Max Stirner vs. Thomas Paine
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Max Stirner
1806 – 1856
Max Stirner, born Johann Kaspar Schmidt, was a German philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, individualist anarchism, and egoism.
"Because our time is struggling toward the word with which it may express its spirit, many names come to the fore and all make claim to being the right one. With…"
Thomas Paine
1737 – 1809
Thomas Paine was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, inventor, political philosopher, and statesman. His pamphlets Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783) framed the Patriot argument for independence from Great Britain at the outset of the American Revolution. Paine advanced Enlightenment-era arguments for human rights that shaped revolutionary discourse on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
Connections
Both wrote about: