An Egosim Of Intentionality

 

On Page 20 and 21 of his introduction to Wolfi Landstreicher’s translation of Max Stirner’s book, Stirner’s Critics, McQuinn tries to explain to the reader how the conceptual consciousness of the Unique functions: “It is an egoism of intentionality that cannot itself be alienated, because it is exactly what one chooses and does, nothing more and nothing less. (It’s definitely not an egoism of ends or goals oriented towards some self-alienated image of self-interest.) As Stirner says, it ‘points’ to something which cannot possibly explain or define in words. It is not an ultimate reality or truth, since these concepts cannot possibly express what it is. Stirner’s egoism points to Stirner’s figure of the Unique, which points merely to Stirner himself. 20 Similarly, according to Stirner’s usage, any particular person’s egoism will point to the whole of that person’s uniquely lived experience.

 

20 As Stirner proclaims in The Unique and Its Property,, the ‘Unique’ points to that which precedes all conceptualization. This means the ‘Unique’ does not point to any ideal person, not to a physical person, not to some conception of a soul or a self. But to the entire lived experience of the person. It therefore includes one’s entire life, including both objective and subjective aspects, which must themselves be artificially determined and separated from each other in order to be brought into being—out of the always pre-existing nonconceptual Unique—as concepts.”

 

My response: I included Footnote 20 with this excerpt. The subjective egoism of the Unique is an Irrational Consciousness in which reasoning and feeling, both the subjective and objective aspect of the Unique’s lived experience are nonconceptually described, if that is possible or even makes sense. The Unique does not point to some ideal or essential description of the Uniques’s nature; rather, it highlights but does not explain or define with language the Unique’s nature, so the nature of the Unique remains at least in part shrouded in mystery. We can know that it is, not what it is or why it is what it is.

 

To describe the Unique or any other phenomenon with terms, concepts and propositions is to create a vicious abstraction, a spook according to Stirner.

 

I do not go along with his radical skepticism and pure nominalism, but he is consistent in maintain his view of how the world is and operates.