Sophie's World

Sophie grows skeptical of the trivial concerns of those around her and what she is taught at school. She tells her friend Joanna she is not interested in cards or badminton anymore; she is far too engrossed in philosophical questions. When she gets home, she finds an envelope in the mail for her: “Course in Philosophy. Handle with care” (14). Inside are three pages introducing Sophie to basic philosophical questions and their importance. The writer insists that questions about the nature of existence and humanity should be important to every person and explains there are few philosophical questions but many different answers posed throughout history and by various cultures. The writer goes on to explain to Sophie that “reading what other people have believed can help us formulate our own view of life” (15) and encourages her to do just that. The writer also explains that several mysteries throughout the ages have since been answered by science, but many are left unexplained. Citing Aristotle, the writer argues that “philosophy had its origin in man’s sense of wonder” (15). He compares the way people experience the world to a white rabbit in a magician’s top hat: People are the rabbit, or possibly even the microfibres on its fur; but unlike the rabbit, people question how this magic trick called existence unfolds.

Sophie is growing more excited by the minute and decides to go check the mailbox again. Sure enough, another envelope is inside. Another letter is enclosed called “The Strange Creature” (17). It starts by reminding Sophie that good philosophers embrace the faculty of wonder. The writer explains that babies exhibit this attitude, but it is gradually lost as people grow up. He requests that Sophie not let this happen to her, and then presents two thought experiments: thinking of oneself as a Martian or an “extraordinary being” (18), and the image of a father floating while his son reacts with his usual awe and the mother panics. The writer explains this is the result of habit; the son is still unsure what is or is not possible, so to him it is like anything else he witnesses. The mother, on the other hand, is habituated to people not being able to fly, and seeing it occur is shocking for her. It is kicking this habituation that forms the basis of philosophy. In this way, children and philosophers share a commonality: an ability to continue marveling at the world. The writer concludes by explaining that “all mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick” (20). Most people, however, crawl deep down into the rabbit’s fur and settle there. Philosophers are the ones brave enough to stay on the edges and wonder. Ultimately, it is a matter of wanting to avoid the inner discomfort caused by these big questions. Sophie feels as if this philosopher saved her from the inevitable crawl. She confronts her mother later that evening, accusing her of being dull to the world. Her mother asks her if she is on drugs, and the conversation ends.

Sophie finds another letter in the mailbox, this one pertaining to “The Mythological World Picture” (23). In it, the writer explains that philosophy was born out of ancient Greece and that before then people relied on religious explanations or myths to understand life and the universe. He describes the Norse myth of Thor and how Norwegian people believed him to be responsible for thunder, rain, and thus their food supply. The struggle between these powerful gods of good and the evil giants of Utgard was believed to be the explanation for the struggle between good and evil. Philosophers reject these types of mythological explanation for the nature of things. The writer argues that these forms of dramatizing myths and performing rituals were ways for people to adjust to the lack of sense in their beliefs and cites Xenophanes, a Greek philosopher who lived around 570 BC and believed people created gods in their own image. Greece built city-states during this time, and because slaves performed the manual labor, others had ample time to devote to philosophical thought. The writer explains that “the aim of the early Greek philosophers was to find natural, rather than supernatural, explanations for natural processes” (28). Sophie performs her own thought experiment, creating her own little myth about the nature of the world. In doing so, she realizes if she had not been given proper explanations in school, she likely would believe her own story. She feels glad to exist in a period of history where science exists.

Sophie gets another letter with three questions enclosed: “Is there a basic substance that everything else is made of? Can water turn into wine? How can earth and water produce a live frog?” (31). These are the types of questions posed by natural philosophers, who wonder how natural processes occur and why. Sophie wonders about the answers to these questions and thinks about what separates one tangible thing from another (such as a frog versus a cabbage patch). Another envelope arrives, and the letter explains that specific philosophers can be thought of in terms of the questions, or projects, they undertake. Early Greek philosophers were usually natural philosophers, who posed questions about natural processes. The writer clarifies they did not yet wonder if existence ever came from nothing; instead, they assumed “something had always existed” (33). These philosophers were focused on transformation and what universal substance or force lie at its heart.

The writer explains that understanding the thought processes more than the conclusions was the most important aspect of examining past philosophers. He cites Thales, the first known Greek philosopher from Miletus (a Greek colony around 580 BC), who posed that “the source of all things was water” (34). The writer speculates as to the type of observations Thales might have made to come to this conclusion, such as the springing up of crops after massive rainfall. Anaximander, another philosopher from the same colony, proposed that the source of created things must be something “boundless” (35). A third philosopher from Miletus, Anaximenes, believed the source of everything was air. Each believed in the idea of a substance responsible for existence.

Next, the writer explains the problem of change, or the question of how one substance becomes another. Parmenides, another Greek philosopher of the era, believed that nothing never existed and never could. He also believed that human perception was mistaken and could not be trusted; instead, reason should be the source of knowledge (rationalism). Heraclitus, on the other hand, believed change was constant, and nothing remained the same for longer than a moment. He also proposed the importance of opposites, such as day and night or good and evil, and the idea of a universal law that guides existence but average people ignore. Heraclitus also believed that a force known as God, or logos (reason), encompassed everything within existence and was the source of it. Empedocles, a third philosopher, attempted to solve the debacle created by the other two and proposed that nature is made up not of one element but four: “earth, air, fire, and water” (38). In other words, while the senses perceive change, it is really just a combining and separating of these four elements. He further proposed that forces influenced these elements to combine and separate. Finally, Anaxagoras proposed that things were composed of invisible particles he referred to as “seeds” (40) and that the sun being made of stone rather than a god. Sophie marvels at the way each of these philosophers came to these conclusions through reasoning alone and without the aid of others or knowledge from books. She concludes by reasoning that “philosophy [is] not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically” (42). 

Sophie is proposed a single question by the philosopher: “Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?” (44). She considers it a silly question but entertains it nonetheless. Sophie takes out her Lego and begins building, finding that Lego is versatile, reliable, and endlessly creative. Democritus, the latest Greek natural philosopher, proposed the idea of atoms: building blocks of existence that could not be broken down further. His thinking was that for something to be used as a building block, it had to eventually have a core. These building blocks also needed to be eternal “because nothing can come from nothing” (45). Democritus also believed that these atoms were infinitely varied with “hooks and barbs” (46) on them, which is why things in existence were infinitely varied. Lego blocks, the writer explains, are the same. Democritus was also a materialist, who did not believe in anything other than atoms and “the void” (47); he proposed that the soul was made up of specific atoms that dispersed and formed new things when a person dies. Sophie concludes that Democritus, along the with the three philosophers from Miletus, all had important points that might be correct. However, she is still left with more questions than answers.