Sophie’s World

doctrine 101 Mr. Trembley While designateing Sophies public Jostein Gaarder identifies and tackles large philosophic suspenses. Using Sophie as the fresh child mind, Gaarder attempts to portray how a puppyish mind would react to large philosophic questions. By the time I got to page 13 in the text, I noniced that the study philosophical questions were simply stated by the mysterious teacher of Sophie. One major question that Sophie asks and tries to answer is who atomic number 18 you? At front off, on page 3, Sophie blatantly focuses on the somatogenicity of the question. She is the girl staring back at her self-reflected symbol on the mirror. She hence concluded by saying you atomic number 18 me, and I am you, to her mirror image. Once again, it was a very obvious and physical truth in regards to who she was. However, by page 7 she takes a much philosophical approach and understands that there argon many levels after she ponders nigh it much. After pondering, sh e essentially concludes that the questions are riddles.Yet, coming from narrator verbatim, For the first time in her vivification she felt it wasnt right to live in the creative activity without at least inquiring where it came from. She went from a mentality of circumstantial perspective to understanding the general concept that finding a philosophical answer isnt the purposebut pondering and asking questions almost who she was and where the world came from was more than(prenominal) beneficial. In my perspective, the ac manageledgement of these philosophical questions is a abundant step for Sophie.I definitely agree with Sophie because sometimes the questions are very annoying, because no iodine go away really know the answers to the questions the teacher asked her. The narrator states on page 7 that the questions jolted Sophie out of her everyday innovation and dead brought her face to face with the majuscule riddles of the universe. I find this particularly enkindl e because to me the questions asked by philosophers are non meant to be confusing, time wasting questions. Instead, the questions bow of wonder that leads to creative, varied perspectives on extremely large questions.Sophies globeThe intelligence review that I will be doing is round the take hold Sophies World (Norweigan Sofies verden), a 1991 novel written by Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder. According to the defend itself, Sophies World is Gaarders first make to appear in English because he is a Norweigan. . It was in the beginning written in Norwegian and became a best seller in Norway. The novel was later translated into fifty-three languages, with everywhere thirty million copies in print. It follows the events of Sophie Amundsen, a teenage girl living in Norway and Alberto Knox, a place aged philosopher who introduces her to philosophical thinking and the hi baloney of philosophy.II. SUMMARY Sophie Amundsen is fourteen years old when the book begins, living in Norw ay. She begins a strange equipoise course in philosophy. Every day, a letter haves to her mailbox that contains a few questions and thus later in the day a computer software comes with some typed pages describing the stems of a philosopher who dealt with the issues raised by the questions. Although at first she does not know, later on Sophie learns that Alberto Knox is the name of the philosopher who is teaching her. He sends her packages via his chamfer Hermes.Alberto first tells Sophie that philosophy is extremely relevant to life and that if we do not question and ponder our very existence we are not really living. thusly he proceeds to go by the history of western philosophy. Alberto teaches Sophie nigh the past myths that people had in the days before they tried to come up with immanent explanations for the processes in the world. because she learns roughly the natural philosophers who were interested with change. Next Alberto describes Democritus and the theory of indivisible atoms underlying all of nature as well as the concept of fate.At the same time as she takes the philosophy course, Sophie receives a strange mailing-card sent to Hilde Moller Knag, care of Sophie. The postcard is from Hildes father and wishes Hilde happy birthday. Sophie is confused, and moreso when she finds a scarf with Hildes name on it. She does not know what is adventure but she is sure that Hilde and the philosophy course moldinessiness somehow be connected. She learns about(predicate) Socrates, who was wise enough to know that he knew nothing. Then Alberto ends her a video that shows him in present day capital of Greece and somehow he seems to go back in time to ancient Athens. She learns about Plato and his world of ideas and then about Aristotle, who critiqued Plato, classified much of the natural world, and founded logic and our theory of concepts. Then, as Sophies education continues, the Hilde baituation begins to get more complicated. She finds many m ore postcards to Hilde, and some of them are even dated on June 15, the day of Sophie will turn 15. The problem is that June 15 is still over a month away.She discovers some of this with her best friend Joanna, and one of the postcards tells Hilde that one day she will meet Sophie and also mentions Joanna. Strange things are happening that the girls cannot figure out. Sophies relationship with her mother becomes somewhat strained as she tries both(prenominal) to cover up the correspondence with Alberto and to practice her philosophical thinking on her mom. Mean term, Alberto teaches Sophie about Jesus and the meeting of Indo-European and Semitic culture. She learns about St. Augustine, St.Aquinas, and the christianization of classical philosophy that occurred in the Middle Ages. By this time, Sophie has met Alberto and he begins hinting that the philosophy is about to get extremely relevant to the strange things that are happening to her. Sophie learns about the focus on humanity in the Renaissance and the extremes of the Baroque and then Alberto focuses on some key