Tractatus Logico-Suicidalis

>His Tractatus, however, is neither an explanation of suicide nor an appeal to it. Instead, it is a defense of suicide as the only rational response to a life doomed to end in nothingness.

Well, if life is "doomed to end in nothingness" how is suicide a "rational response to it"?

Doomed implies nothingness is bad/undesirable. But suicide is just a way to bring this nothingness immediately. So which way is it, do you crave for nothingness and can't wait for it, or do you dislike the prospect?

Besides, if nothingness is inevitable, just wait for it. No need for suicide, any more than eating before you're hungry is "the only rational response" to the certain eventual hunger you'll get.

>We may group people in five categories according to how they treat the suicide. The first turn aggressive and denounce him as a weakling. The second are silent participants in his misfortune, scrounge off of it, and are pleased when he dies instead of them. (...) The first we should put a bullet in, the second should be lynched

From the "penalties" he gives away, sounds like the first hit a nerve he instictively feels is true, and the cause of his desire is the second - how people treated him, rather than a genuine desire for death as death.

>as though any greater courage could exist than facing down the fear of your own death.

Well, obviously the courage of dealing with everything else painful AND feeling it. As opposed to stop dealing it and entering oblivious in some momentary act.

"Facing down the fear of your own death" is not "the greatest courage" unless you prefer life to it. Else it's just an indulgence to do something you like, no more impressive than bunjee jumping.