinker as Boss understood about this new reading of human existence it is important in order to understand

his work and its implications. For Boss, "the very essence of man's existence is an immediate and primary awareness


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of Beingness-as-such.......This primary awareness is - as the most fundamental feature of man's existence - not anattribute or a property which man has, but that man is this primary awareness of Beingness, that he is in the world

essentially and primarily as such. Man, then, is a light which luminates whatever particular being comes into the realmof its rays. It is of his essence to disclose things and living beings in their meaning and content." (Boss 1963 quoted by

Mills,1997.)Boss builds up the picture of the human as a being whose unique fundamental nature is to be open to existence, who

creates around him a 'clearing' which is, so to speak, illuminated by his awareness, and within which meanings areunfolded or disclosed. Indeed, he states that "Man's existence seems claimed by Beingness as the necessary clearinginto which all that has to be may come forth and within which it may shine forth." (Boss ,1963 ibid. ) So for Boss, man'sawareness is 'out there' in the world, rather than located somewhere inside him, and he insists that one cannot think or

talk of man in any way that does not include this basic function. So that when talking of someone's 'world', we musttake into account that this is in reality a world of meanings, in which events, things and people - regardless of whether

we might call them real or imagined - have a particular significance to that person that is uniquely theirs and totallyvalid as phenomena that appeared to them in the light of their clearing.

Authenticity

In 'Being and Time', Heidegger refers to what he calls "Dasein's authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole" (Heidegger1927 quoted by Mills,1997), indicating that man's sense of wholeness and well-being is dependent on his capacity to

experience himself in relation to Being-as-a-whole, or to realise his full potential. He distinguishes between theauthentic self, which emerges into the light of its own self-understanding as a being free to realise "his ownmost

possibilities", and the inauthentic self, the 'they-self' that is lost in everydayness.For Boss, the authentic self is one which is free to be o-en to existence in a wide variety of ways, allowing the fullexpression of potential ways of being, "choosing freely in which of his relational possibilities he wants to engage

himself and to occur as a human existence at any given moment of his life." (Boss 1963, ibid.). Bearing in mind Boss'sview of man as being "out there" so to speak, among the phenomena of existence, we can understand his idea thatman has to reclaim his being in order to come to himself in an authentic way, to define and realise his potential. In

contrast, the inauthentic or they-self is not free, it is caught up in the world of the other, in the narrowed-down mentalityof an anonymous, inauthentic everybody." Because of man's openness, and his ontological need of the phenomena

that he encounters, his initial reaction is to fall prey to them, so that he, so to speak, loses himself to them, preventing

his authenticity from manifesting. By turning his attention of himself, by shining his light on his own nature, he canallow the meanings of his own existence to unfold and become clear, and in this way he can reclaim his self from the

experienced phenomena of the world.The fact that man has the capacity to choose whether to accept or refuse to accept his possible ways of being is for

Boss the very core of human freedom, a freedom which is in turn balanced by man's being "claimed" by Beingness-as-such as the realm into which individual beings manifest in their fullness. He also acknowledges that there is a being-

closed to certain possibilities that does not arise from a free decision, in that someone who has not yet gained thefreedom of being himself will be incapable of admitting certain realisations into the light of his clearing.

Affects and Emotions

Boss, on the other hand, sees affects, emotions, passions or feelings not as something that is either within us orsurrounding us, but as a way of being-in-the-world. For Boss, we are our emotions, and he refers to them as different

"melodies" or "tunings" that colour our particular way of being open to existence at any one time, and that in turndetermine the meanings that can be unfolded for us at that time. "They, these emotional states, are the melodies, thedifferent ways in which we, in our respective relationships with what confronts us, find ourselves tuned at any given

time, directly and with our entire existence ..." this state of attunement is "the particular manner of world openness aswhich we are existing fundamentally at any given moment." For Boss, openness necessarily implies closed-in-ness,"They belong together necessarily and always," and the emotional state can determine the degree of openness or


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closed-in-ness possible in a given moment. If we are overcome by anger, for example, we can lose to a great degreeour capacity as meaning disclosing beings, we can become "blind with rage", and our degree of openness shrinks

dramatically.Similarly, love, hope, indifference, envy, greed, lust, etc. will all colour the ways in which we are open to existence.

They will not only determine what we can perceive, but will also alter the way in which we perceive the samephenomenon or person at different times.

Care

It is relevant at this point to introduce another Heideggerian term, namely 'care'. Like the capacity to disclosemeanings, care is not seen simply as an attribute of human existence, but a fundamental, essential element of human-being-in-the-world. In that man has been claimed by Beingness-as-such as the clearing in which things can manifest in

their fullness, man has a corresponding care for the phenomena of existence - including himself. So caring is theunderlying capacity in man to give over his attention to these phenomena in such a way that their meanings can

unfold. This in turn allows for his capacity to either become lost in, and fall prey to those phenomena, or to transcendthem and be free to fulfil his own possibilities for being.

Implicit in caring is the capacity, indeed the obligation, to care for others, both in the ordinary sense of the word, andalso in the sense of giving their world of meaning the same validity that one would give to one's own.

