Will and Suicide

One of the relatively unnoticed significant debates of modern Philosophy is that between Spinoza and Nietzsche regarding the nature of Suicide. For Spinoza, self-destructiveness is impossible--because self-preservation is the basis of all behavior--so, destructive thoughts can never tryly be one's own. For Nietzsche, self-destructiveness is the minimum expression of Will to Power--one would rather will Nothing than not will at all--which Freud codifies as the 'Death Instinct'. In contrast to both, Formaterialism, as previously discussed, interprets 'negation' as abstracted from 'diversification', and, furthermore, recognizes Will, regardless of what it eventuates in, as in itself a vehicle of diversification. Hence, Formaterialism diagnoses suicidal thoughts as frustrated Will, i. e. as frustrated Diversification, desperately projecting an indeterminate modification of the status quo. The therapeutic implications of this third diagnosis are potentially substantive--an emphasis on the development of creative alternatives, rather than on strengthening resistance to hostile external influences, or on the cultivation of quiescence to adverse circumstances.