Max Stirner - Self and Nothing

Summary

In this video, Kane B delves into the philosophical ideas of Max Stirner, particularly his take on the concept of the self as presented in his work "The Unique and Its Property." Stirner argues that the self, or the "unique," possesses no predefined essence or properties—it's indefinable and ever-changing. This absence of inherent identity grants each individual radical freedom to construct and re-invent themselves at every moment. Through acts of appropriation, anything can become one's property, as the self appropriates without any restriction or predefined limits. The video also contrasts Stirner’s ideas with philosophical concepts by David Hume and others, illustrating Stirner's radical constructivism and his views on how self-deception manifests through attachment to external entities or ideals.

Highlights

• Introduces Max Stirner's concept of 'the unique,' which refers to the concept of self with no predefined attributes. 🌟
• Emphasizes that the self is nothingness—a label without definition—leading to limitless potential for self-definition. 🌌
• Explains how acts of appropriation enable anything to become 'property' of the self, fostering limitless freedom. 🔓
• Describes the interdependence of 'the unique' and its 'property' in constructing the reality and identity of the self. 🔄
• Details Stirner's criticism of self-deception, where attachments to ideals render individuals servant to those concepts. ⛓
• Concludes that true egoism, as per Stirner, involves freedom from all attachments, emphasizing intrinsic perfection. ⚡

Key Takeaways

• Max Stirner presents the idea that the self, or 'the unique,' is indefinable and lacks any intrinsic properties. 🎭
• This leads to a radical freedom where one can construct an identity and take anything as their property or role. 🎨
• Stirner views the world and its concepts as constructs of the individual, rejecting any independent, intrinsic truths. 🌐
• He distinguishes between ordinary egoism and his version, advocating a freedom from attachments to external ideals. 🚀
• Stirner suggests that perceived defects arise from attachments to abstract concepts and ideals. 🎯
• Embracing a lack of intrinsic identity eliminates notions of sin and imperfection, as we are always as perfect as we can be. 👌

Overview

Max Stirner’s philosophical exploration delves into the concept of the self which he defines as 'the unique.' His work, particularly "The Unique and Its Property," introduces the idea that individuals possess an indefinable and ever-changing self, unbound by any intrinsic qualities or properties. Stirner presents this 'uniqueness' as nothingness, a constructive creative force that allows for complete autonomy and reinvention at each moment.

Stirner argues that true freedom and identity come through acts of appropriation, whereby anything can be claimed as one’s property. This standpoint diverges significantly from traditional interpretations of the self, such as those by Descartes or Hume, who define self with intrinsic qualities. Instead, Stirner forwards a concept of radical constructivism, where the individual constructs their world and truth is a personal creation rather than an independent reality.

Examining the implications of Stirner's work reveals his criticism of attachments to ideological, religious, or philosophical constructs as forms of self-deception. By creating independent ideals to which we must conform, Stirner suggests we limit our freedom and become bound to these concepts. His notion of true egoism calls for detachment from any such constructs or ideals, highlighting a constant state of perfection achievable by embracing the creative nothingness of self.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Introduction to Max Stirner and the Unique In this chapter, the video creator introduces some of the ideas of Max Stirner, focusing particularly on his account of the self. This aspect, which was not covered in the creator's previous videos about Stirner, is deemed centrally important. Stirner's work, prominently highlighted through the title of his book — often translated as 'The Ego and His Own' but more accurately as 'The Unique and Its Property' — forms the basis of this discussion.
• 05:00 - 20:00: Understanding the Unique: Indefinability of the Self In this chapter titled 'Understanding the Unique: Indefinability of the Self', the speaker delves into the concept of 'the unique' as presented by Sterner. Acknowledging the subjectivity of interpretations, the speaker clarifies that the perspective offered is just one possible understanding, not the definitive explanation of Sterner's ideas. The discussion begins with an examination of the unique and its property, inviting the audience to think intuitively about Sterner's analysis.
• 20:00 - 35:00: Hume vs Stirner on the Self The chapter explores the concept of 'the self' through the philosophical perspectives of Hume and Stirner. A key focus is on the term 'unique,' which is used to describe the self. However, this term is intentionally left without content to illustrate the indefinability of the self. Unlike typical terms which are defined for clarity, 'unique' serves as a label for the indefinable nature of personal identity.