Within this view of the therapeutic relationship as being one of mutual caring between the therapist and the patient,Boss identifies two kinds of caring that the therapist can employ with respect to the patient, namely intervening care

and anticipating care. Intervening care can be described as an attempt by the therapist to have the client's awarenessfor him, in such a way that the patient is dislodged from the centre of his world. It is the therapist taking over something

that has to be attended to by the patient himself, if he is to locate it within his own world of meanings. Boss warnsagainst intervening care as something that can actually set back the therapy, by closing the patient off from his ownrealisations. In contrast to this he recommends what he calls anticipating care, whereby the therapist, ahead of thepatient, so to speak, and seeing what it is that needs to become clear for him, allows the patient his own existential

unfolding. The therapist "does not take over for the patient, but tries to hand back to him what has to be cared for, sothat it becomes an actual concern......It helps the other person to become, in his caring, transparent to himself and free

for his existence"(Boss 1963 ibid, )

Anxiety and Guilt

This sense of caring is also taken to include the capacity for self-understanding, for transcending the immediatesituation, to objectify, to use speech and symbols and to imagine. It is also the underlying ground of all existential

anxiety and, in turn, guilt. For Heidegger and Boss and other existential therapists, anxiety is seen as an underlying orontological condition that can become manifest in many ways, but that has a basic foundation. Anxiety is seen as theconflict between being and non-being, or to quote Rollo May, "the experience of imminent non-being." (May 1983).hence it is not something that we have, but something that we re. It is the individual's realisation - at some level of

awareness - that his existence can be destroyed, that he can lose himself and his world, and it can be seen to alwaysinvolve inner conflict. May further states that "anxiety occurs at the point where some emerging potentiality or

possibility faces the individual, some possibility of fulfilling his existence; but this very possibility involves thedestro(May 1983, ibid.)ying of present security, which thereupon gives rise to the tendency to deny the newpotentiality." . Kierkegaard was emphatic on this point: "Anxiety is the reality of freedom as a potentiality before this

freedom has materialised" (Kierkegaard, 1849 on Mathieu ,1969 ). In this way, we can see that the individual may wellsurrender his potential freedom to the faceless 'they' in an attempt to assuage his anxiety. This can in turn give rise to

another ontological condition of human existence, guilt.For the existentialists, guilt is the direct result of the failure to live up to one's potential. It is interesting to note that theGerman word for guilt, 'schuld', also means debt, and in this sense we can see that the idea of one's indebtedness toexistence, in that we have been endowed with the potential to be truly ourselves, gives rise to a sense of guilt if we fail


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preoccupations to such a degree that it only alienates them from their personal and unique future possibilities, thusreducing the fallen Das Man to a mere "presence-at-hand." He posits: "This "absorption in . . ." has mostly the

character of Being-lost in the publicness of the "they." Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as anauthentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the 'world'" (p. 220).

While on one hand, everydayness and fallenness are ontological and natural predispositions of Dasein and so aredevoid of any value judgements attached to them; they are nevertheless modes of inauthenticity, ones that cannot be

avoided or refused. The degree to which one participates in these in authentic modes, however, has a direct bearingon the existential status of falsehood. As a perpetual mode of inauthenticity, the falseness of Dasein becomes

manifested as a "leveling down . . . of all possibilities of Being" (p. 165). The fallenness of Dasein is expressed mostostensibly through idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Gossip is an inauthentic use of discourse that simply repeatswhat is heard and accepted by the public without critically examining the grounds or validity of the subject matter in

question. Idle talk is merely a repetition of the conventional, an unscrutinized acceptance of the interpretations of thepublic. The fallen Das Man is not concerned with understanding the ontological priorities of what is blindly accepted as

truth or fact, but with reiterating the public clichs of the "anonymous one." Curiosity, which parallels gossip,underscores Dasein's voracious hunger to explore our environments merely for the sake of discovering novelty that

provides excitement, a pleasurable distraction, and knowledge simply for the sake of knowing. Curiosity, therefore, isnot motivated by the need for authentic understanding; it is merely an inauthentic form of solicitude. Ambiguity,however, is the dubious nature of information that is disseminated by "the they," which makes it impossible to

determine what was disclosed in genuine understanding and what was not. This ambiguity is about the public gossip

as well as in reference to Being-with-one-another and Dasein's Being-toward itself, hence, an inauthentic relatedness.At this point, we must further clarify what we mean by Dasein's falsehood. In his essay On the Essence of Truth,Heidegger (1949/1977) explicates the Greeks' understanding of aletheia as disclosedness or unconcealment. Truth

may be disclosed only from its hiddenness in a clearing that opens a space for unconcealment. Equally, as each spacereveals the potentiality for truth to be made known, conversely a closing exists in that truth may be revealed only in thewake of concealment. Such movement of uncovering in the presence of covering underlies the dialectical participation

of the nature of truth.Given Heidegger's analysis of aletheia, how can Dasein be false? From this standpoint, truth and falsity are in

reference to unconcealed states of Dasein's disclosedness, not in terms of their epistemological status. Therefore, theanonymous one, the fallen Das Man, the identification with "the they" of everydayness as averageness is a direct

allusion to a constricted Dasein. This inauthentic mode of Being is a retreat from the ontological obligations that Daseindemands. In these extreme modes, Dasein is a reduced self, a stifled existence, a false Being. In addition, the false

Dasein as Being-in and Being-with "the they," starts to take on an existential character that is more negative, similar toKierkegaard's notion of "the crowd," or even more pejoratively, the Nietzschean "herd." The Dasein who has fallen intofalsehood closes itself off from authentically Being-in-the-world and even more significantly from Being-with and Being-toward itself. In psychoanalysis, this might be chalked up to the defence mechanism of denial, that is, people need todeny the ontological obligations of Dasein in the service of more primordial psychological needs or conflicts, such aspsychodynamic motivations surrounding security, attachment, and as Heidegger points out, "tranquility." But as he

continues to point out, this tranquility. leads to an "aggravation" and alienation of Dasein from itself. Heidegger states:"When Dasein, tranquillised, and "understanding" everything, thus compares itself with everything, it drifts along

towards an alienation in which its own most potentiality-for-Being is hidden from it." (p. 222)This dialectical conflict brought about by fallenness then leads to the "downward plunge" into the inauthentic Being of

"the they" in which authentic possibility is lost in obscurity and under the guise of "ascending" and "living concretely." Isit possible, however, that this downhill plunge is a necessary one that provides the dialectical movement toward the

fulfillment of Dasein's possibilities? Perhaps this turbulent necessity is the authentic movement of Dasein toward itselfas becoming. Rather than falling away from itself, Dasein is falling into itself. But this is possible only if Dasein

becomes aware of its possibilities that it hides from itself. At this point we must ask: Why does Dasein close off its

possibilities in the tranquility. of fallenness rather than seize them authentically? In other words, why does it hide fromitself its own potentiality-for-Being? Perhaps Dasein is afraid--afraid of its freedom.

Dasein in Bad Faith

In offering an existential analysis of the false Dasein, we have determined that Dasein's fundamental structure is


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ontologically oriented toward fallenness. In the case of the false Dasein, however, fallenness is exacerbated in thatDasein constricts its comportment primarily to the modes of the inauthentic, thereby abdicating its potentiality-for-

Being. Why would Dasein abnegate its potentiality? While theoretically distinct from Heidegger's existential ontology,Sartre's conception of inauthenticity may further contribute to our understanding of the psychological-ontical processes

immersed in Dasein's falsehood.While Heidegger's and Sartre's existential ontologies are conceptually distinct with variegated subtleties, the question

of authenticity is central to both of their philosophies. Albeit conceived differently from Heidegger's inauthentic Dasein,Sartre's notion of bad faith, as the renunciation of human freedom in the service of self-deception, contributes to our

understanding of selfhood entrenched in the toils of inauthenticity and further anticipates the psychodynamicexploration of the underlying defensive processes characteristic of the dynamic unconscious. While Heidegger offers a

comprehensive hermeneutical treatment of Dasein in its relation to selfhood, Sartre depicts more acutely thepsychological processes involved in the formation and maintenance of inauthenticity. While respecting the distinctionsand divergences between Heidegger's and Sartre's ontological discourses, it becomes important to illuminate Dasein's

falsehood in terms of its inauthentic ontologicalical relations which is the primary task of psychoanalysis. Theequivocation of these different terminologies are therefore intended to facilitate the conceptual bridge between the

existential-ontological structures of Dasein and their relation to the existential-ontologicall manifestations ofinauthenticity that will be further addressed within a psychoanalytic account of selfhood.

In his magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, Sartre (1956) introduced the notion of mauvaise foi, or bad faith. ForSartre, consciousness is Being, "a being, the nature of which is to question its own being, that being implying a being

other than itself," that is, "to be conscious of the nothingness of its being" (p. 86). Therefore, the authentic Being isliterally "no-thing."The failure to define yourself as other-than what you are is to reify yourself as a thing and thus deny the possibility of a

future transcendence.Such self-negation is the pinnacle of inauthenticity. Sartre asserts, "[C]onsciousness instead of directing its negation

outward turns it toward itself. This attitude is bad faith" (p. 87). Generally, bad faith may be characterised by self-deception, a lie to yourself. But how can you lie to yourself? Only if you are not consciously aware of such intentions tolie or to deceive. For the individual in bad faith, the nature of such a lie "is not recognised by the liar as his intention" (p.

88). While a genuine lie is a "behaviour of transcendence," the bad faith lie is a denial of such possibility. Such is thecase that the liar finds her/himself as the victim of her/his own self-deception and lives in falsehood.

By the lie consciousness affirms that it exists by nature as hidden from the Other; it utilises for its own profit theontological duality of myself and myself in the eyes of the Other. The situation can not be the same, for bad faith if this,as we have said, is indeed a lie to oneself. To be sure, the one who practices bad faith is hiding a displeasing truth or

presenting a pleasing untruth. Bad faith then has in appearance the structure of falsehood. Only what changeseverything is the fact than in bad faith it is from myself that I am hiding the truth. (pp. 88-89)

Sartre's notion of bad faith is intimately linked to his model of consciousness. He recognised two levels ofconsciousness, namely (1) consciousness as intentionality and self-reflection, and (2) pre-reflective consciousness.The former is consciousness as such and encompasses awareness of the self as a human subject. Pre-reflective

consciousness is the form of consciousness prior to being aware (of) an object for reflection. This is similar to Freud'snotion of pre-consciousness, that is, you are not immediately aware of an internal event or object but could be if yourattention were drawn to that particular object for reflection. Sartre vociferously repudiated the notion of the Freudian

unconscious; instead, his model espouses Brentano's concept of intentionality. Consciousness is always conscious ofor about something--conscious of some object we posit or place before us for reflection. Therefore, consciousness has

no inertia; consciousness is not an object, nor does it exist in-itself. For Sartre, consciousness can be positional ornon-positional. Consciousness that posits places before it an object for immediate reflection. Non-positional

consciousness is consciousness by itself. This is experienced as a "lack," a hole in being. The notion of lack is tied tohis concept of nothingness, and as freedom we try to fill the lack through our projects. Therefore, consciousness is

what it is not and is not what it is. For Sartre, we are more than what we can be if we are reduced to what we are.What we are is freedom, and as freedom we are transcendence.

Bad faith can manifest in various existential modalities, from singular situational choices to patterns of self-deception,or as may be argued, character structure. Nevertheless, there is a double face to bad faith, namely (1) facticity and (2)

transcendence. In the first case, bad faith is the failure to accept one's facticity. In the second, it is a failure oftranscendence. For example, Sartre portrays a woman who consents to go out with a man for the first time and in her

bad faith she denies the intentions behind his seductive conduct. "She does not want to realise the urgency" of themoment and "refuses to apprehend the desire for what it is" (pp. 96-97).

Throughout the flirtations, her companion places her in such a position as to require an immediate decision, only to be


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Max Stirner (1806-1856)- Biography

Max Stirner is the pseudonym of Johann Kaspar Schmidt (1806-1856). He was born in Bayreuth October 25th 1806,son of the lower-middle-class couple Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and his wife Sophia Eleonora. The year after,

his father died, and in 1809 his mother remarried with the pharmacist Ballerstedt and moved to Kulm in westernPrussia. In 1819 Stirner went to Bayreuth to attend the prestigious Gymnasium, living with an aunt. In 1826 he went tothe University of Berlin to study philosophy under Schleiermacher, Marheineke and Hegel. He continued his studies atthe University of Erlangen in 1829, and moved to the University of Knigsberg in 1829, returned to Berlin in 1832 and

completed his studies there in 1834.In January 1835 Stirner's mother was committed as insane to Die Charit hospital in Berlin. April the same year,

delayed by illness, Stirner took his oral exams in the subjects he intended to teach, but was, however, only awarded aconditional facultas docendi and was rejected as Gymnasiallehrer by the Royal Brandenburg Commission for Schools.In 1837 Stirner married Agnes Klara Kunigunde Butz, the daughter of his landlady. Later the same year his stepfather

died. In 1838 Agnes died giving birth to a still-born child. In 1839 Stirner got a position teaching literature at arespectable girls' school in Berlin.

