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Schopenhauer - On Suicide
An essay on suicide by Schopenhauer, a writer and philosopher who had a massive influence upon later thinkers, though more so in the arts (especially literature and music) and psychology than in philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
6 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 18, 2011
10 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,079 books6,058 followersArthur Schopenhauer was born in the city of Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; present day Gdańsk, Poland) and was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. Schopenhauer attempted to make his career as an academic by correcting and expanding Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world.
He was the son of author Johanna Schopenhauer and the older brother of Adele Schopenhauer.
He was the son of author Johanna Schopenhauer and the older brother of Adele Schopenhauer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 8, 2021
For such a bleakly titled dialogue, I think it's remarkable how reinvigorated I feel after reading this. The journey he takes us through, first in rejecting traditional condemnations of suicide by the church, to then surveying classical approaches (stoicism mostly) and finally concluding with a rejection of it based on his life-negation. Interesting to note he always seems to conclude with a similar position to Christian morality just with a slight refinement of OT moralism.
February 19, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️ GOOD
Schopenhauer’s On Suicide is sharp, controlled, and very on brand. He cuts through religious guilt and lazy moralising with confidence, which is refreshing. You never feel like he’s preaching, he’s dissecting.
That said, it feels more like an intellectual clarification than a deeply moving piece of philosophy. His key point, that suicide is still an act of the will rather than a true denial of it, is clever and consistent with his wider system. But the essay stays cool where the topic itself is anything but.
It’s thoughtful and worth reading, especially if you’re already circling his ideas about suffering and agency. Just don’t expect it to hit with the emotional or philosophical weight of his larger works. Solid, interesting, but not seismic.
Schopenhauer’s On Suicide is sharp, controlled, and very on brand. He cuts through religious guilt and lazy moralising with confidence, which is refreshing. You never feel like he’s preaching, he’s dissecting.
That said, it feels more like an intellectual clarification than a deeply moving piece of philosophy. His key point, that suicide is still an act of the will rather than a true denial of it, is clever and consistent with his wider system. But the essay stays cool where the topic itself is anything but.
It’s thoughtful and worth reading, especially if you’re already circling his ideas about suffering and agency. Just don’t expect it to hit with the emotional or philosophical weight of his larger works. Solid, interesting, but not seismic.
February 25, 2022
This is a reddit atheism-tier essay. It's hard to believe it was written by an adult, and wouldn't be believed to have been if the phrasing had been less mature.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews