Chapter 2

Sophie’s traditional education in school doesn’t satisfy her. It teaches her important information about math and history, but it doesn’t make her feel any more confident or any less lonely. Gaarder suggests that philosophy, then, will be Sophie’s true education.

Diary Entry 1 - What has been your true education? Is it what you learn in school? If it is not, where do you learn about life?

Sophie’s introduction to philosophy corresponds perfectly to the sense of frustration she felt in the classroom. School has given Sophie plenty of information but very little wisdom—philosophy (literally the “love of wisdom” in Greek) will satisfy what Sophie feels she’s been missing. (Of course, this isn’t true for everyone, but Gaarder assumes his readers to be of a similar mindset).

Diary entry 2 - Do you have knowledge or wisdom? How do you know? Explain where you got your knowledge and your wisdom!

In this letter, an unknown author spells out the basic “direction” of philosophy, and of Sophie’s education. Sophie will start with profound, mysterious questions about the universe. But in order to make broad conclusions about the universe, she’ll have to focus on the “little things” in life. Once again Gaarder intertwines a rather straightforward lesson with a mysterious, whimsical plot, and thus enriches both aspects of his work.

Predictions - what are the little things Sophie must learn about first? Why do you think the way you do?

Throughout this novel, the plot of the book will mirror the study of philosophy itself—in other words, Sophie won’t just be tangling with the mysteries of philosophy; she’ll also have to solve the concrete mysteries of who’s been sending her letters, and who Hilde is.

Key Passage - "The most important thing for Sophie to keep in mind is that philosophy requires “the faculty of wonder.” As people grow older, they lose their innate sense of wonder—they begin to take the world for granted and focus on smaller, more mundane things. "

This is one of the key passages of the novel—an explanation of the philosophical “attitude” rather than any specific philosophical position. There are many implications of the idea that philosophy is an act of wonder, which the novel will unpack later on. For now, though, it’s important to recognize that philosophy doesn’t just give its students information; it teaches them how to live their lives differently—with a sense of excitement and curiosity.

Diary Entry 3 - What do you still wonder about? Do you take the world for granted - how so - why not? Explain in depth!

Key Passage - "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. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay."

The letter clarifies its initial point by contrasting a baby’s experience with an adult’s. It’s a common trope of children’s books that adults are dull-minded and unobservant, while children are more open-minded and innocent (The Polar Express, anyone?). That is certainly the case in this novel—Sophie is young, but what she lacks in real-world experience she makes up for with her unique and open sensibility. Sophie will never “burrow,” we can sense—she’ll continue to explore life’s mysteries. Without Sophie’s sense of wonder, this novel wouldn’t get very far at all. Gaarder presents Sophie’s Mom as a kind of foil—an example of what happens to adults when they lose their sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. Mom seems to be rather dull, but Gaarder isn’t too negative or cruel in his presentation of her—she’s just a kind of stereotypically clueless, narrow-minded parent who won’t accept her child’s fantastical experiences.

Diary Entry 4 - Where are you in the rabbit's fur?

Chapter 4

Key Passage - "“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?”

One can imagine that an older, less creative person would dismiss these questions—of course it’s impossible for a frog to be made from earth and water. Sophie, on the other hand, finds plausible elements in these ideas, even if she doesn’t exactly believe them. This is an important perspective from which to study the history of philosophy—even if we don’t literally believe a philosopher’s ideas, we can recognize some truth there.

Diary Entry 1 - is there a basic substance that everything is made of? What is it - explain your answer

Whoever is writing these letters has a conscious plan for Sophie’s education. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into teaching Sophie the history of Western philosophy, and this, in turn, becomes a lesson for us, the readers. This passage is important because is establishes one of the guiding principles of Sophie’s education: respect the broad points of philosophical history without embracing their literal truth too enthusiastically. For example, Sophie might disagree with the idea that a fish can grow from nothing but water, but she can also respect the frame of mind that might produce this idea. Sophie has already demonstrated her ability to think in these terms, suggesting that she’ll be a good philosophy student.

Diary Entry 2 - Would you be a good philosophy student - give evidence to back up your claim.

We might find it absurd to think that the world is made out of water—and we might find it absurd that anyone ever believed that this could be the case. But there’s something plausible about the claim, considering that water can be solid, liquid, or gas—even if Thales didn’t have all the information, he was on the right track. One basic trend that we should identify here is that early philosophers believed the world to be made of the same “stuff” in different forms, suggesting that physical differences are illusions.

Parmenides is one of the key philosophers because he distinguishes between sensory impressions and rational ideas. Heraclitus, on the other hand, claims that the world is full of change, even if the change is coming very slowly. Heraclitus shows how easily the belief in God can enter a philosophical system—many of the philosophers of the ancient world, in spite of their stated desire to liberate thinking from religious frames of reference, believed in an all-powerful being—and indeed found that such a being was necessary to explain the universe. One of the liveliest debates of the ancient world concerned the distinction between change and constancy. Philosophers like Parmenides made a basic distinction between what the world “appeared” to be, and what it truly was. In other words, they claimed that experiencing the world in the ordinary way wasn’t good enough for philosophy—one had to rely on wisdom, education, and philosophical training to “truly” understand things. This is practically the philosopher’s motto. This is a history of the ideas of Western philosophy, but this doesn’t mean that it’s an abstract, nebulous story. On the contrary, Sophie’s letters take pains to situate all of the history of philosophy in a real-world environment—thus, we learn that many of the great philosophical achievements of the ancient world were only made possible by the existence of a stable, economically prosperous city like Athens. It’s important that we’re told that Sophie has to reread the letter a few times (there’s no way to convey rereading in a book, but the author wants us to know that it’s okay to read his novel slowly and carefully, backtracking as need be). It’s interesting to see Sophie trying to make sense of so many different thinkers’ ideas so improbably quickly—but of course, the whole novel depends on this kind of fast-forward thinking.

Diary Entry 3 - Which philosopher do you most identify with in the current section and why? What stood out to you about their thoughts? Explain your answer in depth.

Chapter 6

Sophie is busy trying to understand the mysteries of the universe (“what is the world made from?” for example) but she must also contend with the more personal, concrete mysteries of her own life; i.e., who’s delivering her letters?

The idea of Fate is particularly complicated and prevalent—many people believe in some kind of order or meaning to the universe, whether they acknowledges this or not.

While the nature of being and reality is the crucial philosophical question of the novel, the issue of free will is probably second most important. It’s telling that Sophie’s Mom assumes that Sophie has a boyfriend at school. Mom isn’t the most open-minded thinker, and she seemingly assumes that girls should be more interested in boys than in ideas.

There is finally a real, physical character to attach to these mysterious happenings. Sophie’s quest to answer to catch her mysterious teacher seems even more intriguing than her quest to come to terms with God and Fate.

Part of Gaarder’s project is “meta-fictional”—this is a story about itself, but also one connected to its subject. Thus Sophie and the teacher are meant to meet because it’s been written as such (as we’ll later learn), but this idea of predicting the future also has to do with the philosophical idea of Fate that the characters are discussing.

One could say that thebelief in fate is almost as basic as the belief in a supernatural cause for complex phenomena. Indeed, fate is just another word for this cause, like “God” or “Thor.” Fate can be used to explain anything.

Part of the Greeks’ legacy is that they showed mankind struggling against the gods, and against the force of fate—in other words, they showed human beings exercising (albeit in a limited capacity) their free will. This is a struggle that clearly hasn’t been resolved in modern times, as the stories of Oedipus and others remain relevant and popular. Thucydides and Herodotus, for their part, remain relevant because they showed that larger social and political forces could also be confused with a divine sort of fate.

