Concept
Suicide (Durkheim book)
Overview
1897 essay by Émile Durkheim
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 (Durkheim book) 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
Suicide is an event of human nature which, whatever may be said and done with respect to it, demands the sympathy of every man, and in every epoch must be discussed anew. Montesquieu grants his heroes and great men the right of killing themselves as they think fit, since he says that it must be free to every one to close the fifth act of his tragedy as he pleases.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Autobiography of Goethe Truth and Poetry
states what it is; opens on it; names the idea
Just because the suicide cannot give up willing, he gives up living. The will asserts itself here even in putting an end to its own manifestation, because it can no longer assert itself otherwise. As, however, it was just the suffering which it so shuns that was able, as mortification of the will, to bring it to the denial of itself, and hence to freedom, so in this respect the suicide is like a sick man, who, after…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
names the idea; states what it is
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; opens on it
Even suicide consciously committed chooses its time, means, and opportunity; it is quite natural that unconscious suicide should wait for a motive to take upon itself one part of the causation and thus free it from its oppression by taking up the defensive forces of the person.[51] These are in no way idle discussions which I here bring up; more than one case of apparently accidental misfortune (on a horse or out of…
Sigmund Freud, Psychopathology of Everyday Life
names the idea; opens on it
Related ideas
- Economy and Society
- Suicide
- Sociology
- Holism
- Protestantism
- Inference
- Altruism
- Émile Durkheim
- Anomie
- Social environment
- Monograph
- Structure and agency
- Social control
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of social science.