Sophie's World

“The aim of the early Greek philosophers was to find natural, rather than supernatural, explanations for natural processes.”

In Ancient Greece, philosophers such as Socrates, Democritus, Aristotle, and Plato sought answers to life’s questions without relying on theological explanations. Socrates developed the Socratic method of reasoning, which he used to force people to question their own logic and ideas. Plato, his pupil, took up his task after Socrates’s execution and developed the world of ideas theory and the myth of the cave. Aristotle introduced scientific reasoning to Greece through his observation of nature in its element and categorization of flora and fauna. Democritus introduced the idea of atoms, which were later proven to be real. This superfecta of Greek philosophers laid the foundation for natural philosophy and science as it developed in later centuries.

“Philosophy is not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically.” 

As Sophie reflects on what she is learning, it occurs to her that philosophy is not something taught or memorized in the same way as traditional school subjects. Instead, philosophy is more of a mentality and way of being that impacts all areas of one’s life. People can train themselves to think using reason, to appreciate life and the beauty within it, and to always seek to understand more. 

“The history of ideas is like a drama in many acts.”

As Alberto iterates the history of philosophy to Sophie through his letters, he occasionally makes chide remarks about the subject matter. Philosophers throughout history seem to be surrounded by drama, adversity, great accomplishments, and death. Figures such as Socrates and Jesus were executed for their ideas while figures like Plato and St. Augustine changed the very structure of the world around them. As is often the case, people and states often rejected the radical ideas of philosophers and condemned them in turn. 

“A ‘philosopher’ really means ‘one who loves wisdom.’” 

When Alberto describes Socrates’s history, ideas, lifestyle, and eventual condemnation, he makes one point very clear: Socrates believed there is only one thing humans can be certain of, and that is they know nothing. It is this awareness that leads to curiosity, questioning, dialogue, and most importantly, wisdom. One common trait that all philosophers share is their desire to learn and understand while realizing they themselves know very little. 

“Words such as politics and democracy, economy and history, biology and physics, mathematics and logic, theology and philosophy, ethics and psychology, theory and method, idea and system, date back to the tiny populace whose everyday life centered around this square.”

The Agora (or city square) in Ancient Athens was the birthplace for a massive variety of ideas, systems, and scientific and mathematical practices that helped shape the course of philosophy and of history itself. Every day, people gathered there to discuss and share ideas and knowledge. For about two hundred years between 500 and 300 B.C., Athens was home to some of the greatest Greco-Roman philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, Democritus, and Aristotle. Each of these men played a key role in contributing completely novel ideas that later developed into theories and systems still in use today, such as the taxonomy of species, the existence of atoms, and the ability of human beings to reason.

“Plato came to the conclusion that there must be a reality behind the ‘material world.’ He called this reality the world of ideas; it contained the eternal and immutable ‘patterns’ behind the various phenomena we come across in nature. This remarkable view is known as Plato’s theory of ideas.”

Plato was Socrates’ pupil and lived between about 428 B.C. and 348 B.C. He recorded many of Socrates’ ideas and also formulated his own philosophical concepts. Plato was responsible for what is now referred to as the theory of forms, in which a world exists apart from the material world where molds or patterns of everything that exists in nature reside. This is also the birthplace of souls, and because souls are born here, they come into the world with all the knowledge of the world of forms/ideas. He based this theory on the observation that objects and creatures seem to have a constant form; for example, horses are always horses, even if they are missing an element such as a leg or hair.

“The day you see something you are unable to classify you will get a shock. If, for example, you discover a small whatsit, and you can’t really say whether it is animal, vegetable, or mineral—I don’t think you would dare touch it.” 

Aristotle argued that people have an innate ability to use logic and reason to categorize objects, organisms, and concepts in their surroundings. It is largely assumed that everything that exists can be categorized in some way. The philosopher points out this idea to Sophie, explaining that if she were to encounter an object that her mind was unable to classify, it would be a most strange situation and possibly even disturbing.

“If each philosopher climbed onto another one’s back, they would get even higher up in the rabbit’s fur, and then, in my opinion, there would be some chance they would make it some day.”

The more Sophie learns about philosophy, the more capable she becomes of forming her own philosophical ideas based on reasoning and logic. She wonders, since each philosopher throughout history dared to climb up to the tips of the fur, what would happen if they began climbing on each other’s back from there. Noting that philosophers and cultures often conflict throughout history, she concludes that combining their ideas and seeking out the common truths amongst them could lead philosophers closer to the fundamental answers they seek—in other words, closer to the magician.