Even as Sophie learns about Greeks who challenged the authority of the gods and of fate, it begins to seem that Sophie’s own life is dominated by fate—an unseen figure who controls everything.

Chapter 8

As Sophie proceeds with her education, the media through which she learns become more advanced: first letters, now videotapes (there were no DVDs back in 1990!). This reflects Sophie’s growing awareness of the world and of herself—she no longer spends so much time in her den, suggesting that she’s becoming more confident and less cloistered.

Sophie’s lessons don’t just get more technologically sophisticated—they get more and more fantastical. It’s not explained (at least not right away) how Alberto has arranged for the city of Athens to be rebuilt from the ruins. There’s a strong element of fantasy and even absurdity running through this book, and it will only get stronger. This helps Gaarder keep things interesting and fun even as he pursues an otherwise heavy subject.

Chapter 10

The book’s fantastical and meta-fictional plot starts to become more central in this chapter, as Sophie actually does more things besides study philosophy. Berkeley, as we’ll learn, is a philosopher whose ideas have particular relevance to this novel. These paintings and the brass mirror will also be important symbols.The mirror acts as a traditional symbol of introspection and self-study, but here it also seems to have something fantastical about it, as Sophie’s reflection winks at her.

The strange coincidences keep adding up. Sophie also continues to find pieces of evidence linking her to Hilde Møller Knag—a girl we still know nothing about. The questions Sophie receives in the mail are becoming more diverse and complicated, reflecting the progress Sophie’s been making in her philosophical education.

In this section, we see Sophie’s Mom at her best and worst. It’s admirable that she cares so much about Sophie’s safety, but there’s also something oddly pathetic about her inability to let Sophie off on her own for even a few hours. Tellingly, Sophie’s mother refuses to even listen when Sophie begins to tell her about her philosopher friend. This is the first the “the Major” is mentioned—but he will be become a crucial figure soon.

Whether or not Sophie literally believes in the Platonic ideal of the soul, she finds comfort and beauty in the ideal. At the same time that she flirts with Plato’s philosophy, she sends playful messages to Alberto, suggesting a fundamental link between the content of Sophie’s lessons and the unorthodox means by which she’s learning these lessons.

Sophie is a good philosophy student who already recognizes the importance of rationalism and deep thought.

Chapter 12

The mystery builds, as Sophie can’t make sense of the letters she’s receiving from Lebanon. The fact that she receives a letter from Lebanon at all suggests that the scope of this novel is getting wider and wider—we’re no longer confined to Sophie’s den; rather, we’re on a more global stage. It’s also telling that the letter is dated June 15th—a date that hasn’t yet arrived.

As Sophie proceeds with her education, the banality of her friends’ lives (and her own old life) becomes increasingly apparent. Joanna isn’t a bad person, but she seems relentlessly normal—interested mostly in boys. Sophie, by contrast, is interested in ideas, showing that she’s taken Alberto’s lessons to heart. There’s more than a little arrogance apparent in Sophie’s behavior, however—she knows she’s smarter (or “wiser”) than her peers.

Although Aristotle believed in the importance of balance and education, his most famous student, Alexander, launched a bloody program of empire-building that lasted until Alexander’s death. One could say that Alexander’s behavior was an insult to Aristotle’s philosophy; one could also say that his empire-building popularized Aristotle for generations, ensuring that Aristotle’s lessons influenced impressionable youths all over Europe and Asia.

From the vantage point of the 20th century, it seems fair to say that no philosopher during the Hellenistic period could rival Plato or Aristotle—but perhaps the same will one day be said of the modern era. The word “cynical” comes from the Cynics.

The Stoics were unique in the way they celebrated the power of the mind over the body. They also popularized monism, an idea that remained important to philosophical thought for many centuries. Alberto doesn’t spend a great deal of time reviewing the details of Stoicism; his emphasis is on the Stoics’ lasting contributions to philosophy.(The word “stoic” also comes from the Stoics.)

The Epicureans are interesting for the way they reinterpret Socrates, who believed that humans have a natural capacity for doing and achieving good. For the Epicureans, pleasure and goodness are one and the same. And yet, in Alberto’s view, Epicureanism goes too far in celebrating pleasure for its own sake. This teaches Sophie a valuable lesson—balance physical pleasure with the pleasure of the intellect.

Many of the philosophers of the Hellenistic era distinguish between the physicality of the human body and the boundlessness of the human mind. There’s a strong mystical, even magical, element to this idea, showing that philosophy, for all its emphasis on causation and logic, doesn’t entirely abandon the tone of religion and mythology.

Alberto takes great care to establish that philosophy, for all the attention it pays to reason and scientific explanation, doesn’t take the “magic” out of life. On the contrary, philosophers throughout history have been quick to admit that there are certain aspects of the universe that reason is powerless to understand. For example, in Buddhism, there’s a state of nothingness which only a select few (such as the Buddha himself) are privileged to experience. This is an important point to keep in mind as we move into the history of the Age of Enlightenment.

Sophie, for her part, seems eager to embrace the sense of mysticism that Alberto has just explained to her. As we already knew, she’s not sure if she believes in the soul or not, and yet in this scene, she feels a strong sense that the soul, or spirit, is a real thing. Sophie’s ability to accept the truth of concepts (such as the soul) for which there is no literal or material proof parallels her ability to find “truth” in works of fiction like the Norse legends.

Chapter 14

Alberto seems strangely familiar with the interactions between Hilde and her father—that is, he doesn’t question them or wonder about them. He’s either the one responsible for all the strange goings-on, or else knows more about them than Sophie does.

Some have criticized Sophie’s World on the grounds that it’s a history of only Western philosophy (not “philosophy,” as it frequently claims). In this chapter, however, the novel takes efforts to show how our very definition of the West is, in a way, non-Western; i.e., the Western cultural tradition was shaped by the religions and thinkers of Asia and the Middle East.

Gaarder is attentive to the differences between different religious traditions. In particular, he places an emphasis on the different hierarchies of man and god—in some religions, for example, man is seen as God’s eternal inferior; in others, he’s meant to interact with God through meditation, or even to unite wholly with God. These are particularly important questions for Sophie, who seems to be coming to terms with her own relationship with a god-figure—Hilde’s mysterious father.

The history of the Jews and the Christians is just as relevant to the Western cultural tradition as the history of the Greeks and the Romans—it’s not for nothing that the Western world is still sometimes referred to as “Christendom.”

The chapter is careful to study Jesus Christ as a historical figure as well as a philosophical and a religious figure.In the broadest terms, Christ stands out from the other Jewish thinkers of the era in the way that he placed an emphasis on the “here and now” of life and spirituality, rather than talking about the return of the Jews to Israel. Sophie is encouraged to treat Jesus as a philosophical figure—a very important one, but not exactly unique in the history of the Western world (contrary to what the Christian tradition claims).

In many ways, Paul was more important in the rise of Christianity than Jesus Christ himself. Paul popularized many of the concepts that we think of as quintessentially Christian: most of all, the belief in the divinity of Christ himself. The cross-over between Paul and Athens shows that, following the death of Christ, Christianity became even more influential in Western history than Greco-Roman philosophy. Plato and Aristotle continued to influence thought, but—as we’ll see—their influence was limited to the extent that Christian thinkers could reconcile their philosophy with Paul’s.