In 1841 Stirner joined Die Freien (The Free), a group of left Hegelians gathering at Hippel's Weinstube. It was in thisgroup he met Marie Dhnhardt, who was later to become his second wife. In 1842 Stirner published, aside from

various journalistic articles, Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung (The false Principle of our Education) and Kunstund Religion (Art and Religion) in der Rheinische Zeitung, two pieces where we clearly can see the direction Stirner's

thought. In 1843 he married Marie Dhnhardt. At the end of 1844 Stirner's magnum opus Der Einzige und SeinEigentum (The Ego and Its Own) was published by Otto Wigand; copies were rapidly distributed to bookstores to avoid

the censorship, and the book was dated 1845.Stirner left his teaching job in 1844. He then tried investing Marie Dhnhardt's inherited fortune in commercial

enterprise, but failed and ended up in financial hardship. Marie left him in 1846. In the time after the publication of TheEgo and Its Own Stirner wrote two essays in reply to his critics that serve to illuminate his philosophy well. These wereRecensenten Stirner's (Stirner's critics), a reply to Feuerbach, Szeliga and Hess, in Wigand's Vierteljahrschrift in 1845,and Die Philosophischen Reaktionaere (The philosophically reactionary), a reply to Kuno Fischer, under the name "G.

Edward" in the fifth volume of Wigands Epigonen in 1847.Stirner was the first to translate Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations into German. This translation was published in

1847. Stirner's last book was a Geschichte der Reaktion (History of the Reaction) published in 1852.It has been claimed that Stirner lived in poverty towards the end of his life, constantly fleeing from his creditors. He

spent two periods in debtors' prison (5-26 March 1853 and 1 January-4 February 1854) in Berlin.It has been suggested, however, that he managed his maternal inheritance rather well towards the end of his life,

affording him a decent though not affluent lifestyle. His social life included visits to the salon of Baroness von der Golz,where he is said to have aired "radical opinions".

In May 1856 contracted a fever as he was stung by a winged insect. The 25th of June 1856, Stirner died.

Early Writings

Many people are not aware that Stirner wrote a large number of articles before he wrote Der Einzige und seinEigenthum. They view Stirner's book as a bolt out of the blue. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is possible, by

reading through these early articles, to trace the development of Stirner's thought to the point where it is expressed inDer Einzige und sein Eigenthum. It is not possible in this study to include a detailed examination of everything Stirnerwrote prior to the appearance of his book. In his early writings Stirner examined Hegelian principles and rejected them.His ideas on religion, education, and the political and social structure of society are to be seen in their incipient stage.Stirner's book, when viewed from the perspective of his earlier writings, is the logical outcome of a carefully thought outcourse he was following, and not the instantaneous aberration of a brilliant, misguided, erratic mind as is often inferred.

Stirner examines, very carefully, both acceptable contemporary solutions and contemporary proposals on theproblems in which he is interested before rejecting their solution as unsatisfactory. This is what is accomplished in his

early writings. Once having discovered what he thinks to be the faults of society he set out in Der Einzige und sein


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Eigenthum to outline what he thinks is acceptable solution. The format for Stirner's assault on religion, the state andsociety is present in the early writings. Stirner arrived at the conclusion that everything should be determined by one

guiding principle: egoism.

Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum (The Ego and its own)

The Ego and Its Own, as the English translation of Stirner's book is called, was not an immediate success when it waspublished in 1844. It was re-issued around the turn of the century when the philosophy of Nietzsche was popular.Today Stirner's book is once again enjoying some popularity among the student anarchists. Der Einzige has been

analysed many times. What does this book contain that keeps it alive today nearly a century and a quarter after it wasfirst published? Why do students who feel a "generation gap" between themselves and their parents feel an affinity for

Stirner's book? Why sometimes is it considered "the most revolutionary book ever written?"Stirner starts his book with a short introduction. He uses the first line from Goethe's poem Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!(---)as the title for this introduction. It reads: "Ich hab, mein Sach' auf Nichts gestellt," translated literally as "I have set

my affair on nothing" or, translated more freely, "all things are nothing to me."Everyone and everything mean something to Stirner just as individuals or individualities, not as object referred to a

pre-structured religion or moral system.Understanding Stirner requires not only an appreciation of content and particular statements, but to a very strong

degree an understanding of the structure of the work. According to Lawrence Stepelevich, the structure ofThe Ego and Its Own is modeled upon Hegels Phnomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit). The

Hegelianism in Stirner is not accidental, but rather essential.Central to the Hegelian school of philosophy is that which is called Dialectics: Resolve dualisms by finding a thirdwhich explains/gives both sides. Stirner is a dialectical thinker in this sense. His main triad is that of Materialist -

Idealist - Egoist.Stirner follows up on Feuerbachs insistence that we must tie philosophy to the concrete individual, and later

champions this insistence against Feuerbachs "Man", the species-being. Therefore chapter 1 in The Ego and Its Own,"A Human Life", is a statement of the dialectical development as it occurs in the life of concrete persons; as a child oneis at the Materialist stage and fears the rod, as a youth one has made "the first self-discovery, Mind" and gotten back of

the rod through Idealism, and as an adult also Idealism is seen as a kind of rod, and practical, selfish interest hastaken over. This should, however, not take literally but rather figuratively.

