Max Stirner

Johann Kaspar Schmidt (October 25, 1806 June 26, 1856), better known as Max Stirner (the nom de plume he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow [Stirn]), German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary grandfathers of nihilism, existentialism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. Stirner himself explicitly denied holding any absolute position in his philosophy, further stating that if he must be identified with some "-ism" let it be egoism the antithesis of all ideologies and social causes, as he conceived of it.