The Cost of Knowing

As I was reading Martin Gardner’s forward I decided to research more about him. I am better able to understand someone’s ideas if I have some contextual background information. (As a side note I think Descartes’ first meditation was about stripping away those contextual properties that limited his work to his own time period.) The first thing I discovered was the Gardner recently passed away (May 22^nd). He had a pretty long life. Made me wonder about the lives of other philosophers. Seems like spending a vast amount of time and energy pondering philosophical questions would take a toll on the human psyche. Is there a high rate of suicide among philosophers? I do not completely trust the accuracy of Wikipedia, but here is the best list of philosopher deaths I could find. Found it interesting very few had the fate that Martin Gardner did. Most either committed suicide or were killed due to their ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_philosophers