Chapter 2, "Men of the old time and the new", is a description of the same development writ large in history. Thechapter ends with a section on his friends Die Freien, criticising them as not representing the dialectical dissolution of

the Materialist/Idealist opposition at all, but rather being "the most modern of moderns", i.e. the last Idealists."Likes are to be treated in the same way" is central to the Idealist stage. This is the basis of the Young Hegelian

critique. By the inner dynamic of the critique, "likes" and "the same way" become ever-broadening categories, and"critique" must eventually turn on itself, collapsing under its own weight.

Stirner writes: If the presuppositions that have hitherto been current are to melt away in a full dissolution, they must notbe dissolved into a higher presupposition again - a thought, or thinking itself, criticism. For that dissolution is to be for

my good; otherwise it would belong only in the series of innumerable dissolutions [..]" (p.---)So this is the point from which Stirner's own philosophy starts, the collapse of Idealism and the need for a new

synthesis. This new synthesis cannot, however, be an Archimedean idea-point outside the world, what Stirner calls afixed idea. Thus a bit of care is needed when stating what Stirner proposes as a synthesis.

Stirner proposes the synthesis to be found in the interest of the unique - the egoist. This synthesis, qua isolated

statement, puts Stirner in the same category as Thomas Hobbes, Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Dora Marsden, JamesWalker, Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick.However, the kinds of egoism proposed by these philosophers is, usually, markedly different from Stirner's. The

difference lies in the view of what I myself am, and the way egoism is arrived at.For Thomas Hobbes, all that matters are external comparison of wealth and possession. Stirner's egoism is about therelation of the "I" and the object. In Stirner's synthesis, "I" am Subject, standing in relation to the object by my own will.For Friedrich Nietzsche, there were set goals for the egoist to pursue. One should "create beyond oneself", create the

Superman. Stirner, in contrast, focuses on consumption, the transitory, finite ego's appropriation of the world as its("appropriation " in the same sense a student must make the literature he reads "his" in order to understand it well).


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James Walker (---) gives a biological description which more-or-less defines selfishness as anything the biologicalindividual devotes its energy to, a mechanics of egoism. Stirner, in contrast, describes egoism as a possible chosen

path.Ayn Rand (---) tries to prove egoism from first principles, putting "reason" plus a number of word-definitions - life (quaMan) and justice - as premises. The reply to the question of who is the just recipient of a man's labour, Rand claims, is

that man himself. Acting according to that justice - seeing all values as instrumental to the fundamental value of life

(qua Man) - is what Rand defines as egoism. Stirner, in contrast, does not "justify" his egoism, and Rand's "qua Man"is nothing but the species-being Stirner rejected in Feuerbach.

Then, what is Stirner egoism?

As said above, in the preface to The Ego and Its Own, Stirner wrote Ich hab' mein Sach' auf nichts gestellt (I have setmy affair on nothing). In this piece, he shows how the Sultan, God, the Good etc. are not serving anything beyond

themselves, but rather have set themselves up as the highest good to serve. Stirner writes: "I for my part take a lessonfrom them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving those great egoists, rather to be the egoist myself."So indeed, he does not base his case on an imperative which he implores us to follow, but rather - seduces us byexample. This is of focal importance if Stirner is to be consistent and not fall for the axe of his contemporary Karl

Schmidt's criticism that Stirner is "making a new chimera" with his egoism.Stirner's egoism then becomes more a therapeutic recipe for those who will accept it. Egoism for Stirner is just the

following of one's own interests as the unique person one is. To somebody's "What are my interests?", Stirner wouldsay that his interests are as unique as he himself, and that it would be for himself to find out. A repeated insistence

would meet with only the negative answer Stirner provides in The Ego and Its Own, that one's interests and fixed ideasstand in opposition; that there is no Archimedean point of moral reference outside the values chosen by - the unique.So "what am I?" This, Stirner spends the latter half part of his book exploring. That is, what are my relations like whenthey are not the material or natural bonds like filial loyalty or idealist relations like being "one and the same" as Citizen,

Ragamuffin or Human? The key concept to answer this, is "Who am I?", and I am Eigentum - property."Eigentum", that which is owned, is for Stirner an expression of a willed relation. As a willed relation, it can be

discarded at any moment - by will. Opposed to the willed relation is the bond, the "ought" and the "shall". These aresimply relations that are not mine to dispose of, but which are given me from without - without also in the sense of an

"essence" I must confirm to and cannot dispose of.

A particular case of such a bond is when you are not to let go of an idea. In Hegelian terms: When that thought is seenas exempt from and sacred to "the power of the negative". Such an idea is called a fixed idea. It is, in Stirner's words

"An idea that has subjected the man to itself" - an idea that you are not to criticise.The notion of "Eigentum" applies to relations with other people as well, and it is in this sense we must understand Der

Verein der Egoisten (The Union of Egoists) which has confused and eluded the grasp of many commentators.Stirner rejects law. Laws exist not because men recognise them as being favourable to their interests, but because

men hold them to be sacred. When you start to speak of rights you are introducing a religious concept. Since the law issacred, anyone who breaks it is a criminal. Therefore there are no criminals except against something sacred. If youdo away with the sacrosancity of the law then crime will disappear, because in reality a crime is nothing more than anact desecrating that which was hallowed by the state. There are, according to Stirner, no rights, because might makesright. A man is entitled to everything he has the power to possess and hold. The earth belongs to him who knows how

to take it. Self -welfareness should be the guiding principle to follow rather than law.Stirner relates that "you can get further with a handful of might than you can with a bagful of right". The way to gain

freedom is through might because he who has might stands above the law.A person only becomes completely free when what he holds, he holds because of his might. Then he is a self -ownerand not a mere freeman.

Everyone should say to himself:" I am all to myself and I do all for my sake. I am unique, nothing is more important tome than myself". Stirner does not believe that a person is good or bad, nor does he believe in what is true, good , bad,

right or wrong.These are vague concepts which have no meaning outside a God- centred or man-centred world. A man should centre

his interest on self and concentrate on his own self.Stirner rejects the state. Without law the state is not possible. The respect for the law is what holds the state together.