• 35:00 - 50:00: The Unique and Its Property The chapter titled 'The Unique and Its Property' delves into the concept of uniqueness beyond definitions. It suggests that the 'unique' can be seen similarly to a name, which serves as a label rather than a definition. For instance, the name 'verity' simply points or refers to something or someone without describing its inherent properties or essence. It emphasizes the distinction between labeling and defining, suggesting that a name does not necessarily convey any attributes of the person or object it designates.
• 50:00 - 65:00: Radical Constructivism and Relativism This chapter explores the concept of names as arbitrary labels with no inherent content, used simply to refer to objects or entities. The discussion centers on Sterner's use of the term 'the unique' as a label for oneself, emphasizing the philosophical view that individuals are distinct and cannot be fully defined or categorized. It questions the essence of self-identity and what it means to be a unique individual.
• 65:00 - 77:00: Egoism and Self-Deception In this chapter titled 'Egoism and Self-Deception', the discourse focuses on the notion of self-identity and how individuals describe themselves. The speaker reflects on how any description or attribute they ascribe to themselves, whether as a philosopher or a man, can be inadequate in fully capturing their essence. They emphasize that being a philosopher, or a man, is not inherently essential to their core identity. For instance, the speaker may engage in philosophy at times but can refrain from it altogether without losing their sense of self. This suggests that individual identity transcends specific roles or definitions, aligning with philosophical inquiries into the nature of being, evoking thoughts from philosophers like Aristotle on defining what it means to be human.

Max Stirner - Self and Nothing Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello youtube in this video i'm going to introduce some of the ideas of max sterner i do already have a couple of videos on sterner which i will link in the comments below however one very interesting aspect of his work that i didn't cover in those videos is his account of the self and really this is of central importance for sterner it's expressed in the title of his book it was originally translated the ego and his own but the more accurate translation is the unique and its property
• 00:30 - 01:00 so that's what i will be talking about today what exactly is the unique uh now before getting into this i do need to state the caveat sterner's work is open to a lot of different interpretations i am presenting this merely as one perhaps idiosyncratic view of stoner i make no claim that this is the definitive account of what sterner really meant okay so the unique and its property an intuitive way to think about what sterner is doing here is that he's giving an analysis of
• 01:00 - 01:30 the self the phrase the unique that refers to the self but a crucial point is that this this term unique it has no content it's merely a label for something indefinable so when somebody introduces a new term they would usually try to define it they would say you know this is what the term means they would give content to it the whole point of introducing this phrase the unique is that
• 01:30 - 02:00 what it's pointing to cannot be defined the unique is used to label something that has no definition we can think of the unique as being like a name a name merely labels something it doesn't define what the thing is when i use the name verity i merely label a particular person or i i point to a particular person i don't communicate anything about that person i don't tell you what their properties are in fact it might not even be a person verity
• 02:00 - 02:30 could be the name of a town or a star or a piece of medical equipment or anything so names have no content they just point at things sterner's phrase the unique works in the same way it's a label now when i talk about the unique what i'm labeling is myself me the thing that i am so what am what am i what am i well stunner's point is that any
• 02:30 - 03:00 description that i give of myself any property that i attribute to myself will fail to capture what i am i might say i'm a philosopher well you know being a philosopher is not essential to my identity i sometimes do philosophy very often i don't do philosophy very often i'm doing something else i could stop doing philosophy entirely and i would still be me or i might say i am a man but what is a man right now we need a definition of man aristotle held that
• 03:00 - 03:30 man is a rational animal the essence of man is rationality for descartes the essence of man was the thinking mind cognition well yes i engage in rational thought sometimes but then sometimes i don't when i'm daydreaming i'm still me even when i'm i mean and even when i am engaging in rational thought you know it's my thought it's not shared with other people it's unique the self cannot be identified with any of its properties so yes i am a man but
• 03:30 - 04:00 i'm many other things too i'm an animal i'm a philosopher i'm a briton each of these concepts man animal philosopher britain has conceptual content that is defined independently of me none of these properties is essential to me and i am more than any of these things of course it's you know like i am um i am part of the extension of the term man so we can say that the concept man correctly applies to me but that's only as a result of features of my body or my mind that are taken to be shared with everyone else every other human being if
• 04:00 - 04:30 you ask like who is the owner of these features right who is the who is the thing that bears these features well that is completely unique so man cannot express who i am partly because it can't distinguish me from other men from other human beings partly because the content of man the properties that it picks out are not essential to me in principle i could lose all of those properties and still be me like i might for instance take on a transhumanist project okay maybe in the future i will
