Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - Notes

A Novel about the History of Philosophy – Main ideas from the most well-known philosophers and epochs in history

Philosopher IdeasI. Mythological World Picture In the earliest age of humanity people

explained natural phenomena by attributing them to Gods, ie. Thor – God of Thunder, Freyja – Goddess of fertility etc.

These gods were considered higher powers that governed people’s faith.

People also believed that there is a constant battle between the forces of good and evil.

And so religious rituals and ceremonies were used to please the gods and to bring forth prosperity.

The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans developed complex mythologies to explain the world.

II. Natural Philosophers (Pre-socratics) They tried to explain nature without referring to super-natural factors.*

This means they tried to distance themselves from the mythological view on the world.

They assumed that the world always existed, so they didn’t look for the reasons of its existence (why it exists)

Instead they tried to find the world’s main ‘substance’**, meaning the precise ‘thing’ the world is made of, and which causes change within the world and to which all things return to (They focused on change).

**The substance all things are made of. The main substances they identified were air,

fire, water and earth. *Xenophanes The first philosopher to claim that men created

gods in their own image.A. Thales from Miletus The source of all things is water.

=> All things come from water and return to it. He also said that all things are full of gods (aka

little life germs)B. Anaximander (also from Miletus) Our world is one of many and it dissolves into

the ‘boundless substance’ (he doesn’t explain it very well but it is presumed it is distinct from any other substance.)

C. Anaximenes (also from Miletus) The source of all things is air/vapor. Fire is rarefied air.

III. Eleatics They studied the ‘problem of change’, namely how substances change to something else.

A. Parmenides Everything that exists in the world is

everlasting. Nothing can come out of nothing. And nothing that exists can become anything

other thant what it is. => There is no such a thing as change. => Nature is in a constant state of flux. => The world is timeless, uniform, necessary,

and unchanging. He considered reason above sensing, and that

is why he can be called a rationalist.B. Heraclitus Everything is in constant flux and movement.

=> We cannot step twice in the same river because neither we nor the river are the same from one moment to the next.***

The world is characterized by opposites. The interplay between opposites is essential to

the world. God is a kind of universal reason (Logos) that

guides everything that happens in nature. God is one-ness, the source of all things.

*** Parmenides: Nothing changes. Senses are unreliable vs. Heraclitus: Everything changes. Senses are reliable.

C. Empedocles The source of nature cannot be only one element.

Actually, there are four major elements which characterize the world: air, water, fire and earth.

All things are a mixture of these four elements, but in different proportions.

When something dies, the elements are separated.

All change implies combining, separating, and recombining these four elements. It can be said that Parmenides and Heraclitus are both right and both wrong (Everything changes, and yet nothing changes, it is only combined, separated, and recombined.)

The eye is composed of all the four elements and that is why it can see them in nature.

Love binds things together and strife separates them.

D. Anaxagoras Nature is built up of an infinite number of minute particles invisible to the eye.

And everything can be divided into even smaller parts, ad infinitum.

This means there is "something of everything" in every single cell. The whole exists in each tiny part.

He called these particles ‘seeds’. Order is the force that creates things – plants,

animals and even humans. It is synonym with mind or intelligence.

By studying a meteorite he figured that all heavenly bodies were made from the same substances as the Earth is.

E. Democritus He assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable.

He called them atoms (‘un-cuttable’) Most importantly, atoms are indivisible,

because if they could eternally be broken down into ever smaller parts, nature would begin to dissolve.

Atoms are not the same, instead they have different shapes, and that is why they can combine.

When a body dies, its atoms disperse in the universe, only to be combined with other atoms and create new things. So they can be used over and over, just like lego blocks.

Only atoms and the void exists, he claims, so he can be called a materialist.

**** Sophists = Although answers to philosophical questions may exist, man cannot know the truth about the riddles of nature and of the universe. -> Man is the measure of all things. Good/bad, right/wrong are relative.

IV. Socrates Real understanding must come from within. -> Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

A true philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight, in other words he does not give up but tirelessly pursues his quest for truth.

He had an unshakeable faith in human reason. (So he is a rationalist)

Right thinking leads to right action. When we do wrong it is because we don't

know any better. That is why it is so important to go on learning.

Right and wrong are moral absolutes anyone can reach by using their reason.

V. Plato Theory of Forms: Absolutely everything that belongs to the "material world" is made of a material that time can erode, but everything is made after a timeless "mold" or "form" that is eternal and immutable.

Plato's conception was of eternal and immutable patterns, spiritual and abstract in their nature that all things are fashioned after.