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The state, like the law, exists not because an individual recognises it as favourable to his welfare but because lieconsiders it to be sacred.

To Stirner the state, like the law, is not sacred. Stirner is the mortal enemy of the state. The welfare of the state hasnothing to do with his own welfare and he should therefore sacrifice nothing to it.

The general welfare is not his welfare but only means self-denial on his part. The object of the state is to limit theindividual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general for the purpose of the state.

The state hinders an individual from attaining his true value, while at the same time it exploits the individual to getsome benefit out of him.

The state stands in the way between men, tearing them apart. Stirner would transform the state into his own propertyand his own creature instead of being the property and creature of the state. He would annihilate it and form in its

place a Union of Egoists.The state must be destroyed because it is the negation of the individual will, it approaches men as a collective unit,

The struggle between the egoists and the state is inevitable.Once the state is annihilated the Union of Egoists will prevail. This union is not sacred nor a spiritual power above

man's power. It is created by men.In this union men will be held together by mutual advantage, through common "use" of one another. In joining the

union an individual increases his own individual power. Each person will now through his own might control what hecan. It does not imply though that there will be a region of universal rapacity and perpetual slaughter, nor does it mean

the wielding of power over others. Each man will defend his own uniqueness.

Once he has attained self-realisation of true egoism he does not want to rule over others or hold more possessionsthan he needs because this would destroy his independence.Stirner's Union of Egoists is not communist. It is a union that individuals enter into for mutual gain from the egoistic

union which will be developed within the union. There will be neither masters nor servants, only egoists.Everyone will withdraw into his own uniqueness which will prevent conflict because no one will be trying to provehimself "in the right" before a third party. Egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals.

Stirner does not develop in any detail the form of social organisation that the Union of Egoists might follow.Organisation itself is anathema to Stirner's Union. Within the Union the individual will be able to develop himself. TheUnion exists for the individual. The Union of Egoists is not to be confused with society which Stirner opposes. Society

lays claim to a person which is considered to be sacred, but which consumes an individual.The Union is made up of individuals who consume the Union for their own good.

How is the abrogation of law, state, and property to be realised so that men will be free to enter into the Union ofEgoists? It will occur when a sufficient number of men first undergo an inward change and recognise their own welfareas the highest law, and then these men will bring into being the outward manifestations: the abrogation of law, state,

and property.Let us have a look at the ways in which I can meet another person, from a point of view pertaining to the matter at

hand.

1. The Bon d.

This is a meeting of two people according to how they "ought" to behave towards one another. It is not as such ameeting which is willed, but rather a meeting according to the "ought". Examples of such are when the father and theson meet in the roles of father and son. "Father" and "son" they will always remain in a descriptive sense. But when

they meet according to such roles, they meet by an "ought" and not by a "will". Roles are ascribed when the relation is

seen as a static object.

2. The Property.

The relation can be a one-sidedly willed one. In this, the one is an Einzige whereas the Other has become Eigentum(for the one who is Einzige). Perhaps this is the state of things where we can say "Hell is the Other" (i.e. when that


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Other guy is Einzige and I am reduced to a role as Eigentum).Now, Moses Hess (---)criticised Stirner's conception of what Stirner call "Verein der Egoisten" ("The Union of Egoists")

along the lines that in such a meeting, there would have to be one who did dominate and one who submitted todomination. That is, Hess imagined that "The Union of Egoist" would be a relation of the kind described above. It might

describe a Hobbesian egoist. But not "la derniere mallon de la chaine Hegelienne" ,as Stirner has been called.(----)Stirner did himself reply to this criticism by pointing to examples: Two friends playing with their toys, two men going

together to the wine shop. These are of course not an exhaustive list of unions, and our man Stirner does indeedspeak of unions consisting of thousands of people, too, unions uniting to catch a thief or to get better pay for one's own

labour. More philosophically, Moses Hess describes a one-sidedness, and thinks it is a necessary one.

3. The Union .

Apparently, Stirner mean, with the Union a relation which is understood as a process. It is a process in which therelation is continually renewed by that both [/all] parts support it through an act of will. The Union requires that both/allparties are present through conscious egoism - i.e. own-will. If one part silently finds him/her-self to be suffering, but

puts up and - keeps the appearance, the union has degenerated into something else.Only after development has come to the understanding of the union of egoists does Stirner come to the ultimatelyimportant relation - the relation of me to myself. In the section entitled "My self-enjoyment", Stirner sets up mere

valuing of life against enjoyment of life. In the former view, I am an object to be preserved. In the latter I see myself asthe subject of all my valuing relations.

In this sense, Stirner can rebuke the question "what am I?" and replace it with "who am I?", a question which has itsanswer in this bodily person who asks the question. This is the "nothingness" of which Stirner speaks of as I. "Not

nothing in the sense of emptiness, but a creative nothing."My relation to myself is thus a meeting of myself as willer, a union with myself and a consumption - appropriation - of

myself as my own.To Stirner revolution and rebellion are not synonymous. Revolution is an overturning of the condition of the existing

state or society. Revolution is thus a political or social act. Rebellion, on the other hand, is a transformation ofconditions. Rebellion stems from men's discontent with themselves. It is not an armed uprising, but a rising up of

individuals.Rebellion has no regard for the arrangements that spring from it. Revolution aims at new arrangements; rebellion

results in people no longer permitting themselves to be arranged, but to arrange for themselves, placing no great hopeon existing institutions. Rebellion is not a fight against the established order, but if it succeeds, it will result in thedownfall of that order. Stirner does not want to overthrow the establishment of order merely to overthrow it. He is

interested in elevating himself above it. His purpose is not political, nor social, but egoistic.To bring about the transformation of condition and put the new condition in the place of law, the state, or property,violent rebellion against the existing conditions is necessary. Force is necessary. If each man is to have what he

requires he must take it. This will necessarily mean a war of each against all, for the poor become free and proprietorsonly when they rebel.

