ABSTRACT
Stirner, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky all concern themselves individually with problems of knowledge; in particular they probe into its origins, its reliability, and its utility. The question of whether knowledge is a force for the individual’s emancipation from authority, above all his own social and psychological conditioning, or whether, as legend has it, it itself compels man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, is central to the critique of ideology. Nietzsche’s work stands out as providing an extensive critique of knowledge which analyses both its logical foundations and its psychological functions. His critique has the added virtue of being ruthlessly self-reflective.
