Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner

The ideas of the 19th century German philosophers Max Stirner (dead in 1856) and Friedrich Nietzsche (born in 1844) have been compared frequently. Many authors have discussed apparent similarities in their writings, sometimes raising the question of influences. In Germany, during the early years of Nietzsche's emergence as a well-known figure, the only thinker who discussed his ideas more often than Stirner was Arthur Schopenhauer. It is certain that Nietzsche read about Stirner's book The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, 1845), which was mentioned in Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance (1866) and Eduard von Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869), both of which young Nietzsche knew well. However, there is no irrefutable indication that he actually read it as no mention of Stirner is known to exist anywhere in Nietzsche's publications, papers or correspondence.

Yet, as soon as Nietzsche's work began to reach a wider audience, the question of whether or not he owed a debt of influence to Stirner was raised. As early as 1891 (while Nietzsche was still alive, though incapacitated by mental illness), Eduard von Hartmann went so far as to suggest that he had plagiarized Stirner. 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. It prompted one observer to note their similarities in 1907.

Nevertheless, from the beginning of what was characterized as "great debate" regarding Stirner's possible influence on Nietzsche—positive or negative—serious problems with the idea were apparent. By the middle of the 20th century, if Stirner was mentioned at all in works on Nietzsche, the idea of influence was repeatedly dismissed outright or abandoned as unanswerable.

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 in some reasonable fashion the often-noted (though arguably superficial) similarities in their writings. In any case, the most prominent problems with the theory of possible Stirner influence on Nietzsche are not limited to the difficulty in establishing whether one man knew of or read the other. They also consist in establishing precisely how and why Stirner, in particular, might have been a meaningful influence on a man as widely read as Nietzsche.