• 04:30 - 05:00 modify myself with technology and i won't even be a biological organism anymore but i'll still be me um so in a way what what sustain is doing here might be seen as a sort of extension of um david hume's famous argument against the self hume similarly asks the question what is the self right so we i noticed that i have various properties and i do various things but what is it that's me
• 05:00 - 05:30 what is the thing that persists through these changes right when i say like i am the same person that i was five years ago what is what is that thing that is the same over those five years well hume's answer is there's nothing i mean so obviously the self is not any part of the body because i could lose any particular bodily part and i would still be me i could chop off my hands or i could cut out my heart i guess i'd have to replace it with an
• 05:30 - 06:00 artificial heart but i'd still be me i'd still be the same person so all of the bodily parts that's not me that's not myself or i i could look into the mind i can introspect well if you introspect notice that what you find is this ever-changing bundle of mental impressions there are feelings thoughts emotions mental images so right now for me um okay there are visual impressions of various colors there's a pang of hunger i haven't you
• 06:00 - 06:30 know haven't eaten since this morning there's the feeling of the clothes against my skin so there's all of these different mental impressions but there's nothing that that unifies all of this and there's nothing that persists through this ever-changing flux of mental impressions when i look inside my mind i find no persisting self like anything that i point to in my in my body or my mind right none of that is a persisting self so hume's conclusion is
• 06:30 - 07:00 there just is no self it's an illusion well sterner is making a similar point but with respect to the concepts that we use to classify people any concept that i use to describe my characteristics or properties cannot be taken as describing anything essential to my identity it cannot describe me i am indefinable when stoner uses the term unique it's a label for this indefinable thing we can point to it but we cannot say it we
• 07:00 - 07:30 cannot describe it in his article shtiana's critics sterner summarizes it as follows he says only when nothing is said about you and you are merely named are you recognized as you as soon as something is said about you you are only recognized as that thing human spirit christian etc but the unique doesn't say anything because it is merely a name it says only that you are you and nothing but you that you are a unique you or rather
• 07:30 - 08:00 yourself therefore you have no attribute but with this you are at the same time without determination vocation laws etc similarly stunner says what jonah says is a word a thought a concept what he means is neither a word nor a thought nor a concept what he says is not the meaning and what he means cannot be said um in that quote jonah is talking in the third person for some reason uh okay what is the unique and its property
• 08:00 - 08:30 well the basic idea is very simple there is the self and then the self has various properties there is the self and there's the things that the self has or the things that it does but the point of this term unique is that the self cannot be described it cannot be identified with any property what is the self it's nothing that's why no descriptive term can apply so i use a term like you know human being or mind or personality or
• 08:30 - 09:00 philosopher or christian right any term you like these terms have content to describe something as a human being or to describe its personality is to provide a great deal of information about that thing you cannot provide information about the unique there's no information to provide the unique is nothing the unique has no essence any description of the unique is just false anything i attribute to it anything i take to be part of its identity is false why well because there are only those things that the unique takes to be its property there are only those roles that
• 09:00 - 09:30 it plays there are only those things that are mine or those actions that i perform what is the what is the i what is the self that asserts ownership of these things or that performs these actions nothing so is this just a sort of human denial of the self well not really stunner has quite a lot more to say the key point is that nothingness is creative the fact that i am nothing
• 09:30 - 10:00 creates a radical freedom it allows me to affirm any number of properties and roles to play any number of roles i can take anything as my property i can play any kind of role since i am nothing since i have no essence nothing is excluded from me so think about my hands my hands are not me but of course i can take them as mine this is an act of appropriation things become mine when i appropriate them when i affirm ownership or power over them i
• 10:00 - 10:30 firm ownership of my hands and i use them as as i want right and the same goes for the rest of my body and for all of the mental content you know thoughts emotions experiences all of these are mine right now it's these acts of appropriation that sort of you know through which the unique manifests itself you know so um you know through which we might say the self is constructed now when something is appropriated when
• 10:30 - 11:00 it becomes mine that seems to presuppose that there must be some thing some entity that is the bearer of all of these properties now of course in fact there is no such thing that bears all of these properties there's only the acts of appropriation and these acts of appropriation are completely free and unrestricted nothing is creative nothing allows me to take on any property any role as my own as stuart says i am not nothing in the sense of emptiness but i am the creative nothing the nothing out of which i myself create everything as creator