philosophers. Urgently, he teaches her about Descartes, who doubted, and by doing so knew at least that he could doubt. They move on to Spinoza as it becomes clear that Hildes father has some awesome power over them.Then Sophie learns about the empiricists. Locke intendd in natural rights and that everything we know is gained from experience. Hume, an important influence on Kant, showed that our actions are guided by feelings and warned against making laws based upon our experiences. But Berkeley is most important to Sophie because he suggested that perhaps our entire lives were inside the mind of God. And Alberto says that their lives are inside the mind of Albert Knag, Hildes father. At this point the story switches to Hildes point of view.On June 15, the day she turns fifteen, Hilde receives a birthday gift from her father entitled Sophies World. She begins to get wind and is enthralled. We follow the rest of Sophies story from Hildes perspective. Hilde becomes certain that Sophie exists, that she is not just a character in a book. Alberto has a plan to escape Albert Knags mind, and they must finish the philosophy course before that can happen. He teaches Sophie about the Enlightenment and its humane values and about Kant and his unification of empiricist and rationalist thought.Things in Sophies life have become completely insane but she and Alberto know they must figure out a way to do something. It will have to occur on the night of June 15, when Hildes father returns substructure. They learn about the world spirit of Romanticism, Hegels dialectical view of history, and Kierkegaards belief that the item-by-items existence is primary. Meanwhile, Hilde plans a surprise for her father on his return home. They rush through Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Sartre, fearful to come up with a plan to escape even though everything they do is known by Hildes father.Then at the en d of Sophies World, the book that Hilde is reading, while at a party for Sophie on June 15, Alberto and Sophie disappear. Hildes father comes home and they talk about the book, and Hilde is sure that Sophie exists somewhere. Meanwhile, Sophie and Alberto have a new existence as spiritthey have escaped from Albert Knags mind but they are invisible to other people and can walk right through them. Sophie wants to try to interfere in the world of Hilde and her father, and at the end of the book she is learning how to do so.III. PROPER BOOK REVIEW The day that this book was handed to me, I thought it was boring at all because its about philosophy. But then, when I started reading, I became interested and even more interested in the plot of the story in which Sophie Amundsen received a letter from an anonymous sender. I became to wonder who it came from. Did it come from a wooer or maybe from school? Those were just the things that came up to my mind while reading the first page of the b ook. When the questions were revealed, such as such as Who are you? and Where did the world come from? , I myself were interested to know the answers too. It was equivalent it was me who was in Sophies situation. Its really funny how I became addicted with the story though I dont really read novels. As the story progresses, the reader becomes attached to Sophie and follows her on the quest for answers. We are reminded of the beauty in the genuine thirst for knowledge and for answers that we often devalue as we get older. This book can be approached in contrasting ways. It is on one hand the story of a few individual lives, and on the other a philosophy book.Seeing it only as the story of Sophie Amundsen brings little satisfaction, but regarding it only as a consultation on philosophy does not fulfill its purpose. To me, its theme is an expression of peoples impulse to become caught up in their daily lives and lose the desire to question. And though the characters seem two-dime nsional at times, I viewed them as tools of the writer, commenting on what Gaarder power saw in the world. The style of the novel is similar to a detective story which emphasizes Gaardners idea that philosophys search for answers to the fundamental questions of life is much uniform a detectives investigation.Throughout the book, we are reminded that philosophy is not the pursuit of someone who has spare time to sit and ponder rather, it is essential for every living, thinking human beingness. This novel is a great substitute for a boring philosophy book. Sophies World is probably the best way to learn about philosophy. Even more redeeming is the fictional portion of the novel, so although readers may grow bored and want to skip over the philosophy lesson bits, youll still find yourself being pulled in enough to finish the entire lengthy book. Sophies world took me in a wild and crazy ride while also learning about the history of philosophy.I liked this book because it was neer p reachy and is not trying to force any grand idea down my throat. Instead it gave me a bunch of really good ideas and let me form my own philosophy and let me choose the ideas I cherished to believe. I also loved the crazy plot twists of the story. Just like when the story revealed that Sophie and Alberto Knox were just part of another story and when Hilde wanted to believe that Sophie and Alberto were real people as opposed to some characters in a book written for Hildes 15th birthday. I think it was great how the author just kept making the story weirder and weirder.First Sophie kept getting mysterious post cards, then they started popping up everywhere, then a banana said Happy Birthday Hilde, then the dog talked and when she found out she was in a book she started seeing Winnie the Pooh and petite Red Riding Hood. This book was just a bunch of surreptitious insanity that kept my attention every step of the way. I dead loved it I think everybody on the planet should read this book. in person I thought the philosophy lessons were boring, but Jostein Gaarder paints such a delightful picture and story that Sophies World truly is compelling.