ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the formulation of a theory of the self. While taking Laing's work in The Divided Self as prima facie indication that Stirner's position could be rejected there was insufficient in Laing to reject Stirner outright. Heidegger's work shows that Stirner's egoism is mistaken and self defeating. Stirner's egoism draws attention to the individuality of the being of Dasein at the cost of "forgetting", or concealing, being-in-the-world and being-temporal. The tradition, of which Stirner is the most extreme example, misunderstands being and divides Dasein from the world of entities and other Dasein. Heidegger provides the ontological ground on which Stirner's egoism can be refuted as theory of the self, but then fails to provide any ethical direction, and falls back towards the empty ethical formalism at the heart of Stirner's position. In order to understand the reasons for this irony an important feature of Heidegger's analysis needs to be recognised.