Although Christianity sometimes gets a bad rap for subjugating women and treating women as second-class human beings, Alberto stresses that Christianity was, in many ways, friendlier and more inviting for women than were other religious and philosophical schools of the time. Christianity offered women the same salvation as men, at least.

This chapter is important because it establishes that Sophie’s World is about the formation of an entire cultural tradition: the Western tradition. It may seem odd that we lump together all of Christianity, Judaism, Platonism, and Aristotelians under the term “Western”—but the novel will show the ways that these four contradictory ideologies influenced each other.

Chapter 16

Once again, Sophie’s mother is totally disconnected from her daughter’s experience and education. She’s not a bad mother—she’s clearly concerned about her daughter’s wellbeing—but for Sophie she remains an example of a life without philosophy.

Sophie has already experienced the sight of a girl winking at her in the mirror, but now, she feels more confident interpreting this phenomenon. This scene also reinforces the mystical connection between Sophie and Hilde, and finally shows Hilde as a real, living person.

Sophie’s dreams are a running motif throughout the book. In her dreams, she can experience a more direct and literal connection between her own life and the lives of Hilde and Hilde’s father. Sophie also continues to experience concrete points of contact between herself and Hilde, such as the gold crucifix. The symbolism of a misplaced crucifix might suggest that Hilde and Sophie are losing their faith in God, or at least God as he is conventionally understood—or it could suggest that they’re communicating with each other in a mystical, even religious way.

Hilde’s father makes an explicit connection between the content of Sophie’s lessons and her own coming of age. In this way, Hilde’s father is just reiterating what we’ve already seen throughout the novel so far: that Sophie’s life is somehow intimately connected with her knowledge of Western philosophy. So just as the Renaissance saw a great bursting forth of intellectual endeavor, so too will Sophie (and Hilde) experience a rebirth of curiosity and excitement.

Alberto Knox is like a Merlin-figure—a magician who can come and go as he pleases, but still bases his schedule (and even his outfits) around Sophie’s education. Alberto seems increasingly dismissive of these borderline-miraculous events in Sophie’s life, and he also grows more critical of Hilde’s father.

Alberto is clearly hiding some important information about Hilde and Hilde’s father, but he doesn’t share it with Sophie. This reinforces the idea that Sophie will only solve the mystery of Hilde’s father as she comes to understand the mysteries of philosophy.

Alberto’s history lesson is cursory but important—it underscores the point that cultural revolutions must have very specific, material causes. We often talk about the Renaissance in abstract, cultural terms (even the name “Renaissance” itself is an abstraction of this kind), forgetting that the Renaissance was only possible because of inventions like the printing press, which allowed for the quick, reliable exchange of information.

The Renaissance was proof of the success of thinkers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas: without their merging of Christianity and Platonism, the Renaissance thinkers could never have navigated smoothly between so many different philosophical systems. And yet in many ways the Renaissance thinkers rebelled against their Christian predecessors with scientific discoveries that discredited the (literal) centrality of man’s place in the universe.

Galileo showed that the Earth isn’t at the center of the universe—a hugely important discovery. But arguably even more important was Galileo’s new method—the method of empiricism and experimentation. Galileo’s successors, both in science and in philosophy, would imitate his methods to arrive at their own impressive discoveries about the world.

One important thing to keep in mind here is the relationship between Galileo and Newton’s specific discoveries and the more abstract, general lessons they teach us about science. So just as Sophie is more interested in the way that the natural philosophers conducted philosophy than in their specific conclusions, we might say that Galileo and Newton’s methods are more enduringly “true” than their conclusions (many of which are now debunked).

The revolutionary discoveries of Galileo parallel the revolutionary claims made by Martin Luther, who challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Even if Galileo and Luther never actually interacted, it’s Alberto’s point that the general “spirit of the Renaissance” influenced both Luther and Galileo and caused them to make parallel innovations in their respective fields.

Even Alberto seems to be confusing Hilde and Sophie now. Gaarder gets more playful and fantastical in his text as the story goes on, increasingly suggesting that this “world” isn’t the only one within the universe of the novel.

Just as Luther and Galileo began to question man’s place in society and the universe, so Sophie begins to question her own place in her world.

Chapter 18

Descartes is one of the most original thinkers since Plato. He doesn’t just polish and modify other people’s ideas—he invents his own, starting from scratch. This reflects the new originality and uniqueness of Western thought following the Renaissance.

Descartes isn’t totally original here, ashis ideas about the distinction between the physical body and the abstract, all-reaching mind dateback at least to the Stoics. But Descartes is important in the way he emphasizes the relationship between body and mind, as we’ll see.

Descartes isn’t a mystic by any means: he doesn’t believe that magic or transcendence have any real place in philosophy. Instead, Descartes tries to use sharp, rigorous mathematical methods to understand the world.

Descartes’ question is by no means unfamiliar: we’ve all asked ourselves something like this (especially after watching a movie like The Matrixor The Truman Show). The very fact that we continue to ask ourselves this question shows that Descartes didn’t quite answer his own questions, and reminds us that philosophy is often more interested in asking questions than in answering them.

Like Aristotle, Descartes has an unshakeable power in the human mind’s ability to think. Descartes also resembles such early rationalist thinkers as Parmenides, who ignored what their senses told them and instead listened to what their minds told them.

Descartes’s proof for the existence of God, sometimes called the ontological argument, has been criticized by countless later thinkers (Immanuel Kant is often credited with hammering the final nail). More broadly, it’s interesting to see how Descartes—who claims to be trying to study the entire world, presupposing absolutely nothing, moves from Nothing to belief in God so quickly.

For all the flaws of his study of God and perception, Descartes is important to Sophie’s education because of the new emphasis he places on man as a physical, mechanical being (mechanical in the sense of being controlled by the laws of physics). Descartes also reiterates the old philosophical distinction between mind and matter, a distinction first established by the ancient Greeks.

Throughout the early modern era, we see man being treated as a less and less “divine” creature. By the time we get to Descartes, man isn’t particularly special, or at least the human body isn’t: it’s just another object.

At the time that Sophie’s World was written, there weren’t very advanced artificial intelligences that could communicate with humans. Interestingly, Laila seems to have information about Hilde’s father, confirming more of the connections we’ve seen throughout the book.

Perhaps because Sophie has just finished learning about Descartes and the omnipotent God, she finally learns something about Hilde’s father: his name. Just as Alberto had confused Sophie with Hilde, Sophie notices the similarity between Alberto Knox and Albert Knag: she’s beginning to see that her world runs parallel to Albert Knag’s world.

Chapter 20

Sophie isn’t the only one who’s having a hard time telling Alberto Knox and Albert Knag apart: Sophie’s Mom confuses them, too. We know that Sophie is “like” Hilde, and Alberto is “like” Albert. But what is the nature of their relationship? Are they two different versions of the same Platonic form? Two different sets of people in two different worlds?

Once again Sophie’s philosophical education is explicitly tied to the real life mysteries she’s trying to solve. She must get to the philosopher Berkeley (whose portrait we saw in the major’s cabin) in order to learn the truth.

Sophie’s interactions with Hilde and Albert Knag become increasingly direct, and her world grows increasingly more fantastical.

Alberto deliberately teases Sophie (and us) by promising to explain Albert Knag and instead launching into an explanation of Locke and Hume. The secret of Albert Knag, we can tell, must be earned bystudying philosophy.

As time goes on, philosophy seems to divide along national lines—for example, the continental philosophers of the 17th century were rationalists, while the U.K. philosophers tended to be empiricists. This is both a sign of the rise of the nation-state (a country with its own unique culture and philosophical sub-traditions) and perhaps also a sign of the way that philosophy “adapts” to different environments.

