Concept
Suicide
Overview
intentional act of causing one's own death
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Suicide is discussed.
We are told that suicide is an act of the greatest cowardice, that it is only possible to a madman, and other absurdities of a similar nature; or they make use of the perfectly senseless expression that it is "_wrong_," while it is perfectly clear that no one has such indisputable right over anything in the world as over his own person and life. Suicide, as has been said, is computed a crime, rendering…
Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays of Schopenhauer
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
All this about the impossibility of suicide is said on the supposition of _positive_ motives. When possessed by the emotion of _fear_, however, we are in a _negative_ state of mind; that is, our desire is limited to the mere banishing of something, without regard to what shall take its place.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
The certainty that you now _may_ step out of life whenever you please, and that to do so is not blasphemous or monstrous, is itself an immense relief. The thought of suicide is now no longer a guilty challenge and obsession. "This little life is all we must endure; The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,"-- says Thomson; adding, "I ponder these thoughts, and they comfort me." Meanwhile we can always {47} stand it…
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
The vehemence with which it wills life, and revolts against what hinders it, namely, suffering, brings it to the point of destroying itself; so that the individual will, by its own act, puts an end to that body which is merely its particular visible expression, rather than permit suffering to break the will. Just because the suicide cannot give up willing, he gives up living. The will asserts itself here even in…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
names the idea; states what it is
Whoever believes in the occurrence of semi-intentional self-inflicted injury--if this awkward expression be permitted--will become prepared to accept through it the fact that aside from conscious intentional suicide there also exists semi-intentional annihilation--with unconscious intention--which is capable of aptly utilizing a threat against life and masking it as a casual mishap. Such mechanism is by no means…
Sigmund Freud, Psychopathology of Everyday Life
names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Suicide
- David Stove
- Gilles Deleuze
- Heraclitus
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Viktor Frankl
- Damien Keown
- Menippus
- Emil Cioran
- Ferdinand Tönnies
- Ludwig Boltzmann
- Eduard von Hartmann
- Philipp Mainländer
- Seneca the Younger
- William James
- Frantz Fanon
- Sarah Kofman
- Eric Hoffer
- Julio Cabrera (philosopher)
- Apollonides (philosopher)
Related ideas
- Simon & Schuster
- Substance abuse
- The Holocaust
- Jesus
- BBC News
- Homicide
- Ghost
- Classical Athens
- Hinduism
- Hadith
- Stress (biology)
- Immanuel Kant
- Judaism
- John Stuart Mill
- Inuit
- Jainism
- Ashgate Publishing
- Byzantine Empire
- The Sorrows of Young Werther
- Empire of Japan
- Latin America
- Middle Ages
- The Observer
- Autonomy
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Absurdism.