The reality beyond the material one, also called the Sensible World, he called the World of Ideas.

We can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change. We can

only have opinions about things that belong to the world of the senses, tangible things. We can only have true knowledge of things that can be understood with our reason.

Plato was drawn to mathematical states because they never change.

The soul is the realm of reason. It is immaterial and therefore immortal; opposed to the body which is material and mortal.

The soul knows all Ideas but forgets them once it is born.

A recollection of that lost knowledge happens when it analyzes the world rationally.

The soul longs to return to the World of Ideas. It wants to be freed from its body which can only sense the world imperfectly.

And of course, most people cling to the sensory world's "reflections" of ideas, while few seek to discover true knowledge.

So all natural phenomena are merely shadows of the eternal forms or ideas.

Truth, Beauty and Good are all one. Reason leads to wisdom. Reason, courage and temperance are the core

virtues of man.VI. Aristotle Ideas are actually a thing’s particular

characteristics. Common characteristics make up the form of

the thing. Ideas are not external to things, otherwise said

they do not have a separate existence, instead they are in the things they refer to.

Nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses.

People have an innate ability to categorize things.

"Substance" always strives toward achieving an innate potentiality.

Every change in nature represents a movement from potential to actual.

Each thing has a potentiality in it. Anything can be categorized and sub-

categorized. Man can only achieve happiness by using all his

abilities and capabilities.VII. HellenismA. Cynics True happiness is not found in external

advantages such as material luxury, political power, or good health.

True happiness is internal. Hardship and suffering are inevitable, so they

must be endured.

B. Stoics Everyone is a part of the same common sense--or "logos."

Each person is like a world in miniature, or "microcosmos," which is a reflection of the "macro-cosmos."

A natural law governs the world. This law is universal and absolute. Soul and body are one. Man must learn to accept his destiny because

nothing happens accidentally, instead everything happens through necessity, so it is of little use to complain against fate.

C. Epicureans "The highest good is pleasure, the greatest evil is pain."

The pleasurable results of an action must always be weighed against its possible side effects.

A pleasurable result in the short term must be weighed against the possibility of a greater, more lasting, or more intense pleasure in the long term.

Pleasure comes not only from the senses, ie. Artistic pleasure, friendship etc.

Self-control, temperance, and serenity are strongly linked with happiness.

Defining quotes: ‘Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.’ (Epicurus)

‘The gods are not to be feared. Death is nothing to worry about. Good is easy to attain. The fearful is easy to endure.’ (Epicurus)

D. Neoplatonism - Plotinus The world is a span between two poles. At one end is the divine light which he calls the One. Sometimes he calls it God. At the other end is absolute darkness, which receives none of the light from the One. But this darkness actually has no existence.

There is some divine mystery in everything that exists.

Everything is one--for everything is God.E. Mysticism A mystical experience is an experience of

merging with God or the "cosmic spirit." Silesius: ‘Every drop becomes the sea when it

flows oceanward, just as at last the soul ascends and thus becomes the Lord.’

You lose yourself only in the form you have at the moment, but at the same time you realize that you are something much bigger. You are the universe. In fact, you are the cosmic spirit itself, you are one with God.

Purification is needed in order to merge with

the One. One can achieve it through meditation.

VIII. Renaissance Period Characterized by humanism – a strong focus on the individual and his abilities to improve himself.

Beauty, balance and order are sought in art and architecture.

IX. Baroque A slightly more pessimistic movement than the Rennaissance (since it was a period when many wars took place).

Balance and order are not so important in art and architecture, and beauty is portrayed as frail and ephemeral (That is why in many beautiful paintings a skull is also shown; death is lurking over it every moment)

In philosophy, the conflict that takes place is Idealism (World is Spirit) vs. Materialism (World is Matter).

With Newton comes the mechanistic view of the World (Materialism).

Fun-fact: The original meaning of the words 'soul' and 'spirit' is, in fact, 'breath' and 'breathing.' This is the case for almost all European languages.

X. Descartes He is called the father of modern philosophy, and of the first persons to have a complete philosophical system.

His main philosophical subjects was the acquirement of knowledge and the body-soul relation.

There is a sharp division between spirit and matter, according to him.

He was a rationalist who used a mathematical approach to know the world (Mathematical postulates are pretty certain.)

One must shed away all knowledge and start from scratch. (The only way to certainty is to doubt everything.)

Any issue must be weighted and measured carefully through our reason and then used as a building block in our system of world knowledge.

Dubito ergo, cogito, cogito ergo sum. The idea of a perfect entity must have

originated from that perfect entity itself, or in other words, from God - > The existence of God is self-evident (and also innate, stamped on us from birth.)