Locke is especially interested in the process of education: i.e., how the mind goes from blank slatestatus to a state of intelligence. While Locke’s ideas are important, they’re often considered naïve and simplistic compared to the ideas of Kant, let alone the theories of modern psychology and neuroscience.

Locke begins to make a distinction between different kinds of qualities and observations. The implication of this is familiar for a historian of philosophy; namely, that perception and reality aren’t necessarily the same thing. Locke’s attention to perception suggestsis reminiscent of Rene Descartes.

Alberto quickly summarizes Locke’s political philosophy and feminism, even though in the United States these aspects of his thinking are usually given a lot more attention than his epistemology (especially because Locke’s writings are often considered an inspiration for the American Revolution). Perhaps because Sophie’s World is a Norwegian book, it mostly skips over this information.

Chapter 22

Alberto grows increasingly frustrated with the man who seems to be his “double”: Albert Knag. Knag, for his part, keeps getting more extravagant in his intrusions into Sophie’s world.

The fact that we’ve finally gotten to George Berkeley suggests that we’re about to find out about the nature of Albert Knag’s control over Sophie’s world. It’s telling that Berkeley continued Locke’s questioning of sensation and experience—just as Sophie has been questioning the reality of her world, so too did Berkeley question the reality of the material world.

Berkeley, we already knew, questioned the objectivity of time and space. In many ways, his worldview corresponds most closely to the “world” we’ve seen in this book: a world where an all-powerful god figure controls everything, where time speeds up and slows down, and where physical space often seems to be a mere illusion.

Here, we come to the central twist of the book—the strong possibility that Sophie and Alberto are just fictions, creature who only exist as words on a printed page, or in the mind of an author. This is, of course, literally true (they’re in the book we’re reading). Moreover, Sophie and Alberto seem locked in a struggle for freedom: like Spinoza, they knowthat they’re the prisoners of Fate or a “god,” yet they don’t seem to accept the fact that someone else is controlling what they do, think, and say—they’re fighting for free will.

Albert Knag seems able to control even what Alberto says and does—Sophie and Alberto’s free will may be entirely an illusion. Overall, the meta-fictional quality of the book is intended to make us, the readers, want to question the reality of our own world (just as Berkeley did). Are we really any freer or more “real” than Alberto, Sophie, or even Albert Knag?

Chapter 24

Hilde is reading the book Sophie’s World in the same way that we are—she’s learning about the history of philosophy, but she’s also learning about philosophy through the form of the novel itself. Sophie’s struggle to understand her world is a fascinating illustration of the ideas of Plato, Berkeley, Spinoza, and others.

In the same way that Hilde reads Sophie’s story from an “all-knowing” perspective(she can tell that Sophie’s trapped in her father’s fiction long before Sophie herself can), we might want to read Hilde’s story. And yet, the novel wants us to ask ourselves, why couldn’t we also be the product of someone else’s imagination?

Just as Hilde seemed a little disappointed by her mother’s gift, so does Sophie. Both girls have lost themselves in the world of philosophy. “It was only a dream” is a literary trope, but Gaarder has fun with it here in all his meta-fictional convolutions.

By this point, there’s no mystery about it: Sophie and Alberto know that they’re trapped in Albert’s book. But of course, even their awareness of this fact is just the product of Albert’s imagination (although Hilde doesn’t seem to believe this).

Alberto thinks he has a plan for escaping Albert, precisely by using Albert’s intentions (of teaching the history of Western philosophy) against him. And yet Alberto also seems more willing than Sophie to exercise a kind of philosophical defeatism—i.e., to say that nothing really matters, since they’re imaginary, anyway. This isn’t unlike the belief in fate or predetermination.

One could say that Alberto and Sophie’s awareness of their situation is an illusion, no more or less “real” than their passive acceptance of the story’s coincidences. But Hilde seems to believe that Alberto and Sophie have taken on a higher reality as they move through their education. While this may seem a little silly, we shouldn’t entirely dismiss this idea, since it’s a basic assumption of fiction (good fiction, at least) that the characters are, at least in an emotional or a conceptual sense, real.

Now that Albert “knows” that Sophie knows the truth about her reality, he can be more upfront about his control of Sophie’s world—and she has no choice but to comply.

Once again, Alberto and Albert are presented as both “doubles” and as competing figures. Now that we know more about the reality of the novel, it becomes clearer that Alberto’s criticisms of Albert are really just Albert himself being self-deprecating and playful.

It’s a sign of the relevance of the Enlightenment to Sophie’s own enlightenment that figures like Kant and Rousseau focused so extensively on education for young people. In general, we should keep in mind that the Enlightenment figures celebrated reason and intelligence above all else. They thought that the human mind was capable of understanding everything in the universe; hence the rise of projects like the encyclopedia, which could be said to compress all the information in the world into a set of books.

One paradox of Enlightenment philosophy is that while many philosophers of the era thought that their civilizations were on the verge of solving all human problems (with tools like the encyclopedia or the school), other philosophers believed that allcivilization was deeply flawed. We’ve already seen hints of this idea in Sophie’s World: civilization as it’s usually understood (a practical education, a job, travel) is portrayed as lonely, dull, or otherwise unfulfilling.

We can’t help but contrast Deism with the “rules” of Sophie’s world. In Sophie’s world, Albert Knag is actively involved in controlling what Sophie and her peers do: he can’t sit back and let his imaginary world run itself.

Enlightenment thinkers could be said to celebrate the natural rights of human beings—an idea that’s so common nowadays that it’s sometimes hard to believe that it was once highly controversial. How can a human be “born” with anything? Don’t humans have to work to achieve the right to do anything? Questions like these challenged thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau to develop a theory of natural right that was logically sound, and that could be used to justify a political revolution. One major theme of these later chapters of the novel is the relevance of philosophy to the real world, especially the political world: philosophers like de Gouges and Rousseau undeniably had a real-world impact, since their words inspired many to take up arms against the King of France.

As Sophie becomes increasingly aware of the existence of Albert Knag, she also becomes more attuned to the fact that Albert is communicating with Hilde, and that the purposes of her (Sophie’s) interactions with Alberto is to educate Hilde: in other words, Sophie realizes that she was created with a purpose in mind.

Philosophy, we can see, isn’t just an exercise for dead white men, as it’s sometimes claimed—philosophy can empower all sorts of people, and de Gouges is proof that philosophy can be a powerful and dangerous tool in the hands of the oppressed.

Chapter 26

Hilde continues to ignore her mother—she’s more interested in the symbolic “parenthood” of her book than the literal parenting of her mother. 

In the midst of all the philosophy and meta-fiction, we get a brief scene of Sophie just having fun with her friend. The clock is ticking—Sophie and Alberto have decided that they must finish their lessons before Albert returns from Lebanon, so they have a chance to “escape.”

Alberto has a difficult task: he has to show how each successive philosophical movement was both a critique and a continuation of the preceding one. For example, Romanticism borrows many of the basic tenets of Enlightenment philosophy, yet critiques the Enlightenment for valuing reason more highly than emotion.

Sophie has plenty of doppelgangers in this text: Hilde herself, and now Novalis’s fiancée. Schelling is an interesting figure because he’s crucial to the development of the modern concept of a nation-state.

So far, we’ve seen various cultural “units”: the city-state, the empire, the kingdom, etc. The nation-state is different from all of these, in the sense that the people of a nation share a common cultural heritage (similar to the feeling that Sophie felt after learning about the Judeo-Christian tradition). One could even say that Sophie’s philosophy lessons are really a history of the rise of the modern nation-state, and of the formation of Western culture as we now understand it. This points to the fact that Sophie, as we understand her in the book, isn’t a unique individual: she’s just an “echo” of someone else’s reality. And yet we could say the same of Hilde, too.

