Philosophical Literature Group
Here's discussion space for your group. By December 9th, you need to have posted at least three times. One of your posts should pose a question or issue or problem in the text for discussion; at least one should respond in depth to someone else's problem or question. The third can be either. Each post will be graded as an open response.
posted by Ms. Clapp @ 12:12 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Hello everyone, its Danny here. So to begin the discussion, my question is going to be something related to what we talked about in class, which is Does Sophie seem just a little too believing of everything Alberto tells her? It just seems that throughout the entire novel Sophie manages to agree with almost every aspect of the different philosophies she is being taught, even if the two philosophies contradict each other. I think that this may have something to do Sophie still being quite young, and able to be impressed (the reason why Alberto began teaching her in the first place). To me however, I think Gaarder creates this effect because the major purpose in the story is to provide a historical outline of philosophy, and if Sophie was sitting there arguing with Alberto about everything, then we would not progress in learning about as much of the philosophies as we did. Another question that comes up when thinking of this is that i find Sophie's dialogue to be very scant throughout the whole book, and when she does speak it seems like very unrealistic respeonses and she repeats many of her respones over again throughout the story. I think again this has something to do with the book being written as a philosophical history, but I also realized that the book has been translated as well, which may account for some of the awkward responses. As you all work towards finishing the book, I can't wait to hear your responses!
For my discussion, I would like to go more into what Danny was saying about the enthusiastic attitude of Sophie taking into the education of Alberto. I would try to contrast this attitude of her tutelage to the new attitude she has in life as whole, throughout the story, her exposure to Alberto's philosophies and insight has welcomed her into a new way of thinking that has her second guess the conventions of all the people, places and things around her, she becomes more elevated but cynical and didactic of many theories and opinions that the people in her life share. The question I like ask is why doesn't the didactic character of Sophie go on to contradict the aspects and philosophies of Alberto? And why does she not create her own conclusions to life's questions, for her create a new theory or knowledge of her own instead of agreeing and sheepishly follow the curriculum of Alberto? I’ll contribute any thoughts of this soon.
To respond to David's comment, I also noticed that Sohpie indeed does begin to question life and the actions of others around her after taking this philosophy course. On page 448 for example, she seems to notice that in the cafe the people "didn't look as though they were talking about anything that mattered." This shows how Sophie has gone beyond thinking about what she would call trivial subjects like dating and whatnot, and has focused her thoughts more on large concepts like the meaning of life and how our reason correlates with our senses and so on. I also think it is important to note however that Sophie does start to argue against some of the philosophy presented to her later on in the book, and although she is not as skeptical as would appear realistic, she does often times ask for examples for certain ideas and sometimes even remarks, "I doubt..." like on page 238 where she refutes an idea of Descartes.
Something I would like to begin talking about is the whoel concept of us reading a book about someone reading a book about the exact same thing we are. This concept MUST hae some sort of application to the philosophy that we learn while reading the book, however I am unsure how to relate the two. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Another thing that kind of bugged me was how crazy the end of the story gets... it seems as if the whole book starts out normal and gets prgressively more abstract, again could this have something to do with the application of philosophy? I just keep thinking about the craziness that happens at the Garden Party towards the end of the book, and can't help but get a little frustrated with its insanity.
What do you all think?
The idea of Sophie accepting everything that is feed to her was something that did bother me since the beginning of book. In understanding the book as a course in philosophy, one could say that it is forgivable, but if i am to read the book as a philosophical course, as I have heard many describe it as, I would expect this to be something crucial. A large part of any philosophy is questioning why we think, how we think, and why we think the way we do. An important aspect in this, for me at least, is challenging the ideology of believing everything that we hear, especially if it comes from a "learned" man. A prime example would be the very beginning of the book, where Sophie is introduced to two very different ideas on the nature of matter. She accepts both, although she tells herself that both cannot be true. this leads me to think of one of the many flaws in many classrooms, which is lack of challenging of pre-set ideas. How few times have students challenged Shakespeare, or Dickins, both of whom have errors in their work. the general acceptance of other's thoughts as our own is a very startling idea, and one that seems to be proven true time and time again.
But, perhaps I rant. AS far as the book goes, I find it to be one that should provoke thought and controversy, and hopefully we will be able to take this, if anything, from this book.
