Sophie's World: an unrealised "free will"

 

Sophie's World is an interesting novel on the history of Western Philosophy by a Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder. The novel is about a fourteen year old Sophie Amunderson who receives letters from Albert Knox, a philosophy teacher. He begins with questions like, "Who are you?", and "Where has this universe come from?" These questions lead Sophie to ponder over the mysteries of life and the universe and she gets ahead with the philosophy course.

Albert Knox undertakes philosophical approach in teaching philosophy. Sometimes he appears to be dressed in antique and modern costumes; he sends her a cassette on the city of Athens. He also organizes face-to-face discussions at Middle Age church, at his old house decorated with the ancient articles and scriptures. He also invites Sophie at a hotel for mind-wrestling ideas. But in most of the cases there are letters carried by a dog, Hermes, to her home.

The novel since its publication in 1991 has got so much popular that more than 50 million copies have been sold in fifty nine different languages. It has also been adapted in films and games. As most of the content is told in stories, the novel is thought to be children literature, but digested only by adults.

The book quite interestingly covers the history of western philosophy. Here I’ll give a brief account of the evolution of philosophical thought through ages until the time of Sigmund Freud. 

The Greeks are supposed to be the founders of philosophy: Plato's theory of ideas that everything surrounding us is just the mimicry of the eternal and immutable ideas, Socrates who was forced to drink hemlock for his blasphemous ideas, and Aristotle who was best at arranging ideas like books on shelf. The Hellenistic period which was the formation of Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans and Neo-Platonist despite its glorious ideas was too confident to give due place to women.

Then the writer gives only a brief account of the Middle Ages during which St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas tried to Christianized the Plato's and Aristotle's ideas respectively. However, the era is soon followed by the Renaissance which was in a sense the rebirth of Greek thoughts. The Renaissance was a product of three different movements: Firstly, Humanism- bringing man at the centre of all learning. Secondly, Scientific progress- important discoveries and inventions which worked as a catalyst to human progress. The notable inventions include the compass, firearms, printing press and telescope. Thirdly, Reformation- a kind of religious Reformation began when Martin Luther translated the Bible and ended the monopoly of the corrupt church.

Now in the 17th century France gained dominance and the era is termed as the Baroque age. The era is marked by the tensions and conflict as 30 Years War in Europe and French aristocracy dominated. The era produced two great philosophers: Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, and Spinoza. Descartes proved the existence of the man and God when he said: "I think, therefore I am." Descartes was a rationalist and he tried to approach truth through his skepticism. As far as Spinoza is concerned he maintained, "All material things and things that happen around us are an expression of God or nature."

Continuing the series there are chapters on three British empiricists: John Locke, David Hume and Berkeley. Locke, an empiricist, is said to be the 'father of Liberalism'. His famous theory of mind illustrates: at birth the mind of a child is a black slate ("tabula rasa") and knowledge is gained through experience. The famous doctrine of "division of power", propounded by Montesquieu, was advocated by Locke. He further says, the belief that God exists is inherent in human reason. David Hume, an agonistic, assumes that our ethics come from our feelings and not by reason. He also introduces "Induction fallacy" which states that if we have only seen black crows, it does not imply that white crows don't exist. Berkeley believed that we don't perceive material things because matter does not exist. Material things are ideas perceived by minds and they cannot exist without being perceived.

Among these philosophical debates and the exchange of letters, Sophie also receives some letters addressed to Hilde. The father of Hilde, Albert Knag (not to confuse with Albert knox), is working as a UN battalion in Lebanon. He sends birthday greeting letters to her daughter, Hilde, on Sophie's address. Sophie gets confused and even criticizes the father for being too non-serious to post birthday wishes to a wrong address. One thing strange also appears here that Hilde’s date of birth is same as that of Sophie.

The aristocracy of the French authority is later subjected to opposition and an era of French Enlightenment set in. "Back to nature" was the slogan. "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" voices everywhere. For French nature also stands for reason, that's why the age is also known as the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment philosophers fought for the 'natural rights' of men in society. It results in the Declaration of the rights of Man and Citizen adopted by the French National Assembly in 1789. Alongside, the philosopher like Olympia de Gouges fought for the right of women during the French Revolution. 

Kant was an important German Enlightenment thinker. He was the very first who tried to link the ideas of Idealist and Materialist. In simple words he said, things existing in the world are real (can be sensed) but the human mind is needed to give them form and order. He kept on saying, Man is a dual creature: material creature and the creature of reason.

