Sophie’s World was an educational, at the same time, a very entertaining book. It taught me a lot of virtues like being discern in every decision I make, being a critical thinker, and being able to appreciate the wonders of Philosophy. It enabled me to wander to different worlds at a time. The statement of the history of Philosophy was well organied that the reader could really comprehend everything on it. !ery systematic it is from the beginning to the very end. Sophie’s World was a novel novel writte written n from from a child’ child’ss perspe perspecti ctive ve by "ostei "ostein n #aarde #aarder. r. #aardner is a $orwegian author of several novels, short stories and children’s books. The book Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy written Philosophy written in %&&' was the book that brought him to fame. #aadner was born in (slo on )ugust *, %&+ and came from a family with deep educational attachment that made him develop a deep-rooted interest in reading, writing, and teaching. is father was a headmaster while his mother was a teacher/ child books writer. #aardner attended (slo 0aterdralskole and studied Scandinavian and Theology at the 1niversity of (slo. e began his writing career after marrying in %&2'. e published his first fiction novel The Diagnosis Diagnosis and other Stories Stories in %&*3 followed followed by two children children books entitled entitled The Children from Suhavati 4%&*25 and The !rog Castle 4%&**5. "ostein #aarder won the $orwegian 6iterary 7ritics’ )ward and the 8inistry of 7ultural and Scientific )ffairs 6iterary Prie for his %&&9 book, The Solitaire "ystery# Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy published Philosophy published in %&&% was the most famous book he had ever written which has been translated into +: languages and produced over :9 million copies. It remained $orway’s bestselling book for three years and became e;ually popular worldwide. )side from writing he has also been involved in support for human rights and sustainable development.
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er father was a captain of an oil tanker and was always away most of the year. The story begins when one day after going home from school, she receives two anonymous letters with the ;uestions Awho are youBC and Awhere did the world come fromBC written on it. She started to wonder. The ne>t day, another letter came for her but even though the letter was mailed to her, it was really addressed to an unknown ilde 8oller 0nag who was, according to the letter, the daughter of the sender and whose birthday was a month before her own. Sometime later, she then received another letter with the words A7ourse in Philosophy. andle with 7areC written at the back. With those anonymous letters, she then became a student of a +9-year-old philosopher named )lberto 0no>. )t first, she did not know the identity of the philosopher but was later revealed in the story. The letters turned out to be coming from him e>cept from the letter addressed for some ilde 0nag which came from an )lbert 0nag who was a ma@or in a 1$ peacemaking unit based in 6ebanon. )lberto teaches Sophie about the history of Philosophy starting from the era when Philosophy started, the time before Socrates until the time of the Drench e>istentialist "ean-Paul Sarte. While on the @ourney of mastering and understanding Philosophy, Sophie starts to become a thinker and starts to become the flea that climbs up the fur of the rabbit to see what’s up beyond the rabbit furs, as )lberto had described philosophers in his letter. Sophie learned the 8edieval Philosophy during the time of "ean-Paul Sarte. 8any philosophical ;uestions were taught to Sophie and she tries to understand all those ideas in her head. She was also taught about philosophy from the ellenistic age to the rise of 7hristianity and its connection to the ideas of the )ncient #reeks during the 8iddle )ges. (ther periods which were covered by the course were the period of ?enaissance,
Sophie has to take, )lberto tries to help her fight back by teaching her everything he knows about Philosophy. That, he e>plains, is the only way for Sophie to understand her world. (n the other world, )lberto’s lessons help ilde develop an understanding of Sophie’s world and use the knowledge against her father for e>ercising too much power over Sophie’s world. Sophie and )lberto escaped and travelled to ilde’s world and found ilde together with both her mother and father, who at that time @ust came home from his service at 6ebanon. Soph ie and )lberto watch the family eat their dinner and after that, they watched ilde and )lbert 0nag settled themselves in the glider of their house and talk about the universe. They also tried to move and control things in the 0nags’ place but failed to do so. Even though it is