The idea of reading a book of someone reading a book, reminds me of the painter who painted a pipe in one painting, then painted a pipe in a picture in his next
its serves to remind us of what is real. The fact that the book, no matter if there is someone else reading the book in the book, it is still just a book. It is not real, we give it life, and without our thoughts, it words are trapped in its pages.
Just by having a twist such as the book being a birthday gift from a father to daughter, really reminded me that, I am only reading a book, a world that was created.
The fact that is actually a book for teaching philos0phy to someone IN the book, makes it more apparent that the point of the book is to teach US philosophy.
I understand that all of this is supposed to teach us philosophy, however can anyone identify the purpose of Alberto and Sophie being able to escape the book that they were in and to enter the real world? I beleive that this goes back to the Plato's cave idea, where once the philosopher is enlightened, they enter the real world, the world of ideas. If this is the case, then the book that Sophie and Alberto were in was the "shadow" of the real world, and once they were enlightened, they could find there way out and into the "real world" or the world of ideas. Alberto even states that Sophie and himself can reenter the book world if they like, relating back to the idea of returning to help others who are still stuck in the shadow world. The twist to this book though, is that the real world they escape into, is still only a book, therefore it is only a shadow of OUR world. Perhaps this is Gaarder's own critque on Platio's Allegory of the Cave, thinking that the world of "ideas" may be just a shadow of another world with maybe "more ideas" and this world could possible be a shadow of "even more ideas" and so the worlds would never end. Perhaps this is something we can discuss tomorrow?
I think the act of escaping the "shadow" world that was purely Major Albert Knag's imagination is more of a symbolic action than anything else. Gaarder is suggesting that we do this ourselves, that we take this Platonic leap into the vast breadth of philosophical knowledge and to "think outside the box," just as Sophie and Alberto found the ability to pop out into the world of ideas. This event in the book certainly demonstrates Plato's philosophy. They even landed in a world of fictional characters, very similar to the "ideas" of Plato.
However, I want to take it a step further and say that much, if not all, of Sophie's life was for a single purpose: and that is to show philosophy in action. Her goal is to give a vivid example of what the philosophers said (since the only major barrier seems to be the difficulty of visualizing and understanding what philosophers say and mean) in such a way that makes sense to us, even if that means living it out or providing comments or open-ended questions that provoke that thought. (There's even a quote by Major Knag that his inspiration was from the lack of books on philosophy directed to a young audience.) For example, Bjerkely's philosophy was actually played out, and so were Descartes's "I think, therefore I am" which proved Sophie's and Alberto's existence when they were but figments of someone's imagination. And finally, Plato's theory of ideas. This would also seem to explain why Sophie was so accepting--if she's going to make philosophy real for us, she's not gonna spend most of her energy destroying it.
As far as purpose goes, there seems to be another: that is to criticize the fact that the breadth of knowledge of philosophy is largely male-dominated, and to encourage more female philosophers. Alberto clearly said that it was painful to see that some of the early philosophers decided that women were a lesser sex, and not to mention Sophie and Hilde's remarks. Those philosophers who did think that seem to prove that philosophy is a product of one's time. Though what I'm really curious about is if whether this would matter, and if the female philosophers would just simply arrive at the same conclusions? Say, would a female Hume think the same thing as the male Hume? That assertion is assuming that whatever the philosophers had said was striking at some kind of fundamental truth that exists resolutely, kind of like Plato's realm of ideas. However, if one thinks that being a female would matter, then that also means that one believes that philosophies, and these "universal" truths, are completely subjective according to one's environment...
To answer Danny's comment about the Garden Party, I, too, found it extremely out-of-touch with reason. Joanna and Jeremey spontaneously have sex, the white Mercedes gets trashed by some kid, and wish bones being thrown all over the place, and I don't know, just chaos. But if there was any point to it, I think Alberto summed it up quite succinctly, "The death throes" (477): the Major was trying to destroy them all. Perhaps Gaarder is trying to illustrate an extreme case of what happens when we just live our lives snuggled deep in the rabbit's fur; we just follow zealously and resolutely where our feet lead us, blindfolded by the triviality of everyday existence.
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