Only rebellion can succeed. Revolution will fail because it will only result in setting up another unfavourable political orsocial condition. Only rebellion can entirely eliminate unfavourable political and social conditions and permit man to

enter into the Union of Egoists where he will be able to achieve the highest realisation of self.

Stirner's Influence

It is difficult to assess accurately the influence of Stirner. There is definitely a connection between his thought and theschool of individualist anarchism. The connecting link between Stirner and other thinkers and movements is not so

easily established; however, some writers portray Stirner as a precursor of Nietzsche, while others point out that theseeds of fascism are found in Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, still others place Stirner as a forerunner of

existentialism. Much is attributed to Stirner today, but during his life time he was not able to attract any disciples or


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school of followers.Stirner's influence during his life time seems to be limited to Julius Faucher (1820-1878), who represented Stirner's

ideas in his newspaper the Berliner Abendpost. This paper was, of course, quickly suppressed.Nettlau agrees with Zenker when he writes that "few books have been so misunderstood or subjected to so many

varying critical examinations (Nettlau, , p. 169.)Stirner's greatest influence came toward the end of the 19th century. It is generally acknowledged that Stirner is the

father of individualist anarchism. The individualist anarchist movement, which started in Germany in the 1890 can betraced directly to the writings of Stirner.

Nietzsche

Was Nietzsche influenced by Stirner? In spite of Crane Brinton's(1965) protest to the contrary Nietzsche probably was. Although Stirner is not mentioned in Nietzsche's writings, numerous studies have compared their writings. In the final

analysis there is but one piece of evidence to prove that Nietzsche knew Stirner. Lwith ( p. 187) states the case:Stirner is nowhere mentioned in Nietzsche's writings; but Overbeck's witness proves that Nietzsche knew of him, and

not only through Lange's history of materialism. And Nietzsche was so "economical," with his knowledge of Stirnerbecause he was both attracted to and repelled by him, and did not want to be confused with him. (Lwith p.187-188)Nietzsche was particularly influenced by Schopenhauer's theories on irrational will, and Darwin's theory of evolution

through natural selection.Three themes dominate his work:

a rejection of traditional religious and philosophical ethics the concept of bermensch (superman)

the will to powerIt is impossible no to notice, with just these three concepts alone, how powerful the influence of Stirner on Nietzsche

was, who was born the year when "Der Einzige" was published for the first time.And, if we further exploring his philosophical thoughts, one can see that Nietzsche rejected both the traditional

religious values of bourgeois morality and the prevailing idealism of German philosophy, as Stirner does. Heconcluded that traditional philosophy and religion are both erroneous and harmful.

One of Nietzsche's fundamental contentions was that traditional values (represented primarily by Christianity) had losttheir power in the lives of individuals. He expressed it in his proclamation "God is dead." Stirner spent a great part of

"Der Einzige" deconstructing the catholic religion and the social moral system (extending the concept of "God" to everysource faithfully trusted by the man).

In Nietzsche's view, the fundamental self-betrayal of the human race was its submission to the fictitious demands of animaginary god. He stressed, instead, the values of individual self-assertion, biological instinct, and passion, and called

for a return to the more primitive and natural virtues of courage and strength. He was convinced that the "slavemorality" of traditional ethics was created by weak and resentful individuals who encouraged such behaviour as

gentleness and kindness because the behaviour served their interests. He bitterly decried the slave morality (enforcedby social punishment and religious guilt) and advocated freedom from all external constraints on one's behaviour. InNietzsche's "natural" state of existence, each individual would live a life without the artificial limits of moral obligation.

This is, in nuce, an open declaration that Nietzsche had read Stirner.About morality, for example, Stirner says (p.87) " In its first and most unintelligible form morality shows itself as habit.To act according to the habit and usage (mores) of one's country [--] is to be moral there", underlining the hierarchical

value and the social control of morality.

This idea of natural ethics led to the Nietzschean concept of the bermensch (overman, or superman).(Nietzsche's poetic vision of the overman as the dominant figure of a radically transformed society is presented in theprose poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885). )

Stirner wrote (p.51):" You are distinguished beyond other men not by being man, but because you are a"unique"["einziger"] man. Doubtless you show what a man can do; but because you, a man, do it, this by no meansshows that others, also men, are able to do as much; you have executed it only as a unique man, and are unique

therein.It is not man that makes up your greatness, but you create it, because you are more than man, and mightier than other

men."


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51) " When one looks to the bottom of anything, i.e. searches out its essence, one often discovers something quiteother than what it seems to be; honeyed speech and a lying heart, pompous words and beggarly thoughts, etc. By

bringing the essence into prominence one degrades the hitherto misapprehended appearance to a bare semblance, adeception." And also: "What at first passed for existence, e. g. the world and its like, appears now as bare semblance

[...]"(if we are just looking, as in this case, for the essence)

Other basic point o f Sartre's phi loso phy are:

SUBJECT RATHER THAN OBJECT. Humans are not objects to be used by God or a government or corporation orsociety. Nor we to be "adjusted" or moulded into roles --to be only a waiter or a conductor or a mother or worker. We

must look deeper than our roles and find ourselves.FREEDOMis the central and unique potentiality which constitutes us as human. Sartre rejects determinism, saying

that it is our choice how we respond to determining tendencies.OUR ACTS DEFINE US. "In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait, and there is nothing but that portrait."

Our illusions and imaginings about ourselves, about what we could have been, are nothing but self-deception.WE CONTINUALLY MAKE OURSELVES AS WE ARE. A "brave" person is simply someone who usually acts

bravely. Each act contributes to defining us as we are, and at any moment we can begin to act differently and draw adifferent portrait of ourselves. There is always a possibility to change, to start making a different kind of choice.

OUR POWER TO CREATE OURSELVES. We have the power to transform ourselves indefinitely.PASSION IS NO EXCUSE. "I was overwhelmed by strong feelings; I couldn't help myself" is a falsehood. Despite my

feelings, I choose how to express them in action.In all these concepts, Stirner is more than present, with his ideas of the individual that is recognised through what hedoes, and he does things through his own will and choices. The individual owns his freedom as one of his properties,

and he does not recognises God or moral value other than his own. So the connection between some aspect ofSartre's philosophy and Stirner is clear.

