Max Stirner, German philosopher and author (died 1856)

Max Stirner 25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), born Johann Kaspar Schmidt, was a German post-Hegelian 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.