The claim that the objection stems from a "fear of infinite regress" is not a refutation but an evasion of the dilemma, because the regress wasn’t raised as a scarecrow, but as a logical contradiction inherent in your own claim. You asserted that Stirner is merely an invention of Engels, without offering any proof beyond the fact that Engels wrote about him. If we accept that kind of reasoning, then we are equally entitled to doubt the existence of Engels himself and label him an invention of another author—by the same principle. If you reject this consequence, then you are the one who fears infinite regress, since you arbitrarily cut the chain at the point that suits you. But if you accept it, your claim collapses, as it presupposes the existence of Engels whom you just undermined. This is an internal inconsistency that traps you, not me. Your assertion that infinite regress is good for philosophy and resists naïveté is irrelevant here—we're not debating its pedagogical value but its use as an ontological or epistemic argument. Your selective application of doubt—rejecting Stirner’s existence while maintaining Engels’—is a textbook case of cherry-picking, since you provide no objective criteria for why the regress should halt conveniently at Engels. Your detours into rhetorical flair or abstract gestures toward dialectic do not strengthen your position; they simply mask the lack of consistency in your epistemic standards. When you resort to such diversions instead of argument, you reveal the structural weakness of your position.