• 11:00 - 11:30 because i am nothing i am free to make any appropriative act suppose that the self were definable right so take for instance descartes idea that the essence of mankind is mind or thought well this supposes that there is a limit on appropriative acts on the cartesian view i am an incorporeal mind contained within a material body so i'm appropriating the mind but not the body the body is not mine it simply contains me the so yeah it's appropriate in mind not
• 11:30 - 12:00 the body on steroids view i'm nothing so everything is open to appropriation um as jonah says no one lives in any world other than his own everyone is the center of his own world world is only what he himself is not but what belongs to him is in a relationship with him exists for him to say that the whole world is my property is to say that i may appropriate any of it i'm not bound by anything indeed i'm not even bound by the choices i've made in the past
• 12:00 - 12:30 it's quite sterner as you are eat as you are at each instant you are your own creation and now in this creation you don't want to lose yourself the creator so with each moment you know i i get away from myself and create myself a new so one point that stoner makes is that the nothingness of the self entails a radical freedom of self-construction
• 12:30 - 13:00 uh he departs from hume in another way also hume's argument treats the bundle of physical and mental states as given so hume says when we look for the self we find only particular bodily parts and mental impressions and nothing that unifies them or that persists over time so the bodily parts and mental impressions are taken for granted right and then the self is an illusion arising from them okay so that these these uh these parts
• 13:00 - 13:30 exist independently and then the illusion of the self arises from their activity but on jonah's view there is an interdependence between the unique and its property one cannot exist independent of the other each brings the other into existence out of nothingness so it's fairly obvious how the unique is dependent on its property the unique acts through appropriating property but of course any act can be any like appropriation can be performed only with capacities that are
• 13:30 - 14:00 initially taken as property so my voice my thoughts my desires my will my you know i don't know say a written word or something like that um again none of these is me right all of these are my property since the unique is nothing in the absence of any appropriative act there would be nothing to label unique right the unique manifests through its property
• 14:00 - 14:30 so stoner says everything turns around you you are the center of the outer world and of the thought world your world extends as far as your capacity and what you grasp is your own simply because you grasp it you the unique are the unique only together with your property similarly he says my power is my property my power gives me property my power am i myself and through it am i my property so you have like the the unique right it manifests by appropriating property
• 14:30 - 15:00 but the appropriation occurs only with capacities that are already taken as property right so you the unique is dependent on the pro on property but similarly the property depends on the unique none of the things that might be appropriated by the unique are as it were given to us that none of these things exist independently instead the unique creates them through constructive and appropriative acts
• 15:00 - 15:30 the way that jonah puts this is to say that everything is unique in just the same way that i am unique so here's an example i look out of my window and i see a tree what exactly is this tree well notice that tree is a concept we use it to simplify and systematize our experience but it doesn't really i mean so there's so this concept doesn't
• 15:30 - 16:00 truly apply or it doesn't really apply to any given object that i might come into contact with for a couple of reasons so first of all the tree outside my window is in constant flux right it's constantly changing if you take any one of its properties its size its shape its color it could lose any of these properties and yet we might well treat it as the same object indeed if you look at a tree over time it grows from an acorn well an acorn and a tree they have completely different properties and yet it's the same thing over time that's
• 16:00 - 16:30 changing so just in the same way that i you know i could lose my hands or i could lose i could stop engaging in rational thought i would still be me well in the same way that object out there it would still be it you know it would still be the same object even though it has you know lost any number of its properties or changed any number of its properties second all trees are different the concept tree does not label any
• 16:30 - 17:00 particular tree and was not created with reference to any particular tree it can't distinguish any particular tree from any other tree if we associate the concept tree with the definition with a set of necessary and sufficient conditions it will be false of some trees so you know when i describe an object as a tree well sure that object may exhibit properties that we associate with trees but this isn't going to describe the essence of the object it doesn't describe what the object is
• 17:00 - 17:30 when i described something as a tree this fails to articulate its identity for exactly the same reasons that any description of my own identity also fails um no object fully instantiates the concept or at least the concept doesn't describe the essence of any object so okay i can take a tree as my property but stoner says meanwhile it doesn't escape you that what is yours is still itself
• 17:30 - 18:00 its own at the same time i.e it has its own existence it is the unique the same as you what is that object outside my window it's nothing but wait a minute i can't appropriate nothing i can't take nothing to be my property well i mean the thing to notice is i have created the tree by choosing a particular representation of the world the concept tree is my concept and i apply it to various things i am the creative nothing nothing out of which i myself create everything
