Sophie's World

by Jostein Gaarder

Empedocles believed that all in all, nature consisted of four elements, or ‘roots’ as he termed them. These four roots were earth, air, fire, and water.

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But even if we cannot know the answers to all of nature’s riddles, we know that people have to learn to live together. The Sophists chose to concern themselves with man and his place in society.

Obviously he would not have become a famous philosopher had he confined himself purely to listening to others. Nor would he have been sentenced to death. But he just asked questions, especially to begin a conversation, as if he knew nothing. In the course of the discussion he would generally get his opponents to recognize the weakness of their arguments, and, forced into a corner, they would finally be obliged to realize what was right and what was wrong.

Maybe this is the essence of teaching

A philosopher is therefore someone who recognizes that there is a lot he does not understand, and is troubled by it. In that sense, he is still wiser than all those who brag about their knowledge of things they know nothing about. ‘Wisest is she who knows she does not know,’ I said previously. Socrates himself said, ‘One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.’

The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

Socrates thought that no one could possibly be happy if they acted against their better judgment. And he who knows how to achieve happiness will do so. Therefore, he who knows what is right will do right. Because why would anybody choose to be unhappy?

Why are horses the same, Sophie? You probably don’t think they are at all. But there is something that all horses have in common, something that enables us to identify them as horses. A particular horse ‘flows,’ naturally. It might be old and lame, and in time it will die. But the ‘form’ of the horse is eternal and immutable.

One region is the world of the senses, about which we can only have approximate or incomplete knowledge by using our five (approximate or incomplete) senses. In this sensory world, ‘everything flows’ and nothing is permanent. Nothing in the sensory world is, there are only things that come to be and pass away. The other region is the world of ideas, about which we can have true knowledge by using our reason. This world of ideas cannot be perceived by the senses, but the ideas (or forms) are eternal and immutable.

Plato believed similarly that all natural phenomena are merely shadows of the eternal forms or ideas. But most people are content with a life among shadows. They give no thought to what is casting the shadows. They think shadows are all there are, never realizing even that they are, in fact, shadows. And thus they pay no heed to the immortality of their own soul.

Plato’s point was that the relationship between the darkness of the cave and the world beyond corresponds to the relationship between the forms of the natural world and the world of ideas. Not that he meant that the natural world is dark and dreary, but that it is dark and dreary in comparison with the clarity of ideas. A picture of a beautiful landscape is not dark and dreary either. But it is only a picture.

Aristotle thought the opposite: things that are in the human soul were purely reflections of natural objects. So nature is the real world. According to Aristotle, Plato was trapped in a mythical world picture in which the human imagination was confused with the real world.

We ought to give Plato the credit for having invented hide-and-seek. Democritus has already been credited with having invented Lego.

Man can only achieve happiness by using all his abilities and capabilities. Aristotle held that there are three forms of happiness. The first form of happiness is a life of pleasure and enjoyment. The second form of happiness is a life as a free and responsible citizen. The third form of happiness is a life as thinker and philosopher.

The same applies in human relationships, where Aristotle advocated the ‘Golden Mean.’ We must be neither cowardly nor rash, but courageous (too little courage is cowardice, too much is rashness), neither miserly nor extravagant but liberal (not liberal enough is miserly, too liberal is extravagant). The same goes for eating. It is dangerous to eat too little, but also dangerous to eat too much. The ethics of both Plato and Aristotle contain echoes of Greek medicine: only by exercising balance and temperance will I achieve a happy or ‘harmonious’ life.

‘Imagine if there were only vegetables and animals. Then there wouldn’t have been anybody to tell the difference between “cat” and “dog,” or “lily” and “gooseberry.” Vegetables and animals are living too, but we are the only creatures that can categorize nature into different groups and classes.’

‘Death does not concern us,’ Epicurus said quite simply, ‘because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.’ (When you think about it, no one has ever been bothered by being dead.)

and along comes Jesus in kirtle and sandals telling them that the Kingdom of God – or the ‘new covenant’ – is that you must ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ But that was not all, Sophie, he also said that we must love our enemies. When they strike us, we must not retaliate; we must even turn the other cheek. And we must forgive – not seven times but seventy times seven.

When we talked about Socrates, we saw how dangerous it could be to appeal to people’s reason. With Jesus we see how dangerous it can be to demand unconditional brotherly love and unconditional forgiveness. Even in the world of today we can see how mighty powers can come apart at the seams when confronted with simple demands for peace, love, food for the poor, and amnesty for the enemies of the state.

The German poet Goethe once said that ‘he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.’ I don’t want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.

‘Yes, you could certainly say that. One of the Baroque period’s favorite sayings was the Latin expression “carpe diem” – “seize the day.” Another Latin expression that was widely quoted was “memento mori,” which means “Remember that you must die.” In art, a painting could depict an extremely luxurious lifestyle, with a little skull painted in one corner.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep …’

‘You’ve got hold of something central there. I can tell you a story about the same thing. A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, “I’ve been out in space many times but I’ve never seen God or angels.” And the brain surgeon said, “And I’ve operated on many clever brains but I’ve never seen a single thought.”’

‘I think, therefore I am.’

… Spinoza didn’t only say that everything is nature. He identified nature with God. He said God is all, and all is in God.’ ‘So he was a pantheist.’

“Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”’

‘For many Romantics, philosophy, nature study, and poetry formed a synthesis. Sitting in your attic dashing off inspired verses and investigating the life of plants or the composition of rocks were only two sides of the same coin because nature is not a dead mechanism, it is one living world spirit.’

