The Philosophical Reactionaries: 'The Modern Sophists' by Kuno Fischer

The essay's spine is a counter-accusation: Kuno Fischer had dismissed Stirner and the Young Hegelians as 'sophists,' and Stirner (writing under the pseudonym G. Edward) turns this charge back on the philosophers. If sophistry is the 'mirror image of philosophy'—its reversed truth—then the inversion belongs to philosophy, which has become a 'reactionary' force defending its own abstractions against living thought . The text rejects the authority of academic philosophy to classify and dismiss its critics. It is not a systematic argument but a polemical performance, restating Stirner's egoist refusal to be pinned down by any philosophical label, including the one his critics sought to impose on him.

The essay was signed 'G. Edward,' and John Henry Mackay cautiously attributed it to Stirner in his collection of lesser writings, noting it was 'more than probable' but not certain . Since then, scholars have disagreed. Hermann Schultheiß argued against Stirner's authorship on stylistic grounds, while others have noted that the text lacks key Stirnerian terms like 'Eigner' (owner) and that its treatment of 'thoughtlessness' diverges from The Ego and Its Own . Widukind De Ridder's introduction to the English translation acknowledges the controversy but suggests it need not be settled: the mystery 'only affirms the spectrality of the thinker' . The dispute is thus not a peripheral scholarly quibble but a case study in how Stirner's thought resists stable attribution.

If the attribution is correct, The Philosophical Reactionaries is Stirner's final known reply to the reception of his 1844 magnum opus, written almost three years later . It does not introduce new concepts but restates some of the main traits of The Ego and Its Own against the critics who had sought to dismiss it. The essay's value lies in what it reveals about Stirner's own appraisal of his book after the collapse of Young Hegelianism as a movement. The tone is defiant rather than defensive: Stirner does not clarify or soften his position but performs the same refusal of philosophical categorization that made the original book so scandalous. Readers of The Ego and Its Own will recognize the sensibility, even if the argumentative density is lower.

The title inverts the expected political vocabulary. In the 1840s, 'reactionary' typically designated defenders of throne and altar against liberal and radical movements. Stirner applies it to the philosophers themselves—specifically Kuno Fischer and the academic tradition he represents—arguing that their dismissal of 'sophists' is a reactionary gesture: an attempt to defend philosophical abstraction against the living thought that threatens it . The charge is not that Fischer is politically conservative but that philosophy as a discipline has become a closed system, policing its boundaries and classifying dissenters. This inversion is consistent with Stirner's broader critique of all fixed ideas, including the idea of philosophy itself as a privileged form of knowledge.

The essay is brief, polemical, and of disputed authorship, which limits its evidentiary value. It does not develop a sustained argument about nihilism; its relevance to the theme is indirect, resting on the fact that Stirner was routinely accused of nihilism by critics from Karl Rosenkranz onward . The text's main contribution to that discussion is performative rather than doctrinal: it shows Stirner refusing to defend himself against the charge by engaging with it on philosophy's terms. He does not argue that he is not a nihilist; he mocks the tribunal that would judge him. For readers seeking Stirner's explicit engagement with nihilism, The Ego and Its Own remains the primary source. This essay is a supplement, valuable for its tone and its biographical context rather than for conceptual innovation.