• 18:00 - 18:30 so we must be careful with interpreting the notion of unique and its property in saying that the unique appropriates various things we might have in mind this ontology of independently existing things right things with essences but that's not the case um on jenna's view all things are unique just as i am that is all things are nothing so stunner seems to be defending a pretty radical constructivism about the
• 18:30 - 19:00 world there are no independent objects we bring objects into existence in how we choose to represent or carve up the world in the way that we choose to use concepts and in fact jonah is explicit about the uh about these these anti-realist or constructivist commitments even truth is not independent of us traditionally of course the view is that there are mind independent truths there is a way the world is independently of me and the point of inquiry is to
• 19:00 - 19:30 discover these independent truths about the world i ought to hold true beliefs and to make inferences in accordance with the rules of rationality of course different people will have different methods for arriving at the truth the dogmatist will be content to be told the truth by some authority figure maybe a religious leader maybe a scientific expert the free thinker will seek the truth for herself she will apply her own powers of observation and reasoning to come to her conclusions
• 19:30 - 20:00 in both cases the truth is viewed as an independent ideal to which the individual must conform and this is to say of course that the truth is not my own the truth is independent stoner rejects this there is no independent truth to which we might conform or fail to conform he makes a couple of points here so consider how it is that attributions of truth or falsehood actually occur right like in practice we have various thoughts and some of these we designate
• 20:00 - 20:30 is true some of these we designate as false on what basis do we do this well one point is that whenever people engage in any kind of analysis of an idea and any evaluation of an idea a criterion of criticism must be posited i must make certain presuppositions i must take certain things for granted for an evaluation of an idea to even get started right i can't even begin evaluating things um until i have specified what i regard as reliable sources of evidence
• 20:30 - 21:00 or you know what i take the logical rules to be or what i take to be the values that i want to promote in my thought and action generally people will simply take for granted the conventions of their culture um so you know i'm going to assume that perception is reliable that certain logical argument forms are truth-preserving um that the value of liberty is worth promoting whatever but the key thing here is that any presupposition i make is ultimately up to me um
• 21:00 - 21:30 it's not it's not given to me it's a decision that i am making since i am unique since i am nothing uh i am not like bound to any particular decision i am free to give up any particular presupposition so i'm not since for instance you know rationality is not essential to me i'm not compelled by anything to conform to the demands of any particular you know logical system right like somebody says okay you know this is the logical system that is truth preserving
• 21:30 - 22:00 i can accept that presupposition or i can reject it but the point is it's up to me it's my decision second um shiona suggests a kind of projectivist account of truth he says that what makes me judge a particular thought to be true is its effect on me so when a thought overpowers me when it inspires me when it carries me away when it when it you know pops out at me in the right kind of way i designate it
• 22:00 - 22:30 true um so if you think about you know things things that sort of seem true to you and things that don't right the point is there's a difference in you know in the way that they affect you um and that's what like leads you to designate them as true and this leads to the sense that the truth is that which is not in my power i feel impotent in the face of the truth i feel compelled to conform my beliefs to certain ideas
• 22:30 - 23:00 jonah says by what do you measure and recognize the thought by your impotence by your being no longer able to make any successful assault on it so i take the truth to be something external to me that is imposed on me but notice that what's happened here i'm designating particular ideas as true or false depending on their effect on me you know so i'm treating the truth as mind independent and impersonal as something outside of me that i must seek because of the way that certain thoughts impact my mind but of course if i'm classifying
• 23:00 - 23:30 thoughts based on their impact on my mind i'm not talking about something mind independent it is it is you know the way that i am affected that is leading to these judgments of truth or falsehood your your impotence sterner says your impotence is their power your humility their exaltation their truth therefore is you uh jonah summarizes this with uh a lovely altered quote from protagoras man is not the measure of all things but
• 23:30 - 24:00 i am this measure so so there you go a pretty radical statement of of you know of relativism it's not even it's not even man that's the measure of all things it's me okay so let's summarize i exist through my activity executed through various things right like the activity of thoughts and feelings bodily movements material objects that i've manipulated and all of these things exist through me through the constructive activity
• 24:00 - 24:30 of of me of the unique so we have it that the unique and its property are interdependent right so so like yeah the unique exists through its activity that activity is executed with things right but those things exist through the unique so we have this interdependence interdependent existence this is kind of analogous actually to buddhist notions of emptiness the way that buddhism puts this is to say that all things are empty of intrinsic