You could say, perhaps, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit.’

‘According to Kierkegaard, 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. It is important to find “the truth for me.” He thus sets the individual, or each and every man, up against the “system.” Kierkegaard thought Hegel had forgotten that he was a man. This is what he wrote about the Hegelian professor: “While the ponderous Sir Professor explains the entire mystery of life, he has in distraction forgotten his own name; that he is a man, neither more nor less, not a fantastic three-eighths of a paragraph.”

‘Many had previously tried to prove the existence of God – or at any rate to bring him within the bounds of rationality. But if you content yourself with some such proof or logical argument, you suffer a loss of faith, and with it, a loss of religious passion. Because what matters is not whether Christianity is true, but whether it is true for you. The same thought was expressed in the Middle Ages in the maxim: credo quia absurdum.’

‘Kierkegaard believed that there were three different forms of life. He himself used the term stages. He calls them the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious stage. He used the term “stage” to emphasize that one can live at one of the two lower stages and then suddenly leap to a higher stage. Many people live at the same stage all their life.’

‘He who lives at the aesthetic stage lives for the moment and grasps every opportunity of enjoyment. Good is whatever is beautiful, satisfying, or pleasant. This person lives wholly in the world of the senses, and is a slave to his own desires and moods. Everything that is boring is bad.’

‘Yes thanks, I think I know that attitude.’ ‘The typical Romantic is thus also the typical aesthete, since there is more to it than pure sensory enjoyment. A person who has a reflective approach to reality – or for that matter to his art or the philosophy he or she is engaged in – is living at the aesthetic stage. It is even possible to have an aesthetic, or “reflective,” attitude to sorrow and suffering.

‘A person who lives at the aesthetic stage can easily experience angst, or a sense of dread, and a feeling of emptiness. If this happens, there is also hope. According to Kierkegaard, angst is almost positive. It is an expression of the fact that the individual is in an “existential situation,” and can now elect to make the great leap to a higher stage. But it either happens or it doesn’t. It doesn’t help to be on the verge of making the leap if you don’t do it completely. It is a matter of “either/or.” But nobody can do it for you. It is your own choice.’

‘Yes, it could be like that. Kierkegaard’s description of this “category of decision” can be somewhat reminiscent of Socrates’ view that all true insight comes from within. The choice that leads a person to leap from an aesthetic approach to an ethical or religious approach must come from within. Ibsen depicts this in Peer Gynt. Another masterly description of how existential choice springs from inner need and despair can be found in Dostoevsky’s great novel Crime and Punishment.’

‘And so perhaps you will begin to live at the ethical stage. This is characterized by seriousness and consistency of moral choices. This approach is not unlike Kant’s ethics of duty. You try to live by the law of morals. Kierkegaard, like Kant, drew attention first and foremost to human temperament. The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right or wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on what is right or wrong. The aesthete’s only concern is whether something is fun or boring.’

‘Isn’t there a risk of becoming too serious, living like that?’ ‘Decidedly! Kierkegaard never claimed that the ethical stage was satisfactory. Even a dutiful person will eventually get tired of always being dedicated and meticulous. Lots of people experience that sort of fatigue reaction late in life. Some relapse into the reflective life of their aesthetic stage. ‘But others make a new leap to the religious stage. They take the “jump into the abyss” of Faith’s “seventy thousand fathoms.” They choose faith in preference to aesthetic pleasure and reason’s call of duty. And although it can be “terrible to jump into the open arms of the living God,” as Kierkegaard put it, it is the only path to redemption.’

‘Yes.’ ‘If you now deduct the workers’ wages and the other production costs from the exchange-value, there will always be a certain sum left over. This sum was what Marx called profit. In other words, the capitalist pockets a value that was actually created by the worker. That is what is meant by exploitation.’

When Marx died the year after Darwin, his friend Friedrich Engels said: As Darwin discovered the theory of organic evolution, so Marx discovered the theory of mankind’s historical evolution.’

So far, then, we can sum up Darwin’s theory of evolution in a few sentences.’ ‘Go ahead!’ ‘We can say that the “raw material” behind the evolution of life on earth was the continual variation of individuals within the same species, plus the large number of progeny, which meant that only a fraction of them survived. The actual “mechanism,” or driving force, behind evolution was thus the natural selection in the struggle for survival. This selection ensured that the strongest, or the “fittest,” survived.’

First of all, our planet was quite different from the way it looks today. Since there was no life, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Free oxygen was first formed by the photosynthesis of plants. And the fact that there was no oxygen is important. It is unlikely that life cells – which, again, can form DNA – could have arisen in an atmosphere containing oxygen.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because oxygen is strongly reactive. Long before complex molecules like DNA could be formed, the DNA molecular cells would be oxidized.’ ‘Really.’ ‘That is how we know for certain that no new life arises today, not even so much as a bacterium or a virus. All life on earth must be exactly the same age. An elephant has just as long a family tree as the smallest bacterium. You could almost say that an elephant – or a human being – is in reality a single coherent colony of monocellular creatures. Because each cell in our body carries the same hereditary material. The whole recipe of who we are lies hidden in each tiny cell.’

What matters our creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?

Then to the moment could I say: Linger you now, you are so fair! Now records of my earthly day No flights of aeons can impair — Foreknowledge comes, and fills me with such bliss, I take my joy, my highest moment this.