“Everywhere in nature some of the divine light is shining.” 

Throughout Sophie’s adventures, she is constantly surrounded by the beauty of nature. Not only is she surrounded by it, but she is also very aware of how precious and fleeting it is. She does not seem to have acquired this view of nature from anyone around her; it appears to be innate. Alberto suggests, through Plotinus’s Neoplatonism, that everything in nature contains the glow of God’s light or spark. Sophie’s predisposition to appreciating nature is one of the reasons she was already a philosopher before beginning the course with Alberto.

“We are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the great mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.” 

Alberto explains Plotinus and his Neoplatonism by comparing God to a fire burning in the darkness. The darkness does not really exist because everything that exists is touched by the light of God. In humans, this light is found within the soul. When a person knows their own soul and lives through it, they can not only develop an understanding about the nature of existence, but they can also feel connected to God. In spiritual experiences even rarer still, a person can come to the realization that the divine mystery of life and death is within them and is them. 

“When we talked about Socrates, we saw how dangerous it could be to appeal to people’s reason. With Jesus we see how dangerous it can be to demand unconditional brotherly love and unconditional forgiveness.”

Many great philosophers throughout history were eventually persecuted for their beliefs and teachings that either opposed or adapted the current common view. Two examples of this are Socrates and Jesus. Socrates was executed for corruption of the youth, and Jesus was essentially executed for teaching that God forgives sin. Both men shared messages of love and kindness but were condemned for doing so. The life of the philosopher is not an easy road; it is paved with persecution and struggle. However, Alberto insists it is worth it for the knowledge and wisdom it brings to a person and those around them, even if it is not until hundreds or thousands of years later.

“History is necessary for the enlightenment of man and the destruction of evil.”

Alberto insists that learning about the history of philosophy is essential to the current and future development of human beings. As he begins teaching Sophie about philosophy, he begins with the Garden of Eden or the first philosophers and slowly makes his way through history. Sophie slowly becomes more enlightened, and her ways of thinking change and expand. Alberto believes everyone who undergoes this process will thus become wiser as well, and this wisdom or capacity for reason is precisely what prevents people from committing acts of evil.

“No epoch is either purely good or purely evil. Good and evil are twin threads that run through the history of mankind. And often they intertwine.”

As Alberto describes the Renaissance and its impact on history and philosophy, Sophie remarks on how many of these effects were negative. Changes such as industry, the introduction of monetary systems, and others were and continue to be destructive forces in the world. At the same time, many great philosophers, ideas, and systems of knowledge acquisition were born in this era. Art and culture were revived, and the road was paved for the Baroque, Descartes, and Spinoza, and those who followed after. In this way, like all periods, there were both good and evil consequences.

“Ever since the Renaissance, mankind has been more than just part of creation. Man has begun to intervene in nature and form it after his own image.”

Alberto expresses the magnitude of the impact of the Renaissance on every aspect of human life as well as its impact on the natural environment. As people began to develop scientific understanding, instruments, and technology, they slowly gained control over various aspects of nature. This includes agriculture, the industrial revolution, transportation, etc. Because of the flood of ideas and heavy tendency toward reason as the source of knowledge (and God), both negative and positive consequences resulted.

“The goal is to comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and contentment.”

Alberto teaches Sophie about the philosophies of Spinoza. He explains that Spinoza held controversial belief that God existed within everything and was the primordial substance that made up all things, which is expressed through either thought or extension. Spinoza built upon Descartes’s theories and then went on to argue that when people come to understand this principle they can view the world as it truly is: eternal and united. Only then can people be truly happy. Spinoza’s ideas about God and nature challenged Christian views at the time.

“[The mind is] a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, slide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.”

Alberto describes the philosophy of the Baroque period in general by citing a common idea at the time (perpetuated to this day largely in part by Shakespeare) that life was much like a theater, with the world being the stage and the people its actors. In the same vein, the mind is also like a theater in that conditions, emotions, and thoughts enter and exit. Because of this constant shuffling and changing, a person is never whole, the idea of identity is an illusion, and there is no such thing as “I.” This is the principal supposition of Hume, who believed these constantly shifting states, much like actors on a stage, are all that really exists.

“The expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind.”