• 24:30 - 25:00 natures all things exist interdependently with other things with all other things so there's a lovely metaphor called indra's net which is used to express this idea indra is a god who has a net that stretches out to infinity at each node of the net there's a jewel if you were to examine one of these jewels you would see reflected in its surface all other jewels moreover each jewel you see in the reflection is itself reflecting all other jewels so in
• 25:00 - 25:30 that way you know you see the original jewel reflected in itself but like with with you know each jewel the kind of properties of each jewel of the surface of each jewel is produced by all of the other jewels and so they're all kind of interpenetrating interdependent in that way now suppose you take the jewels to be analogous to things in the world each jewel reflects all others by analogy everything in the world interpenetrates everything else the properties of one thing are determined by the properties of all other things
• 25:30 - 26:00 to understand one thing is to understand all other things and that's the kind of relation you have between the unique and its property each exists together the unique and its property are the unique and its property are the same thing and both are nothing um and you know there are sort of two points connected here so the first is the ineffability or nothingness of the self no concept applies to me i exist only through things i appropriate or ways i act in the world but then second there's the ineffability or nothingness of all
• 26:00 - 26:30 other things it's not just that i am nothing all my properties are also nothing so you know so the attempt to identify essential properties of the self fails for two reasons okay that is sterner's view of the self now this no doubt sounds rather strange but this is because people constantly engage in acts of self-deception self-deception or what strong calls involuntary egoism um where a person so
• 26:30 - 27:00 in in the case of involuntary egoism a person serves himself but because of confusion about the nature of the self he thinks he serves a higher being okay self deception happens when we forget the uniqueness of the self when we take ourselves to be defined by some essential property and what's happening here is that concepts which we have constructed are assigned an independent existence or they're treated as powers to which
• 27:00 - 27:30 individuals must be subordinated the fundamental problem comes from the initial act of drawing a distinction between myself and the independent world between me and the world outside of me stoner says unselfishness is forgetting that the world is ours of forgetting that one is the center or owner of this world that it is our property in order to draw a distinction between
• 27:30 - 28:00 myself and the world i must define myself right i have to specify something some self with properties that is then presented in opposition to the external world like if i'm if i'm drawing a distinction between two things i have to specify what those two things are so when i draw this distinction between myself and the world right i am defining myself uh self and world are different so each is attributed some essential properties i'm defining property
• 28:00 - 28:30 as a person grows up uh they they have the desire to figure out the way the world works and one thing that they will realize as they grow up is that they are not their body right that there's a distinction between their self and their body so i think okay i act in the world through a body but the body is not identical to me you know i could lose my body and still be me religious traditions have encouraged this with their notions of the afterlife so i'm maybe i take myself to be mind instead
• 28:30 - 29:00 i'm the entity that is behind the body controlling the body the mind exerts its control through powers of will and rationality and i learn to control the bodily appetites the desires and emotions you know maybe sometimes i feel the desire to eat a chocolate cake but then i overrule it i engage in reason i think no i want to be healthy so i'm going to overrule that desire so i have um you know so i have this control exerted through reason and so this this creates the you know what this creates is the
• 29:00 - 29:30 illusion that i am a rational mind that this is my essence i am a rational mind and similarly you know we we have this same we attribute essences to all other things in the world as well all things in the world have something behind them some essential property that makes them what they are consider a claim like water is h2o we don't see h2o instead h2o is the reality behind the phenomena it's the thing that makes water what it is essences lie behind the appearances
• 29:30 - 30:00 the essence of a thing is what is necessary and sufficient for being that thing of course i recognize that as a mind i have other properties i have a body for one thing but these other properties are merely accidental they don't they're not part of what i essentially am in the same way water is essentially h2o but a particular sample of water might have any number of accidental properties different samples might have different volumes or they might have different temperatures or you might you know add things to them you know add
• 30:00 - 30:30 like food coloring to them change their color whatever what makes them all water is that they share the essential property of h2o i view myself the same way i am a rational mind i am identified with one of my properties and then all of the other properties are merely accidental they're not me so having having cleaved everything in two having kind of drawn this line between self and the world and then having defined myself in a particular way
• 30:30 - 31:00 well i now have some you know i now have a role that i must perform and a set of norms by which i must live so i can say i am a rational mind in which case to fail to be rational is to make an error you know it's to be defective or i might say i am a moral agent in which case to fail to behave in accordance with moral norms is to make an error it's to be defective so my reasons for action and my standards of assessment are derived from these abstractions of rationality or