This is an especially interesting passage because it provides something of a justification for the whimsical, playful format of this book. Fairy tales and children’s books aren’t just frivolous endeavors: they’re crucial in the formation of a nation. In the same way, one could argue that Sophie’s playful adventures with Winnie the Pooh and Alberto are crucial in teaching her about the nature of life.

This is a self-referential passage: the characters are talking about themselves as charactersin a work of fiction. In fact, it’s doubly self-referential—not only are the characters talking about their own fictional status; they’re talking about this by referencing another work of fiction in which characters speak self-referentially! Sophie’s World aims to disorient readers, getting them to question what they think of as reality and fiction.

The spirit (who looks like Alberto and Albert) is pointing to the arbitrariness of any definition of reality or fiction. From the right perspective, Lebanon (a real place) could be termed just as fictional as a fictional place like Bjerkely or the world of Sophie’s book.

Sophie and Alberto can’t actually free themselves from Albert’s work of fiction, but they can satisfy themselves in a different way: by pointing out that Albert is no freer than they are. Albert, it could be argued, is also locked in a world in which he has no true free will (and this point is especially valid because we know that Albert exists only in Gaarder’s mind). Based on Kant’s definition of freedom, one could argue that the only true form of freedom is an awarenessof one’s lack of freedom (in the same sense that the only true wisdom is acknowledging one’s total lack of wisdom, per Socrates).

Chapter 28

Hilde’s fascination with Sophie leads her to believe that she and Sophie are equally alive and equally free. This may be an illusion, but this doesn’t mean the idea itself is completely invalid. As we’ll see, the illusion that Sophie is a real person causes Hilde to change her behavior, showing that fiction can inspire concrete, real-world change (and thus proving that Sophie is, in one sense, truly real). 

Hilde continues to ignore her mother, showing that her allegiances now seem to lie with a fictional girl, not a flesh-and-blood woman.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was clearly a big influence on this novel: like Carroll, Gaarder presents big, complex ideas in a children’s book via amusing stories and jokes. Alice’s experiments with perception and individuality help Sophie understand part of what Hegel was talking about when he proposed a unity of individual and collective. This is a good reminder of why fiction can be better than philosophy itself at conveying philosophical ideas: Hegel is dry and straightforward in discussing the world spirit, but ultimately he lacks the imagination to describe it. Gaarder, a fiction author, isn’t afraid to imagine what it might be like to experience a collective individuality.

Even Hegel’s own ideas aren’t immune from the dialectic cycle of thesis and antithesis. Hegel’s emphasis on ideas immediately prompted Søren Kierkegaard’s theories of radical individuality—an individuality so extreme that the individual has no choice but to ponder God.

It’s interesting that Kierkegaard, often credited with the development of modern Existentialism, was a passionate Christian. Although he questioned the nature of his faith (and reality itself), he kept returning to the fact of a Christian God.

Kierkegaard has been termed an “anti-philosopher”—someone who believes that philosophy’s promises of universal enlightenment are lies, and tries to bring people happiness in simpler, more individuated ways.

In many ways, Kierkegaard is reacting to the Baroque and Enlightenment tradition, which made great strides in showing that the universe could be understood without resorting to emotion or faith. But even these figures, such as Descartes and Kant, acknowledged that there was a place for God and faith in their systems—they were forced to keep God in the equation.

One debate about Kierkegaard is, what is the relationship between the three stages of spiritual development? Does one necessarily follow from the other? (The idea that one mental state eventually leads to a different one is reminiscent of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic).

Kierkegaard doesn't play the usual game of “good guy / bad guy”—he essentially doesn’t condemn anything wholesale, because he recognizes that even crises and falsehoods can lead to a higher plane of consciousness.

Much like Hegel, Kierkegaard posits the existence of a state of enlightenment, but doesn’t explain what this state would look like. By now, we should be used to this: for all their talk of enlightenment, most philosophers don’t seem to have much sense for what enlightenment actually looks or feels like.

Chapter 30

Hilde continues to draw meaningful connections between the fictional contents ofher binder and her real-world life, suggesting that fiction, whether it’s “real” or not, has the potential to influence real life.

The Noah episode marks a turning point in the novel. Previously, Sophie had a soft spot for fictional stories—myths, fairy tales, etc. Here, the gist of the chapter is that Darwin’s theories destroyed the supremacy of the Noah’s ark story, making it a “mere” fairy tale for the rest of history. In general, we should notice that Darwin, Freud, and Marx question man’s freedom—they suggest that individual freedom, as it’s typically understood, is just an illusion, and that little-understood scientific laws control the way people behave.

This section establishes the historical preconditions for Darwin’s scientific theories. While there were some scientific reasons why scientists before Darwin didn’t believe in the notion of evolution (like fossil evidence), the biggest reason they rejected evolution wasn’t scientific at all—it was simply that they relied upon the notion of a perfect, unerring God to explain the origins of species.

To most people at the time, evolution was impossible because a perfect god would never make an imperfect world, meaning that evolution wasn’t necessary in any abstract moral sense. Darwin, however, argues for evolution in spite of his Christian faith: he believed in a perfect god, but he also trusted his research and his evidence.

Darwin began crafting his theory like any good scientist: by studying the available data. In essence, Darwin recognized a conceptual problem—the diversity of species—and tried to find an explanation for this problem that didn’t just fall back on God’s perfection.

Darwin’s theory of evolution was an important paradigm shift because it re-conceptualized nature as a place of constant conflict (in much the same way that Marx saw society as the site of an endless battle for the means of production). One reason why people hadn’t really viewed nature in this way was that they didn’t understand (as Malthus did) that there were never really enough resources to go around: because they believed that the Earth’s resources were limitless, people couldn’t see any precise reason for conflict between animals. But perhaps most of all, people refused to see nature as a site of conflict because of their religious faith: would God create nature to be such a brutal place?

Darwin’s most controversial idea (both then and now) is that humanityitself isn’t immune to the process of evolution. This has all sorts of conceptual applications: for example, there were many who said (and still say) that society is a competition for control of resources, in exactly the same sense that nature is. One could respond, however, that unlike in nature, many societies don’t leave the weak to die; they support the poor and the unhealthy with welfare, healthcare, etc. But of course, this isn’t always the case.

Sophie’s question illustrates an important point about the scientific process: every new scientific theory raises new questions and new problems for other scientists to solve. There is no such thing as a theory that doesn’t raise some logical objections—even Darwin’s theory, supported as it was by logic and empirical observation, couldn’t quite explain how the diversity of species appears in the first place.

Darwin was remarkably prophetic in the way he hypothesized that life was born out of a warm, aquatic area. From hereon out, the chapter becomes sketchier than what we’re used to—Alberto gives a few theories for how life might have emerged millions of years ago, but can’t back up any of these theories with much logical or empirical proof.

Alberto doesn’t just teach Sophie about abstract questions of right and wrong—he necessarily also has to teach her about science, physics, and other “practical” subjects.

The theory of the “primordial soup” was an important step forward for evolutionists, but it still, as of 2016, has a long way to go in showing how life could have appeared on Earth. (In 1990, when Sophie’s World was written, this theory was much trendier than it is now.)