When our reason recognizes something clearly and distinctly--as is the case for the mathematical properties of outer reality--it must necessarily be so. Because a perfect God

would not deceive us. Mathematical properties (size, width, length.

Depth) can be perceived with our reason. Qualitative properties (color, smell, taste) can

be perceived with our senses. Two substances exist: thought and extension.

They are independent of each other, but they interact via the pineal gland. (This is called Dualism)

Our body can become weak, but not our reason, that’s why reason is superior and we should rely on it.

XI. Spinoza God is Nature. Human life is subject to the universal laws of

nature. We must therefore free ourselves from our feelings and our passions. Only then will we find contentment and be happy, he believed.

He suggested one should look at the world under the aspect of eternity (To comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception).

Spinoza is a Monist, he says there is only one Substance in the world.

‘God--or Nature--manifests itself either as thought or as extension. It may well be that God has infinitely more attributes than 'thought' and 'extension,' but these are the only two that are known to man.’

A 'mode' is the particular manner which Substance, God, or nature assumes.

Everything is a mode of God. ‘You can, if you wish, say that you are thinking

or that you are moving, but could you not also say that it is nature that is thinking your thoughts, or that it is nature that is moving through you? It's really just a question of which lenses you choose to look through.’

Everything in the material world happens through necessity. => Like the Stoics, he says that the key to happiness and fulfillment is to accept all things, good and bad, sad and joyful, beautiful and ugly, and to look upon them as One.

We do not have free will, our limited body controls us.

XII. Locke We have no innate ideas or conceptions about the world we are brought into before we have seen it. (Empiricism)

=> At birth we are an ‘empty blackboard’ (tabula rasa).

‘The single sense ideas are worked on by

thinking, reasoning, believing, and doubting, thus giving rise to what he calls reflection.’

The mind is not merely a passive receiver. It classifies and processes all sensations as they come streaming in.

Little by little we bundle many similar sensations together and form concepts like 'apple,"pear,"orange.'

"By primary qualities he meant extension, weight, motion and number, and so on. When it is a question of qualities such as these, we can be certain that the senses reproduce them objectively. But we also sense other qualities in things. We say that something is sweet or sour, green or red, hot or cold. Locke calls these secondary qualities. Sensations like these--color, smell, taste, sound--do not reproduce the real qualities that are inherent in the things themselves. They reproduce only the effect of the outer reality on our senses."

XIII. Hume ‘Hume proposed the return to our spontaneous experience of the world.’

‘Man has two different types of perceptions, namely impressions and ideas. By 'impressions' he means the immediate sensation of external reality. By 'ideas' he means the recollection of such impressions.’

We sometimes form complex ideas for which there is no corresponding object in the physical world. ‘So, according to Hume, an 'angel' is a complex idea. It consists of two different experiences which are not in fact related, but which nevertheless are associated in man's imagination. In other words, it is a false idea which must be immediately rejected.

‘All the elements we put together in our ideas must at some time have entered the mind in the form of 'simple impressions.'

“Our idea of God might also be that he is a 'severe but just Father'--that is to say, a concept made up of 'severity','justice,' and 'father.' Many critics of religion since Hume have claimed that such ideas of God can be associated with how we experienced our own father when we were little. It was said that the idea of a father led to the idea of a 'heavenly father.' "

‘Hume emphasized that the expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind’ => The laws of nature are neither reasonable nor

unreasonable, they simply are.XIV. Berkley The only things that exist are those we

perceive. But we do not perceive 'material' or 'matter.'

‘You had a sensation of something hard, but you didn't feel the actual matter in the table.’

‘All our ideas have a cause beyond our consciousness, but that this cause is not of a material nature. It is spiritual.’

‘My own soul can be the cause of my own ideas--just as when I dream--but only another will or spirit can be the cause of the ideas that make up the 'corporeal' world.’ (We exist only in the mind of God.).

=> Berkley denied existence of a material world beyond the human mind.

XV. Enlightenment Key points: Opposition to authority (democratization) Rationalism (When the British speak of

'common sense,' the French usually speak of 'evident.' The English expression means 'what everybody knows,' the French means 'what is obvious'--to one's reason, that is.")

Enlightenment movement (Education of the masses)

Cultural optimism (Once reason and knowledge became widespread, humanity would make great progress. It could only be a question of time before irrationalism and ignorance would give way to an 'enlightened' humanity).

Return to nature Natura religion (Religion also had to be

brought into harmony with 'natural' reason, ie. by removing irrational dogmas and sticking to the simple teachings of Jesus).