• 31:00 - 31:30 morality or whatever else which is to say i am subjugated to rationality or morality or whatever else this is self-deception i have um i have kind of raiified particular abstractions i'm treating them as a as an ideal to which i must conform i'm not i'm not completely free indefinable indeterminate no i am a rational mind or i am a moral agent or i am a man but as we've seen any attempt to describe the unique fails
• 31:30 - 32:00 the consequence of this is that when i do define myself i'm going to come up short right i will be defective since nothing has an essence nothing can perfectly instantiate any particular concept i say that i'm a rational mind but of course sometimes i'm not rational sometimes sometimes i do other things as a result of my individuality i am a rational mind who is not truly a rational mind or is not fully irrational mind sterno suggests that this is expressed in religious notions of sin all human beings are sinners which is to
• 32:00 - 32:30 say they are defective in some way they fail to perfectly instantiate their humanity the respect in which i fail to instantiate these essential properties are defects that must be overcome so i'm rejecting the unique as it were in favor of the abstract concept stunner says i separate myself into two halves of which one the unattained and to be fulfilled is the true one one stormly pursues his own self than never retained because
• 32:30 - 33:00 since i'm unique i can never fully overcome these defects i can never be identified with the rational mind or the moral agent or the human being or anything else and so i'm i'm condemned to uh to eternal frustration eternal you know defectiveness um and what i have not realized here is that these you know these these principles these concepts are the result of the constructive and appropriative activity
• 33:00 - 33:30 of my unique of you know the nothing that is me um in order to cleave the self and the world into two the unique attempts to define its own nature and it does this in terms of its own abstractions it identifies itself with you know these essential properties and these abstractions then serve as independent ideals against which it judges itself the interests of rationality the interests of morality the interests of mankind the interests of god uh the unique projects these
• 33:30 - 34:00 into the world and treats them as as external forces to which it must submit um to define myself in terms of some essence whether it whether this is in terms of rationality or morality or man or god or whatever all of that is to ignore my uniqueness and the radical freedom that this involves to recognize myself as unique is to return to nothing stoner says if i base my affair on
• 34:00 - 34:30 myself the unique then it stands on the transient the mortal creator who consumes himself and i may say i have based my affair on nothing towards the end of his book sterner elaborates on some of the consequences of this view of the self consider the uh the christian right the person who believes that their essence is an immaterial soul that will be transported to an afterlife the christian shiona says sees herself as fundamentally immaterial and what that means is that she can lose
• 34:30 - 35:00 all material things without giving up herself without you know herself as a christian as an immaterial soul and indeed this is just what the christian doctrine urges right it says right give up the material things of this world or at least do not become attached to them it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven so give up those material attachments the christian acts egoistically towards material things but then of course she submits herself
• 35:00 - 35:30 to abstractions or concepts like god truth rationality mind you know in with respect to material things right she she she is unconcerned right but with respect to god and morality and rationality she has enslaved herself and this is what people almost always do they rebel against one thing only to substitute it for some other dogma uh stoner says after every vic after every victory after every victory
• 35:30 - 36:00 over a faith i again become the prisoner possessed of a faith which then takes my whole self anew into its service so perhaps after giving up christianity i become a servant of reason and rationality or i become a servant of humanity or something else so what's the alternative well the alternative is to treat all concepts all things the way the christian treats the material world then the unique can lose not just all material things but it can also lose
• 36:00 - 36:30 all of the thoughts that were dear to it and yet it will remain itself um so the you know the person who does this right she will uh she will she could lose everything and yet feel no loss to herself to recognize that you are completely unique that you are nothing that is to give up all your attachments now of course in practice i'm going to continue you know defending the things that are mine i can i can protect my material possessions
• 36:30 - 37:00 just as a christian will protect her material possessions i will protect my thoughts i will argue for and against them but i'm not going to become attached to anything i will not become a servant of anything i could lose everything all material things all beliefs or commitments or feelings or thoughts none of that's a loss to me because none of that's essential to my identity um it's worth recalling a distinction i i mean i drew in a previous video between ordinary egoism and stern's egoism in a colloquial sense the term egoism refers to selfishness
• 37:00 - 37:30 think of the avaricious man who is only interested in accumulating wealth and who will pursue wealth at all costs he's never satisfied he's always seeking out more money and when he loses money he experiences great suffering this is a man who is like an addict he has made himself a servant to material wealth everything he does is for the sake of this external power um and you know so that's the kind of person who you might colloquially say he's egoistic or he's selfish because he's only concerned with himself but