Alberto raises an important point about the theory of evolution. As far as a “pure” evolutionist is concerned, evolution has no “master plan”—all genetic mutations are random, meaning that any genetic mutation with greater survival value is also random (for example, intelligence). Alberto, however, thinks that evolution may be “designed” to foster certain qualities, such as intelligence. (This is reminiscent of Aristotle’s idea of the four causes, andAlberto might be making the same mistake for which he criticized Aristotle; i.e., arguing that evolution exists “in order to” produce intelligent brains, rather than admitting that intelligence is just an outcome of evolution).

Alberto brings up another important objection to the theory of evolution—the theory of “irreducible complexity.” The eye is the classic example of this concept—and there are many who have used it to refute Darwin’s ideas altogether. For a refutation of the theory of irreducible complexity, consult Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion.

Darwinism may be a scientific theory, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have major cultural ramifications. Darwin himself wasn’t a poet or a novelist, but he created a new artistic mindset. One could interpret Darwin’s ideas as bloody and depressing (all species are destined to either evolve or die) or inspiring and fascinating. Alberto’s command at the end of the chapter only reaffirms the meta-fictional nature of the story, and shows that Alberto and Sophie have now fully accepted that they exist only within the world of a book.

Chapter 32

This is a funny section, because Gaarder seems to be talking directly to his readers without actually addressing them. Gaarder is telling his readers not to skip ahead to the end of the book, so as not to ruin the surprise!

The meaning of Hilde’s dream is by no means clear (that’s part of the point), but certainly Hilde and Sophie are still inextricably linked, as shown by their joint possession of the gold crucifix.

This passage is borderline unintelligible to anyone who didn’t grow up in Scandinavia, where The Adventures of Nils is a popular children’s book. Suffice it to say that Nils and Morten are beloved children’s book characters, as well-known in their country as the Cat in the Hat is in the United States. Morten carries Sophie through the sky, much as Alberto and Albert could be said to carry Sophie through the complex terrain of Western philosophy. The similarities between Morten and Alberto / Albert are then underscored by Morten’s parting words to Sophie, “A mere bagatelle,” which we recognize as Alberto’s modest catchphrase for Sophie. Gaarder also throws in some more meta-fictional jokes here, as Morten and Nils realize that they too are in a book.

We’re not sure what Alberto is planning, or even what he couldbe planning without Albert’s knowledge. It’s suggested that Alberto is evading Albert’s authority by operating out of Albert’s subconscious, but there’s no indication that Alberto is even anything but a part of Albert’s subconscious.

At the beginning of this novel, Sophie was a shy young girl, more comfortable in her den than in public. Now, Sophie doesn’t think twice about surveying a crowd and criticizing it for being full of aesthetes (which seems like an arrogant thing to say about people she’s never met before, and shows that she’s not immune to the hubris that comes with knowledge).

It’s a pity that Alberto doesn’t have more time to discuss Friedrich Nietzsche (who’s just as deserving of an entire chapter devoted to his philosophy as Kierkegaard or Hegel). But at this point, it becomes harder to group philosophy into manageable units, such as Romanticism, Enlightenment, etc. Even Existentialism, the dominant “theme” of this lesson, is a loosely understood philosophical school, encompassing a far more diverse array of philosophers than its predecessors.

One sign that philosophy seems to be making progress over time its embrace of female thinkers. Simone de Beauvoir made contributions to feminism, phenomenology, and more., and she’s by no means the only modern philosopher who did so. (One could mention Butler, Sedgwick, or Kristeva, too.)

Sartre’s philosophy contradicts much of what we’ve been discussing in this book so far. Unlike Enlightenment or even Romantic philosophers (let alone Plato and Aristotle), Sartre doesn’t believe that it’s productive to begin a discussion of humanity by talking about its essence—i.e., its biological construction, its perceptual capabilities, or any definition of “human nature.” Note that this doesn’tmean that Sartre doesn’t believe that it’s important to discuss these concepts—it’s just that they can’t be weighed more highly than the fundamental fact of mankind’s existence. Alberto’s example of how this works in practice (that humans are like actors with no script) reminds us that in this novel, especially, “all the world’s a stage.”

To Sartre, even nihilism is a form of universalism (i.e., “everything is meaningless”), and thus a contradiction of Existentialism. In a way, Sartre is even more committed to the concept of freedom than his predecessors—he wants each human being to find his or her own freedom. This idea also seems relevant to the novel. Sophie has accepted that she exists only in the pages of a book, so now she must go about finding freedom and meaning within the parameters of that reality.

Alberto wants Sophie to become aware of her own changing thought processes. This is an important point to bear in mind, because it suggests that Sophie herself might be projecting onto the other members of the crowd, and assuming that she is more enlightened than the people around her.

De Beauvoir’s ideas were widely criticized at the time because they seemed to contradict biological facts. But this wasn’t quite de Beauvoir’s point: she wasn’t saying that there are no biological differences between men and women, but that there is no innately feminine way of perceiving the world, contrary to what’s often assumed (for example, “woman’s intuition”).

Like Darwin and Freud, Sartre’s philosophical ideas weren’t only influential in the world of philosophy; they also had a profound influence on Western art and literature. Gaarder presents Camus as primarily a fiction writer, but he was also a philosopher who was arguably as influential as Sartre, and developed the philosophy of Absurdism.

Alberto is too wise to claim that Sophie is now “educated” in all of Western philosophy. The purpose of this book hasn’t been to give a total summary of Western thinking; rather, it’s aimed to convey some of the narrative sweep of philosophy’s history: for example, to show how Enlightenment influenced Romanticism, or how Romanticism influenced the rise of Existentialism.

Throughout the book, Alberto has been trying to refute the idea that philosophy is a useless endeavor. Here, he shows the ways that philosophy, far from being useless, is intimately engaged with the problems of the real, contemporary world.

It’s impressive that Alberto has concealed his distaste for mysticism and occultism for so long—it’s as if he’s been withholding his own opinions so that he can be a truly impartial teacher (this would suggest that his duties as a teacher are now concluded). Alberto and Sophie could be said to represent the two sides of Western philosophy: the former rigid, scientific, and eminently rational; the latter sensitive, intuitive, and mystical. Sophie seems more willing than Alberto to believe in the existence of spirituality and mysticism. Once again Gaarder plays with reality by placing the book “Sophie’s World” as a physical object even within the world of Sophie’s World.

Chapter 34

This section raises questions that are too complicated for Sophie’s Worldto answer. One could say that Sophie and Alberto persist even after their book is over—so it’s Hilde’s duty to keep writing (or at least reading) about them. It’s also possible that these characters are just that—characters—meaning that they’re “done” when their book is done.

As Albert retires from his duties as an author, Hilde prepares to become an author-figure, manipulating her father in the same way that her father manipulated Alberto and Sophie. This is a sign of Hilde’s own coming-of-age (independent of Sophie’s). It’s not explained how, exactly, Alberto and Sophie are driving around—what book are they a part of, exactly?

The new “Sophie book” that we’re reading doesn’t try to tinker with the setting or plot of the original Sophie’s World, even as it reinterprets Sophie and Alberto, the two characters Albert invented. Perhaps Gaarder is trying to convey that Sophie and Alberto are “coming alive”; that their existence extends past the confines of Albert’s book.

As the book approaches an ending, it’s confusing to keep track of what is and isn’t fictional—i.e., whether this section is the product of Hilde’s writing or Gaarder’s. Now that Albert himself is a character, and no longer a seemingly omnipotent creator, it becomes clear that he’s no more “real” than Sophie, Alberto, or even us as readers.