The dry intellectualism of the Enlightenment era was opposed by the imagination of the Romanticism. The Romantics traced their roots to the Renaissance. Nature was a living world spirit for them. The Romantics were young men with anti middle class approach. Though Romanticism was led by young blood, most of the Romantics died young.

In between lines, both Sophie and Alberto came to know that their lives are being controlled by Albert Knag, the father of Hilde. His father is writing a book for her daughter’s birthday which is based on Sophie’s World. This makes whole the scene terrible when some supernatural beings, inconceivable by reason, wished Sophie the birthday. For example, at one point when Sophie peels off the banana she sees birthday greetings inside it. Many other instances also confuse Sophie and both of them decided to get rid of intangible bushes.

Hegel was an important figure in the history of Western Philosophy. He was an absolute idealist who gave the concept of thesis (claim), antithesis (negation of the claim) and synthesis (negation of the negation). For example, Descartes’ rationalism was a thesis- which was contradicted by Hume's empirical antitheses. But the contradiction, or the tension between two modes of thought, was resolved in Kant's synthesis. This is also known as Hegelian dialectic. Hegel has an important contribution towards history. For him, history is not just a record of past events, rather it progressed rationally. The aim of history is the progress of consciousness of freedom. 

 Kierkegaard, the founder of Existentialism, was aggressively critical about society. He thought both the church and people in general had a noncommittal approach to religious questions. He was more interested in man as an individual being. He was of the opinion that "reasoned truth" could be approach through reason, but the fundamental questions could only be approached through "faith" (reason is unimportant here). He also differentiated between the subjective and objective truth. He believed there are three stages of life: the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage.

 Karl Marx, a socialist revolutionary, developed his thought in collaboration with Friedrich Engels. He believed, economic forces drove history forward. The tremendous "class struggle" of mid nineteenth century had a key to his idea that human societies develop through class conflict (i.e., between feudal lords and serf, between capitalists and workers). He said, society's ruling class (known as bourgeoisie) sets norms of good and bad for the working class (known as proletariat). He observed that Capitalism is self-destructive for its exploitation and would end up in the formation of a classless society through revolution.

Darwin, a biologist, exclusively relied on natural phenomena- not on either rationalistic suppositions or any form of divine revelation. Darwin's theory of evolution" had instigated an interesting debate among scientists regarding the origin of life. In his book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection", he points out that "the survival for the fittest" was a phenomenon through which all species of life have descended from a common ancestors. This proposition met with a severe reaction from the church and scientific world was sharply divided. Darwin also suggested the life of the earth to be 300 million years.

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, discovered human derives. He said, our irrational impulses can also determine our actions i.e., human sexual desire. He gave the theories of id (instincts), ego (reality principle) and superego (morals). He also proposed "theory of unconscious" where unconscious is things we have repressed. Freud determined that all our dreams are wish fulfillments. Dreams are about the things we have repressed. Then he gradually developed a type of therapy, "archeology of the soul". According to it, the psychoanalyst can dig deep into the patient's mind and bring to light the experiences that have caused the patient's psychological disorder.

The chapter on Freud is followed by a bird's eye of the contemporary era of 20th century. Starte, an existentialist, who thought that there is general human natural rather that we must create our own. Simon d Beauvoir, Start's companion believed male and female nature's don't exist.

The book ends at the Garden Party. The preparation of the party was joined by Sophie's friend, Joanna, and her mother. But the party ends in a chaos. There is an exchange of hot words between Albert and the guest. Taking benefit of the busy scene, Albert and Sophie decides to escape the scene and they finally vanished into the air. They got into a new world where they were no more material beings but spirits.

Hilde receives a gift from her father early in the morning. Opening the package, she comes to know that it is a book. When she moves on to read it, she comes to know about Sophie and her teacher. She also feel pity for Sophie and plans to take revenge from her father. And finally she does so by writing the actions of her father in her mind. The father is now caught in the mind of the daughter. 

Spinoza believed there is no such thing as "free will" because everything in this world is predetermined. It is just fool to say we have liberty when you have to survive only choices. This philosophy is the corner stone of the novel. We see how Sophie's world is imagined in the mind and interpreted in the typewriter of Albert Kong.

-Muhammad Abrar

 June 12, 2021