Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy

I finished this masterpiece. It's kinda like a textbook with little comedy sprinkled at the start and the end, some enthusiasm around philosophy, history and science injected. The plot and the dialog kinda sucks and the book itself points out that it's one huge monologue.

Sophie for the most part just replies in snarky ways or just generic replies “Yes.” “Tell me more.” “Let's look into it.”. I don't remember the exact words but it's basically that and then a guy tells her a bunch of simplified philosophy which is not even a good way to learn it if we are being honest. The way we learn is with details and brushing off large time periods without much care won't help the memory. I was somewhat familiar with these philosophers because I read a similar book before, but without the fiction, literally “the philosophy book”. There are definitely parts I kinda looked over just because there was so much surface information coming in.

But I dunno, I appreciate it and probably need to read a couple more books like this, not this same one tho. It would probably be even better if I just read the philosopher's themselves. I liked hearing Sattre's influence, I really disliked his first work, but since he made such an impact his later work must definitely be better, I hope.

But really why you would appreciate this is the philosophical urge to invent terms, the love of complaining to mom, the white crow books of alternative universes. Mom has learned that people cannot fly, but she doesn't understand anything really. I am in possession of some philosophical allegations.

I like the feminist tone despite the book containing mostly men, it's like hey look at those men now you can do better, you go girl. I love the mention of the one and only Simone De Beavoir even though the book technically could have mentioned lots of other women philosophers and more eco philosophers. This is not that focused on current times tho and I suppose the author wanted to cover the essentials which they did.

I am not sure why I want to rate this textbook 5 stars, but I really have no reason not to. Maybe that party at the end was too lavish and opulent... hmmm... consumerism much?? K, but like it's a good book, there's information that I need to encounter, some thoughts and history explained in a way I should have probably encountered by this point which only speaks to my ignorance about these topics. But you know twitter or now X exists and I am learning so you see who is winning. Did I do good dad? Thanks.

After reading this I feel such a mission and debt to environmentalists because I really see that their books and all if you look up aren't really taking that off when the information they provide is so invaluable. I wanna know about philosophy and science, but all the eco stuff... I should look into it.

I struggled to continue this book a bit because I lost a friend while reading it and that put me into a self-reflective spiral and what my life means which this sorta is about. I don't appreciate Darwin and his gene spreading philosophy, but the other thoughts by the greats I love. I think they were a bit envious of me branching out into science and not into occult stuff which I love because there's a chapter here on not believing new age philosophies and what they try to sell with all the religions.

Quotes:

““You haven't gotten yourself mixed up with drugs, have you, dear?”
Sophie was just about to laugh, but she understood why the question was being brought up now.
“Are you nuts?” she said. “That only makes you duller'.””

“Only priests and monks read the Bible because it only existed in Latin. But during the Renaissance, the Bible was translated from Hebrew and Greek into national languages.”

“She ended with a paragraph on the fact that everything people do can be used for good or evil. Good and evil are like a white and a black thread that make up a single strand.
Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them.”

I really like this last one. Counterpoints. Twilight. Ying, yang. It haunts my thoughts lately.