It now becomes apparent what the “favor” Hilde asked of her friends was. This prank (as far as it exists within Hilde’s world) is meant to make even Albert Knag question his own reality, and wonder whether he, like Sophie, is being manipulated by an all-powerful figure.

The point of Alberto’s story is that it’s often foolish to distinguish between different levels of reality (reality, one could say, is an all-or-nothing proposition—things are either real or they’renot). In this way, Gaarder is subtly mocking his own readers for trying to distinguish between the new Sophie/Alberto narrative and Gaarder’s own—a project that amounts to determining which fiction is more real than the other.

In this amusing interlude, we’re reminded that even if Alberto and Sophie could be considered real people, this isn’t the definition of “real” that most people are used to—by the same logic, Sherlock Holmes and Peter Pan are real, too.

Hilde is toying with Albert so that he feels regret for the way he manipulated Alberto and Sophie in Sophie’s World. (Of course, it’s also possible that this section of the text appears in Hilde’s own writing, suggesting that Hilde is staging a reunion scene between herself and her father that may never come.)

Once again, Gaarder blurs the line between fiction and reality—we’re not sure if we’re reading this in another book, or whether it’s happening in the “world” of the novel itself (Hilde and Albert’s world, that is).

This is one of the first times in the novel when Sophie sees Hilde face-to-face (she previously saw Hilde only in the brass mirror). This is especially interesting, considering that this is also the first time in the novel when we get an extended physical description of Hilde. The implication is that Hilde’s reality is somehow unfinished until she is reunited with her “partner,” Sophie (this idea is somewhat similar to Hegel’s notion of the world spirit).

At the same time that Sophie reunites with Hilde, Hilde reunites with her father, or at least seems to (there’s still the possibility that Hilde is imagining all of this).Hilde, we’re told, has finally grown up, not only by learning about philosophy but also by daring to play philosophical tricks on her own father—a sign of her maturity and initiative.

Hilde has relied on Ole and Anne to send bizarre messages to Albert, in much the same way that Albert sent bizarre messages to Sophie. In this sense, we might say that Albert has paid the penalty for exploiting his own fictional character—thus, it’s time to call it quits.

The final question of this book is: is the world of ideas really a substitute for the world of physical things? In other words, can fictional characters ever really take the place of real people? This section also raises questions about what does and doesn’t qualify as freedom. Alberto and Sophie seem convinced that they’ve attained true freedom, despite the fact that they seem to be inhabiting a different book still (our version of Sophie’s World, at least.

Themes

For each of these themes find example passages from the text that support this as theme, explains the theme, or gives a rationale for the theme - present your examples and explanations in a way that suits you - use multimedia, photos, videos, whatever you would like that helps you flesh out the themes and passages!

WONDER

The concept of “wonder”—both in the sense of questioning what is true, and in the sense of being continually astounded by the world—is crucial to understanding Sophie’s World. One reason the novel doesn’t end with Sophie arriving at an answer to her questions is that any such answer would be a little unsatisfactory, since it would make the universe seem “fixed,” predictable, and dry. Alberto teaches Sophie about philosophy not to give her answers but to train her to ask questions—to think of herself as an outsider, trying to make sense of what’s right in front of her nose. As Alberto says toward the beginning of the novel, the philosopher is like a child watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. Most adults are so used to seeing “tricks” of this kind that they don’t bat an eye—by the same token, most adults aren’t astounded by the fact that they’re alive, that the universe exists, etc. A good philosopher will never lose her sense of wonder at the universe’s mysteries.

THE NATURE OF REALITY

Sophie’s World may be a book about Western philosophy, but it’s (inevitably) too short to encompass all of Western philosophy—it has to pick and choose which aspects of this subject to focus on. It’s important to note that while the book outlines many of the major questions of philosophy, it’s a little more interested in answering some of these questions than others. When Alberto Knox reviews Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Plato, etc. with Sophie Amundsen, he spends much more time discussing these figures’ ideas about epistemology—i.e., the study of what is real and what can be known about the world—than he does reviewing their views on ethics, politics, etc. One reason that the book focuses more on epistemology than ethics or political philosophy is that the question of reality is directly relevant to the book’s plot. As we move on, we become aware that the story of Sophie and Alberto, as it’s presented in the novel, is itself being read by another girl, Hilde Møller Knag, whose father, Albert Knag, has sent her a book called Sophie’s World for her 15th birthday. It’s no wonder that Sophie’s World focuses so extensively on epistemology—as the characters try to figure out what world they’re in, and whether or not they’re “real,” the philosophy of epistemology becomes directly relevant to their lives.

One way to start talking about epistemology and reality in Sophie’s World is to ask, which of the two storylines is more real than the other? Certainly, this is the question that Sophie and Hilde keep asking themselves. Sophie begins to realize that her life—her entire “world,” as the book’s title says—is the product of an author’s imagination. Nothing she does matters, since it’ll only ever amount to a pile of ink and paper. Similarly, Hilde recognizes that Sophie is struggling to come to terms with her world’s unreality. Hilde begins to resent her father for “cruelly” manipulating Sophie and her fellow fictional characters—she thinks that he has some responsibility to treat his creations with a measure of respect.

The trick that Sophie’s World plays on us is so clever that it can take a while to realize what it is. By asking which storyline is real—and by encouraging us, again and again, to try to answer this question—the book deceives us into forgetting that—of course—neither text is more or less real than the other: they’re both equally fictional, equally made up, equally ink-and-paper. By playing this trick on us, Sophie’s World makes one of its most persuasive and powerful points about the nature of reality. If we’re willing to believe that one fictional story can be more real than the other, then we’ve already conceded that a work of fiction can be real in the first place. But in what sense can fiction be real?

Throughout Sophie’s World, it’s suggested that ideas and stories may be more real than what we usually think of as reality (the physical, material world that we interact with every day). This is one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy, dating all the way back to Plato.

 (who believed that the world of unchanging, idealized “forms” was more real than the material world, which was always changing). But even if we don’t agree with Plato, the idea that stories and fictions can be real and true is a basic premise of literature—if we didn’t believe that Sophie’s World had some relevance to our lives, or had emotional or artistic truth to it, then we wouldn't bother to read it (or even look up the LitCharts summary). By the time the book ends, we’ve seen that ideas can have a profound effect on people’s lives. It’s for this reason that the book ends with the image of Sophie—strictly speaking, an imaginary person—“stinging” Hilde—within the context of the book, a “real” person. This is a clever metaphor for the way that ideas, fictions, and abstractions—i.e., all the things that people lazily refer to as “not real”—can influence the way people behave in the real world.

COMING OF AGE

Sophie’s World isn’t just a history of philosophy. It’s also the story of how two people, a young woman named Sophie Amundsen and another young woman named Hilde Møller Knag, come to apply philosophy to their own lives. In this sense, the novel is a coming-of-age story: a dramatization of how Sophie and Hilde use their educations to gain a new sense of maturity and self-control.

As in any good coming-of-age story, Sophie and Hilde—lonely girls with brusque mothers and absentee fathers—need to find role models and parent figures to guide them along the path to maturity. In one sense, Sophie’s World shows how philosophy itself can be a “father figure”—a source of comfort, emotional support, and solace. Sophie’s mentor, Alberto Knox, is a personification of philosophy itself (as well as a riff on his creator, Albert Knag). But Alberto isn’t just Sophie’s teacher—he’s also her friend. This suggests that the purpose of Sophie and Hilde’s education isn’t just to understand philosophy; the purpose is to learn how to interact with others.