impossible to completely move anything from the place, Sophie said, A) true philosopher would never give up.C ilde’s book 4Sophie’s World5 ends with Sophie and )lberto disappearing but the true author 4#aadner5 revealed that they had managed to escape from the storyline of the book without the knowledge of the author, )lbert 0nag, into the world of ilde but they cannot be seen by their naked eyes though ilde could feel their presence. The book was really an eye-opening to me. )t first, I feel bored reading the book because I still don’t get the essence of the letters that the anonymous philosopher 4)lberto 0no>5 is sending to Sophie. isting deep down the rabbit fur doing nothing to discover what’s outside those furs. 1nlike the philosophers who try to climb up the fine furs to see the magician’s eyes, who was the one controlling the rabbit which is the universe. In his e>ample I classified myself as one of those who chose to stay buried on the fur. I felt ashamed of myself identifying myself as a 1Pian. )s what I have known, a 1Pian must be a critical thinker. 8eB I am apathetic. Sometimes, I don’t care what is happening outside the school most often especially when that does not concern me or anyone who is close to me. I @ust want to live a normal life, an apathetic life. When I read the book, I was hit by )lberto’s words. I realied, if I remain apathetic, I may be living in the world of lies without me knowing it because I did nothing to discover new things that may be the truth. 6ike Sophie, I want to become a critical thinker. I want to know something knew out of my own curiosity and in order to do that I need to be curious about anything first. )sk sensible ;uestions to myself and to others. When I got the answer, I should remember them and apply them to my daily life. I want to be great like Socrates and have great students like Plato. I want my name to be remembered as a great Philosopher. Even though that needs a lot of work, I believe that if I’m really serious with my goals, I can achieve it and taking Philosophy I is a stepping stone in becoming a critical thinker.
)nother thing I like the most about the story is knowing how the philosophers push through their philosophies even though people do not believe them, people laugh at them, and mock the. Even some philosophers like Socrates were put to death because of pursuing their beliefs. 6ike Socrates who continued to share his beliefs to his students and other people even though some don’t believe him and he even was sentenced to death because of spreading his philosophies to others. I also felt grateful to other philosophers because if not because of them, maybe we would still be living with lies. 6ike how $icolaus 7opernicus asserted that it was not the sun which revolves around the earth but rather the earth revolves around the sun. am, a teacher would gave us sub@ective e>ams other than the typical ob@ective type like multiple choices. Since this type is an essay type, my perception is that the longer the essay, the higher score I could get. I make sure that my essay is long so that the teacher would be impressed. t is what matters. 6ook at your essay. It’s beating around the bush. There’s no sense at all.C 1pon hearing that, I realied I was wrong. 6ength doesn’t matter but the essence of
the answer does. In relation to the philosophy, it’s the other way around. The answer is not the most important thing, but instead, it’s the ;uestion which matters most. I still did not got this
concept in philosophy but I will try to because this philosophy is important for my dream to become a critical thinker. Indeed I learned a lot from Sophie’s World and I promise myself that even my Philosophy course will end, I would still read Sophie’s World over and over again until I can fully understand everything in it. 8y recommendations are not for the teacher, but rather for the library personnel or anyone that oversee the learning facilities of the school. I recommend that they provide hard copies of Sophie’s World on the library not only because Philo % students need them but for all 1P students. Sophie’s World is a very nice book and I believe that having this available in our library would contribute for the 1P students become critical thinkers. I also recommend this because may Philo % students who find the book e>pensive resort to using P=D files which contribute to the damage of one’s eyes because of too much focus on the screen. I would like to thank )tty. Windsor for letting us read the book because it really help me appreciate philosophy a lot. $ot @ust a simple appreciation but great appreciation to him.
SOPHIE’S WORLD: A NOVEL ABOUT THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
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Submitted byG 8ar@orie
Submitted toG )tty. Winsor 7alamba
