About the author
The author of this book is Norwegian national treasure writer Jostan Judd. Judd was born in Oslo, Norway. He majored in philosophy, literature and theology at the university, and later served as a teacher of literature and philosophy. After the publication of 199 1, this book quickly became a phenomenal global bestseller, and was later rated as "one of the 20th century 100 classic works", which also established Judd's position as "the top ten writers in the world".
About this book
Sophie's World uses interesting stories to learn the history of western philosophy, change the incomprehensible impression of philosophy, and learn to know the world with curiosity forever. This book tells the story of a mysterious philosophy tutor Albert leading a young girl named Sophie to learn the history of western philosophy. Sophie, who is in adolescence, is full of curiosity about everything around her and begins to ask herself the first philosophical question: Who am I? Where did the world come from?
I hope that every reader, together with Sophie, will first think about these seemingly simple questions by themselves, and then listen to Teacher Albert with questions. The author uses nested writing techniques to construct a triple world outlook, which makes us wonder whether we really exist after reading the book.
Core content
Judd, the author, takes a young and ignorant girl as the protagonist of the story. Let's follow in her footsteps, awaken the curiosity that has been sleeping for a long time and start asking questions to the world. The purpose of writing this book is not to find the meaning of life or the answer to the ultimate question, but to hope that we should maintain a speculative attitude towards the world we live in and the past values. He thinks this is the greatest significance of philosophy.
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First, the period of ancient Greek philosophy
At the beginning of the story, 14-year-old Norwegian girl Sophie came home from school. While walking on the road, she talked with her friend Joan about robots. When she went to her garden, she suddenly found two letters and a postcard to give to a man named Sid. There are two questions in the letter: Who are you? Where did the world come from? It was actually a mysterious philosophy teacher named Albert who raised these two questions.
These two questions can actually open the curtain of all philosophical thinking, and also lead to the period of ancient Greek philosophy represented by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
In the mouth of Albert, a philosophy teacher, Socrates became a man who wanted to find virtue through reason and get happiness through discovering virtue. Because Socrates believes that eternal truths exist in each of us, and the way to dig out these inner truths is through rational thinking. Interestingly, Socrates' mother is a midwife, just like a midwife helps a woman deliver a baby. Socrates has been encouraging himself to be a "knowledge midwife" all his life. He wants to help everyone gain inner wisdom through rational thinking.
Albert used an example of gingerbread man when he talked about Plato. We are not cooks. Whether gingerbread man is missing an arm or his left leg is a little short, we can immediately realize that this is a gingerbread man, and we can also analyze it. This mold will be more perfect than all extruded gingerbread man. Therefore, he believes that everything in the world has an eternal perfect form, which is Plato's most important philosophical thought "theory"
Finally, Albert used a small metaphor of "chicken" and "chicken characteristics" to illustrate that Aristotle emphasized sensory experience. Aristotle hit the nail on the head and criticized: the so-called form is just a feature of things. For example, chickens are covered with hair and can lay eggs. These are the characteristics of chickens. We have seen more chickens, and naturally we can sum up a set of concepts about chickens.
Through these correspondence with Albert, the ignorant Sophie gradually stepped into the door of philosophy and began to think, who am I and where does the world come from? Is the world I live in real?
Second, the period of modern philosophy
With all kinds of ideas, Sophie and Albert turned a page of modern philosophy non-stop. This will start with the father of modern philosophy. His famous saying is "I think, therefore I am". Yes, as you may have guessed, he is the French philosopher Descartes.
Why is Descartes great? Because in his historical period, almost all philosophers admitted that the philosophy since the Middle Ages was unreliable, and then everyone accepted the view that "we humans are ignorant of the world and ourselves". But Descartes' view is completely different. He felt that it was because he saw that the previous philosophy was unreliable that he decided to travel around the world and write a reliable and comprehensive philosophical book.
Descartes' greatness lies in his deduction of something that must be true, and this is his doubt. When he doubts, he must be thinking, then he must exist. And this thinking person, that is, "I", is more real than everything we hear, see and smell. This is the origin of "I think, therefore I am".
However, the British empiricist philosopher Hume put forward different views on Descartes' views. He believes that people's words and deeds are not determined by reason, but by sensibility. Just as we help a poor man not because we are determined by rational thinking, but because we are all compassionate, it has nothing to do with rationality.
The collision between rationalism and empiricism continued until Kant. Kant's greatness lies in his own philosophical thought of reconciling rationalism and empiricism. Instructor Albert gave an example. If you wear a pair of green glasses, then the world you see is green. However, you can't say that the world is all green. In this example, our eyes represent our sensory world, and this green glasses can actually be understood as a kind of rationality. This leads to Kant's thought that human reason can help us understand the world, but some preferences in reason will affect our experience.
In addition to Kant, there is another philosopher after him, Hegel. His most famous philosophical thought is called "World Spirit". Teacher Albert explained this to Sophie. First, imagine a river. The river has been changing. Where it flows, it is a river, and it will not become a "real" river just because it flows to a specific place. This river is a rational history. To put it simply, our way of thinking, like a river, will be affected by the ebb and flow of tides or the height of the terrain, so we can't judge that any kind of thinking must be right, because it may be right when it flows in this valley, but not necessarily in the next direction. This river, expressed in Hegel's language, is the "world spirit".
Third, the period of action philosophy.
Generally speaking, the era of great philosophical system ended when Hegel came, and the philosophy after Hegel embarked on a new direction, that is, the philosophy of action with more practical significance. In this historical period, let's talk about the thought of a heavyweight philosopher, that is, Marx, who had a great influence on China.
Speaking of Marx's thoughts, many people are familiar with the word "superstructure". But what exactly do these four words mean?
Sophie, like most people, is puzzled by this problem. At this time, Albert took out a model of a Greek temple. Imagine this model. The first thing you may notice is its beautiful roof, which is called "superstructure". It includes three steps, namely "production tools", "production conditions" and "production relations". The development of society is mainly determined by the mode of production.
Why is he so great? Because philosophers only explained the world before, but Marx made a good start, and philosophers have been trying to change the world since then.
When talking about action philosophy, Albert and Sophie gradually realized that they were just a novel character created by a Norwegian father. The purpose of writing this book is to wish his daughter Sid 15 a happy birthday! Sophie's world is just a virtual creation in Sid's world.
Therefore, the author constructs three worlds: our world as readers, Sid's world, and finally Sophie's world. In this way, the author Jia Deyong constructed an interlocking pluralistic world. On the one hand, he inspires us to think by telling philosophical thoughts, on the other hand, he creates suspense with story lines.
line
1. The greatest significance of philosophy is not to find the meaning of life or the answer to the ultimate question, but to hope that we should maintain a speculative attitude towards the world we live in and the past values.
Descartes deduced something that must be true, and that is his doubt. When he doubts, he must be thinking, then he must exist. And this thinking person, that is, "I", is more real than everything we hear, see and smell.
Kant believes that human reason can help us understand the world, but there are some preferences in reason that will affect our experience.
4. If Socrates thinks that reason is the same absolute truth as "buying and selling with one hammer", then in Hegel's eyes, reason is a process of gradual realization, expansion and perfection.
In the past, philosophers only explained the world, but Marx made a good start. Philosophers after him tried to change the world.
6. The greatest value and significance of Sophie's World lies in the distance between three "distances", namely "profound philosophy and mass", "classical philosophy and modernity" and "rigorous philosophy and literature".
Author: Nani
Brain map: Moses
Interpretation: Jack Sugar