Human rights (natural rights for freedom of expression and association, and rights to happiness and education, among others.)

XVI. Kant Kant thought that both 'sensing' and 'reason' come into play in our conception of the world.

So he agreed with the Empiricists that all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations, but in our reason there are also decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us (like having lenses of a different color).

"Whatever we see will first and foremost be perceived as phenomena in time and space. Kant called 'time' and 'space' our two 'forms of intuition.' And he emphasized that these two 'forms' in our own mind precede every

experience.” Time and space are first and foremost modes

of perception and not attributes or the physical world.

"Kant claimed that it is not only mind which conforms to things. Things also conform to the mind.

Similarly, ‘the law of causality is eternal and absolute simply because human reason perceives everything that happens as a matter of cause and effect.’

We cannot know with certainty what the world is like 'in itself.' We can only know what the world is like 'for me'--or for everybody.

He believed that it is essential for morality to presuppose that man has an immortal soul, that God exists, and that man has a free will.

According to Kant, everybody has 'practical reason,' that is, the intelligence that gives us the capacity to discern what is right or wrong in every case." (So we all have an innate ability to discern right from wrong).

‘Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature.’ (Categorical Imperative)

‘Only when we follow our 'practical reason'-- which enables us to make moral choices--do we exercise our free will, because when we conform to moral law, it is we who make the law we are conforming to.’

=> You're not especially free or independent if you just do whatever you want.

XVII. Hegel Truth is subjective - > There are no eternal truths; all truths depend on their context.

Reason is dynamic and progressive -> It’s a process that spans throughout all history.

There are two kinds of truths. There are the superficial truths, the opposite of which are obviously wrong. But there are also the profound truths, whose op-posites are equally right (ie. Life is short/Life is long.)

There is only one true reason, that of the people. (world spirit)

The world spirit has developed--and progressed--from Plato to Kant.

The 'world spirit' is developing toward an ever-expanding knowledge of itself.

And the study of history shows that humanity is moving toward greater rationality and freedom.

Knowledge takes the form of thesis-anti-thesis and synthesis.

Usually, the best of all arguments will crystallize. -> Whatever survives is ‘right’.

A dialectic tension can result in a spontaneous act which leads to a sudden change.

The world spirit becomes conscious of itself in three stages: A. In the individual (subjective spirit) B. In family/society/state. (objective spirit, created through interaction) and C. In religion, philosophy and art. (absolute spirit, because it contemplates itself).

XVIII. Kierkegaard Everyone of us is an unique individual who only lives once.

To Kierkegaard, Christianity was both so overwhelming and so irrational that it had to be an either/or. It was not good being 'rather' or 'to some extent' religious.

Truth is subjective, but rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. (the truths for me)

Truths known through reason are of little consequence to the individual; but those concerning faith are worth pondering over.

It's only when we act--and especially when we make significant choices--that we relate to our own existence.

Aesthetic Stage. Ethical Stage. Religious Stage. Angst makes us jump from one stage to the

next.XIX. Marx Material change creates new spiritual

relations, not the other way around. In Antiquity production was mainly based on

slave labor, so the citizens had no need to increase production with practical innovations.

Society Superstructure. Conditions of Production (Resources). Means

of Production. Production Relations (Owner/Worker)

History is principally a matter of who is to own the means of production (class struggle).

Significant social change can only come through revolution.

How we work affects our consciousness, but our consciousness also affects the way we work.

=> In Capitalism workers do not work from themselves, their work is external to them. -> His work is alien to him, and therefore he is also alien to himself.

Capitalism is an economic system which is self-destructive because it lacks rational control. ->

It progresses towards communism as power is concentrated more and more, social problems increase and the revolution becomes imminent.

Communism = 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.'

XX. Freud Psychoanalysis is a description of the human mind in general as well as a therapy for nervous and mental disorders.

Basic needs can be disguised or 'sublimated,' thereby steering our actions without our being aware of it.

Id. Superego. Ego. The stage is set for a lifelong conflict between

desire and guilt. He reserved the term 'unconscious' for things

we have repressed. That is, the sort of thing we have made an effort to forget because it was either 'unpleasant','improper,' or 'nasty.'

Surrealism is the art of the unconscious.XXI. Sartre Man's existence takes priority over whatever

he might otherwise be. Man has no innate 'nature.' Man must

therefore create himself. He must create his own nature or 'essence,' because it is not fixed in advance.

In a world without meaning man feels alienated.

Man is condemned to be free. => We are free individuals, and this freedom

condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do.

One must create his own meaning in life.