What kind of educations do Sophie and Hilde receive from their mentors? From the very beginning, it’s made clear that Sophie will not be learning about ordinary, day-to-day matters—there’s no economics or health in this syllabus. In this sense, Sophie’s contrasts with the work that she does in school, and with the lifestyle she sees at home, personified by her rather dull-minded Mom. There’s a strong sense that “education,” at least as Sophie’s schoolteachers understand it, has impoverished Sophie’s soul, leaving her lonely and unable to cope with the deep questions of life. After we learn that Hilde is reading Sophie’s story, we realize that the purpose of Sophie’s philosophy lessons is to teach Hilde how to live. Hilde is a lonely child—she doesn’t seem to get along with her mother, and she’s rarely shown interacting with friends or classmates. Hilde’s father, Albert Knag, has written Sophie’s World for Hilde, suggesting that he understands her loneliness and frustration (Sophie is meant to be a portrait of his daughter), and wants to teach her to cope with her emotions using philosophy. In short, philosophy isn’t just a new form of information—it’s also a method of coming to grips with one’s feelings, and learning how to live.

As Hilde and Sophie’s relationships with their mentors would suggest, philosophy shows us how to live by teaching us how to interact with other people. By the end of the novel, Hilde has learned how to empathize with Sophie, despite the fact that Sophie is a fictional character: Gaarder portrays this act of empathy as a clear sign of Hilde’s emotional maturity. Hilde also reunites with her father using philosophy as her tool: she turns the tables on him by planting letters at Albert’s airport, confusing him into thinking that his world might be an illusion as well. Although it might seem like Hilde is being disobedient or cruel to her father, she’s actually showing her affection for him, and proving that she’s embraced the philosophy lessons he’s sent her. In the final scene of the novel, Hilde and Albert sit together, talking about the history of the universe: a symbol of the way that philosophy, unlikely as it sounds, can bring families together.

In this way, philosophy ends up being more practical than it seems. After she finishes her philosophy curriculum, Hilde isn’t “all grown up” in any traditional sense (she’s still living at home, still in school, still uncertain about colleges or careers, etc.), but she’s demonstrated her intelligence, her thoughtfulness, and—most importantly—her love for her fictional friends and her real-life father. In this way, philosophy helps her come of age.

FREE WILL

It’s probably fair to say that the most important and relevant philosophical question in Sophie’s World is “what is real?” but the question “what is freedom?” is nearly as important. As Sophie Amundsen becomes aware that her “world” is a literary creation in the mind of Albert Knag, she begins to wonder if she has any real freedom—any control over her own actions. And this question is by no means limited to Sophie and her peers. As Hilde Møller Knag reads Sophie’s story, she too begins to question her own freedom: are her actions truly her own, or are they somehow predetermined? Readers of Sophie’s World might well ask themselves the same thing. In order to address some of these issues, Sophie’s World studies and organizes the different concepts of freedom that Western philosophers have dealt with.

One kind of freedom that the novel addresses right away is the freedom to do what one likes. This is an intuitive definition, but Alberto Knox, Sophie’s mentor, takes pains to show right away why it’s not necessarily the best definition. As Plato and Socrates argued thousands of years ago, obeying one’s impulses—hunger, lust, etc.—is its own kind of slavery (think of being a “slave to fashion” or a “slave to appearances”). Sophie’s World also addresses other kinds of mental slavery. Sophie’s Mom, for example, is so devoted to performing her petty responsibilities that she’s lost touch with the “big picture”—she’s no longer interested in philosophical question at all. By the end of the book it’s clear that these two forms of slavery are one and the same: the birthday party that Sophie’s mother fussily organizes for Sophie devolves into a disgusting spectacle in which Sophie’s classmates give in to their instincts and act like animals. The novel suggests that the freedom of doing what one wants is overrated: first, because this freedom is its own kind of slavery (as in Plato); second, because this kind of freedom is just an illusion, one that would vanish if we had the mental capacity to understand all the causes and effects at work in our lives (see Spinoza). If we define freedom in this way then we, the readers, are no freer than Sophie or her peers.

It’s clear enough that Sophie—whether she’s a fictional character or not—is more free than her mother or her classmates. But if this is true, what kind of freedom does she embody? While the novel doesn’t exactly put forth a “correct” interpretation of free will, it does suggest that humans can find freedom from causation and freedom from their appetites by contemplating the world of ideas. Ideas are unchanging—or, even if they do change over time (as in Hegel), they must be rigorously scrutinized, anyway. By living a life based around this kind of close contemplation, people can escape the banality of their daily existences and attain a kind of self-control, as well as control over their actions—in short, freedom. We see this literally toward the end of the novel, when Sophie and Alberto free themselves from the chaos of Sophie’s birthday party by escaping the story itself.

There’s one final sense in which Sophie’s World challenges our usual understanding of free will. It’s certainly possible to believe that the universe is controlled by an all-powerful figure, whether that figure is God or an author. But the novel suggests that even if such a figure exists, there’s no “hierarchy” of freedom—i.e., the author figure is no more or less free than his creations. We see this clearly by the end of the novel, when Sophie and Hilde seem to have reversed positions: Sophie appears to be free of any authorial control, while Hilde is still very much under the thumb of an author-figure, even if that figure is her own father (or Gaarder himself). If this is possible—if fictional characters can be freer than their creators, and if there’s more freedom in imagination than in the real world—then the only real freedom comes from philosophy and the world of ideas. By learning about ethics, epistemology, and so on, Sophie and Hilde might gain free will after all.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER THEMES YOU NOTICED? IF SO ELABORATE!

Ill-Structured Problems

Ill-structured problems are meant to pose questions and initiate research. You become the investigator, much like Sophie and Hilde were investigating their worlds and the new world of philosophy. 

Your ill-structured problem is this:

"A philosophy professor must determine the most important philosopher to teach their students. This is a daunting task as there have been many memorable philosophers throughout time who have contributed much to our ways of thinking, living, learning, etc., etc. How will you determine which philosopher is worthy of the most teaching time? "

Your task is this:

What questions must you ask in order to answer this problem? What research must you do in order to construct a viable solution to this problem? How will you defend one choice as the best with the given circumstances? The problem is clearly incomplete - much more information is needed to understand the exact nature of the situation. Experts may disagree on the solution, often because they may disagree on the criteria to use to judge the best solution, so how will you determine the criteria to judge the solution? 

Things to think about as you attempt your solution:

• Am I taking a broad enough view of this problem?

• Have I considered all of the possibilities or have I limited my options too soon?

• Am I being open-minded to all of the possibilities?

• What strategy should I use to analyze this information I have gathered - do I need a new way to look at the information?

Steps you might take:

• Inquiry and investigation - this is when you research and compile your research in some way that works for you. You analyze the data and make connections between the research and the problem.

• Problem Definition - once you understand the research a bit better, you might understand the true nature of the problem. At this point you can provide a clear definition of the problem presented to you, including issues that need to be resolved and any constraints that might limit your options.

• Resolution - you will develop options to solve the problem. There may be many good ideas, but not all are useful. At this point, rather than concern yourself with right or wrong, think about better or worse solutions in the circumstances.

• Debrief - once you resolve the problem, review your pathway to the problem, the content you learned, other issues that came up because of this learning, and what helped or hindered your process or progress.

Learning Issues Board - use this as a tool to keep track of your progress

1. What do we know about the situation?

2. What do I need to learn to understand the situation better? What questions will help me figure out if these ideas are valid?

3. How can I get the answers to my questions? What techniques or tools will help me make sense of the information I have gathered?

4. How will I present my solution to the problem?