• 37:30 - 38:00 actually he's not only concerned with himself he's concerned with money you know which he takes to be this external thing this thing that he has to pursue um now of course uh you know you might be interested in in more than making money but the majority of us we all like have countless attachments if not to money then maybe to humanity or to morality or to god or to intellectual development or to free thinking um all of these people the selfish man the moral man the religious man the truth seeker
• 38:00 - 38:30 they're they're engaging in self-deception they have defined themselves and the world in opposition to each other and then made themselves a slave to some external thing say money or a moral ideal they have forgotten that nothing has value except insofar as we give it value and to treat anything as being valuable in itself is to be made a slave to that thing even other philosophers of self-interest or what you know what are sometimes viewed as philosophers of self-interest are engaging in self-deception in this
• 38:30 - 39:00 kind of way so think of the moral and psychological egoism of philosophers like thomas hobbs and einerand they begin with descriptive claims about what human beings are and how human beings behave so they begin by specifying the essential properties of human beings and then on this basis they impose rational constraints on action they call it rational self-interest people are required to conform to these independent rational norms and to promote the well-being of an entity a
• 39:00 - 39:30 self that is defined by certain essential properties and that will involve forming attachments and defending them for hobbs rational persons desire security they want to i mean the main motivation as hobbs sees it is avoiding death right like that's what that's what that's fundamentally that's the primary sort of motivation of the human being is to avoid death and so we desire security and the pursuit of
• 39:30 - 40:00 security requires accumulating power accumulating wealth and material resources that can be used to defend oneself the hobbesian man forms attachments to his resources and he devotes his life to expanding and defending those resources sternerite egoism by contrast can be viewed as involving a radical loss of attachment stoner says that for the egoist everything is her property but what exactly does that mean what is it for something to be your property well
• 40:00 - 40:30 to make something my property is to take it into my power but to take something into my power involves giving up my attachment to it if i have an attachment to something then i have subjugated myself to it when i have an attachment to something that thing has power over me rather than me having power over it stella says the thought is my own only when i have no misgiving about bringing it in danger of death every moment when i do not have to fear its loss as a loss
• 40:30 - 41:00 for me so you know i i can recognize that like in losing my hands i've not lost myself the losses of my hands is no loss for me uh to if i was to take that as a loss for me i would that would be to allow myself to be ruled by this external object and as stoner sees it so it is for everything else right for the egoist everything is her property which is just to say that she has given up her attachment to everything sterner often talks of uh
• 41:00 - 41:30 acting egoistically against things right the christian acts egoistically against material things the individualist who has no respect for the nation acts in acts egoistically against the nation the man who makes use of social privilege acts egoistically against equality the man who controls others acts egoistically against the idea of liberty the atheist acts egoistically against christianity etc acting egoistically against something need not involve explicitly fighting it it's just a
• 41:30 - 42:00 matter of having no concern for it having no attachment to it right like when i act as an individualist and i just don't care about the nation or tradition or anything like that i'm acting egoistically i may not be uh you know i may not be actively rebelling against them um i just don't care about them that is what it is to act egoistically the egoist acts egoistically against everything she is not bound by anything she has given up all her attachments
• 42:00 - 42:30 a great deal of dissatisfaction in life arises from what sterner calls the strained relation between existence and calling between me as i am and me as i should be one way to think of this is in terms of standards and moral norms right like if i if i fail to worship god then i'm failing to satisfy my creator's plan for me if i fail to give to charity then i'm failing to do what i'm morally ought to do but of course this this point is more general than this so i i might compare
• 42:30 - 43:00 myself to a christian ideal or a moral ideal and then i'm going to see myself as defective or i might compare myself to you know the man who has greater wealth so if i'm if i'm an avaricious person who's only concerned with accumulating wealth then i'm going to kind of compare myself to this ideal of a man with greater wealth and again i'm going to see myself as defective there will always be more wealth to acquire i'm never going to acquire all of the wealth um the thought of you know and when i say like acquire i mean
• 43:00 - 43:30 you know like have it in a particular place right let's say um there's always going to be sort of more value out there to find so um the thought of me as i should be that arises when i fail to act egoistically when i form an attachment to some object or ideal and i see myself as defective for failing to conform to it or failing to pursue it but in fact um you know this is this is self-deception in fact we are so stunner says we are perfect
• 43:30 - 44:00 all together we are at every moment all that we can be and we never need be more since no defect cleaves to us sin has no meaning either so what's the point here well we are all we can be because we're nothing we have no defect because we are nothing and to act egoistically is to act as nothing that's all thanks for watching