But, then, Sartre, as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, seems unable to sustain the pressure (or responsibility) of thepossibility to exist as an egoist (. "I am abandoned in the world... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and

without help". On Prini, 1989),suddenly turns to consider the belief in something objectively external to the man. Aftersaying that we are continuously making ourselves as we are, he rejects the first step of our "making ourselves", stating

that "We are condemned to be free because we did not create ourselves. We must choose and act from within

whatever situation we find ourselves. "(ibid.)This "condemnation", accompanied by the consequent anguish ( "It is in anguish that we become conscious of our

freedom. ...My being provokes anguish to the extent that I distrust myself and my own reactions in thatsituation."(ibid.), can be , in Stirner's perspective, what God is for the church and the State for the society etc..: a

sacralisation of an external influence, which ultimately, Stirner would say, is created by the individual. Therefore it isnot a condemnation: it is one of the properties that can be chosen and there to be used by the individuals. It can be

perceived as a condemn, if it is what Stirner calls a "fixed idea" (above).Sartre also adds that:

1. We must make some choices knowing that the consequences will have profound effects on others (like acommander sending his troops into battle).

2. In choosing for ourselves we choose for all humankind.

And this can recall the Egoist very closely, but, here, with a strange sense of projection: in reality Stirner would say that, if with the act of choosing ourselves we are choosing for all the members of mankind it is because they are not free

enough to exert their will as we, the egoists are Ludwig Binswanger and Max Stirner

NOTE: Binswanger talks about Stirner and the uniqueness in the first part of his book " The foundations and cognitionof human existence" (1964), chapter 3,part IV, paragraph b. Unfortunately , the book is out of print, and the only copy I


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was able to find was in German. For this reason I am not able to comment it. I merely wish to signal Stirner's presencein Binswanger's work.

CHAPTER III

Julius Evola: theory and phenomenology of the Absolute Individual

The chapter presents an overview of Julius Evola's philosophy of the Absolute Individual. Some comparison withStirner and Existential philosophy are also outlined.

Julius Evola: biography

Julius Evola born in Rome on 19 May 1889 from a noble Sicilian family. There are very little and discordant informationabout his childhood, most of which is contradictory. He studied Nietzsche, Michelstaedter e Weininger, and

participated in the first World War as an artillery officer. Evola is a good artist, and the experience brings him near tothe dadaism, becoming in a short time the principal exponent of the movement. He learnt German and French, and

spoke them fluently.Evola started the University in the faculty of Engineering, but he left just before ending, as sign of contempt for the

academic titles. The dadaist movement is for Evola the first step to "going over": he completes an extensivephilosophical works he started to write during the war. This works is an attempt to overcome the classical idealism, and

Evola introduces it presenting ,before hand, a series of scripts: "Saggi sull idealismo magico (Essay on MagicalIdealism), 1925, "Teoria dell'individuo assoluto" ( Theory of the Absolute Individual), 1927 and "Fenomenologia

dell'indiviudo assoluto"(Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual), 1930.None of these were ever translated into English.

At the same time, Evola discovers the Far-East doctrines of self-realisation, publishes an Italian version of Tao-te-ching,"Il libro della via e della virtu'"(The book of the path and its virtues), 1923, followed by a very polemical bookabout the close links between Fascism and Catholic Religion ("Imperialismo pagano (Pagan Imperialism), 1928).

Divided between the spiritual elevation of the Ego and the intervention in the cultural life of his time, Evola occasionallycollaborated between 1924 to 1926 on various cultural magazines and publishes "Ur" and "Krur" monthly

magazines(1927-1929) , then "LaTorre " (The Tower ,1930), closed by the authority because of its much too lose, inhis opinion, interpretation of Fascism. Evola continued his studies on self-realisation and starts to explore alchemy ("La

tradizione ermetica (The hermetic tradition), 1937), neo-spiritualism ("Maschera e volto dello spiritualismocontemporaneo" (Mask and Face of contemporary spiritualism), 1932) and esoteric tales ("Il Mistero del Graal"(The

mistery of Graal), 1937), interpreted as a way of Western initiatic way.At the basis of Evola's Weltanschauung there is an anti-modernist, anti-capitalistic, anti-materialistic and anti-

progressivist view, which made him very critical either against bolshevism and Americanism, considered the two sidesof the same coin in his prophetic essay published on "Nuova antologia"(New Anthology) on 1929 and in his famous

"Revolt against modern world" (1934).

Evola tries to introduce this themes in the cultural scenario of his time, and he maintain contacts with most of the bestconservative writers of the time, as Spengler, Gunon, Meyrink, Bachofen.

During the second World War, Evola publishes and Essay on Buddhist asceticism :" La dottrina del risveglio" (Thedoctrine of enlightenment) on 1943. During 1945, in Vienna, a bomb damaged his spine, and paralysed his legs. Evola

went then to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life.From 1948, Evola started to review some of his previous work, and also re-examined the "Theory of the Absolute

Individual" which would only be published in the current form in 1973.In the magazine "Orientamenti" (Orientations), Evola explored for the readers all the position of his pragmatic

philosophy, to live in a world that Evola thought was the expression of Kali-yuga, the last and obscure age (examined


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in the Indian philosophy). From 1953 to 1963 Evola writes several philosophical-political books, as the existentially-oriented

"Cavalcare la tigre" (Riding the Tiger, 1961)It follows an autobiography through his works in 1963, and other works and collaboration with publishers until his

death, in 1974.The last period of his existence sees Evola in the amazing role of anti-Marcuse: the "movement "of 1968 highlighted

his ideas on both the Left and Right wings.Evola had the merit of enabling the majority of the readers to acknowledge concepts that were, before him, absolutely

elitary.Evola invites us to look at the modernity without losing ourselve

ego and existance

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