David Hume, who was a philosopher during the Baroque period, reasoned that it is not possible to confirm cause and effect. Instead, cause and effect is an innate concept that humans have and apply to everything. He goes on to explain that even if something occurs the same way a thousand times, there is never a guarantee it will do so the next time. Humans expect objects to have weight, but this is a supposition, not an absolute fact. Since the mind applies cause and effect to everything it experiences and witnesses, says Hume, it must be a way for people to make sense of the world around them. The expectations of cause and effect begin to become clouded in later chapters as Alberto and Sophie’s reality becomes increasingly stranger.

“Kant claimed that it is not only mind which conforms to things. Things also conform to the mind. Kant called this the Copernican Revolution in the problem of human knowledge.”

This idea of Immanuel Kant’s was one he called Copernican due to its revolutionary position in the great story of philosophy and human reason. In Kant’s philosophy, the mind is not only a receiver of information and experience, there is also a reciprocal relationship in which the mind affects its environment and vice versa. The two influence each other in an everlasting cycle. For example, while cause and effect may not exist outside the realm of human perception at first, it becomes real because people expect it to be. In relation to the novel itself, the world of Alberto and Sophie as well as their own thoughts conform to the major’s imagination. At the same time, they affect him, forcing him to become more and more obvious in his attempts to make his power known.

“Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales.”

Alberto tells Sophie about the folk tales of the Middle Ages that eventually leads into the fairy tales and folk tale revival of the Romantic period. In between, fairy tale characters begin appearing in their world, including Little Red Riding Hood and Winnie the Pooh. Alberto refers back to the magician and his rabbit and accuses the major of pulling silly tricks. He tells Sophie he is formulating a plan to free them from the story and that this plan will hinge on their ability to use the philosophy he wrote into them. Because of their philosophical knowledge, Sophie and Alberto are able to reason. Because they are able to reason, they have the free will to defy whatever the major tries to impose upon them—if they can figure out how.

“He wishes to emphasize that he, too, is a helpless shadow, and that this book, in which Hilde and Sophie appear, is in reality a textbook on philosophy.” 

According to Schelling, everything in the world is God, and God exists within all things. There is no true distinction. As Sophie and Alberto discuss this idea, they realize through reason that the major himself is not entirely distinct from them. On top of this, if Alberto and Sophie only exist inside the major’s mind, there is a possibility the major exists inside some other mind. Although the two have no certainty of this, it of course refers to Gaarder, the man who wrote the novel in the real world. Sophie and Alberto even suggest that this person may be inside some other mind. If this is all true, then the major is merely a helpless shadow like themselves, and they should be able to overcome his mind. The author also makes a remark about his own novel, pointing out that it is less of a fictional tale and more of a textbook on philosophy.

“History is the story of the ‘world spirit’ gradually coming to consciousness of itself. Although the world has always existed, human culture and human development have made the world spirit increasingly conscious of its intrinsic value.” 

Over the course of history, beginning first with the Big Bang then the eventual creation of life and onto the days of Plato and Socrates and moving all the way up to the present, the primal form or primal substance has become increasingly aware of itself. When people began using philosophy, this process took full hold and has been barreling toward total awareness since. Alberto and Sophie discuss Hegel’s concept of a world spirit that holds within it everything in existence. This is later determined to be the Big Bang by modern astronomers, but the central idea is the same: What started as simply a mass of particles is now aware that it is itself a mass of particles. Furthermore, it is aware of its own inherent value; to exist is to have value.

“We are the great vessel sailing around a burning sun in the universe. But each and every one of us is also a ship sailing through life with a cargo of genes. When we have carried this cargo safely to the next harbor—we have not lived in vain.”

Sophie and Alberto discuss Charles Darwin, the theories of evolution and natural selection, and what these mean for their existence as well as humanity itself. Sophie wonders if she is nothing more than molecules that originated from some primal soup and whether anything has meaning at all. Hilde has this same thought when she concludes reading the chapter, and it is likely the reader in the world of Gaarder may react similarly too. Alberto reassures everyone reading that meaning is not lost because through genetics people can pass on a piece of themselves that will continue to improve the human species over time through evolution. Alberto also points out that if everything originated from a single source, then that also means everything is one. In other words, he and Sophie are the planet that spins around the sun.

“When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space.”

Hilde and her father sit together and discuss the nature of the universe itself. Albert begins by telling his daughter about the distance between planets and galaxies, and how long it takes for light to travel between them. Because of this massive distance, the light that people see from stars is light from the past. It has taken millions of years to travel to earth, and is thus a direct look into the past. In the same vein, philosophical discovery involves taking a direct look into the past by examining the ideas and societies of previous peoples.