Resumo de Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder

Sophie?s World is a wondrous journey of intellect and imagination
that makes one look at life through the eyes of a child once again. The main
lead of the book is Sophie Amundsen, a fifteen year old Norwegian girl who
leads a normal life with her mother. When Sophie receives two anonymous messages
in her mailbox, she is discomfited. Who are you? Where does the world come
from? She then receives a packet of papers of a course in philosophy. And so
begins a mysterious adventure for Sophie.Through this mysterious mode of communication, Sophie becomes
the student of an anonymous philosopher, who gradually reveals his identity to
be fifty-year-old Alberto Knox. Alberto proceeds to teach her the history of
philosophy. Indeed, we can formulate our own view of life from learning from
other people's beliefs. We learn that the only thing we require to be good
philosophers is the faculty of wonder. Being a philosopher is akin to looking
at the world through a child's eyes, not allowing the world to become a habit.
Not everyone will become philosophers, however. Most people get so caught up in
their everyday life that they do not stop to wonder. It is Alberto?s wish for
Sophie to have an inquiring mind, thus the philosophy course.The philosophy itself is creatively and simply presented.
Various philosophical questions and methods of reasoning are put before Sophie,
as she attempts to work them out on her own. Many of Knox's philosophic packets
to her are preluded by short questions such as "Why is Lego the most
ingenious toy in the world?", which she is given time to puzzle over
before the next packet arrives, though it is arguably not possible to actually
solve a philosophical question. Each packet of papers has a topic, which will
often be related to the preluding note.Alberto started from the very beginning, when ancient people
wanted to understand what was happening around them. As we go on the journey
together with Sophie, we learn that up until 600 years before the birth of
Christ, people had found answers to all their questions in various religions.
The earliest philosophers, however, wanted to understand their world by
studying nature itself, instead of simply attributing everything to the gods.
Philosophy thus gradually liberated itself from religion, taking the first step
in the direction of scientific reasoning, thereby becoming the precursors of
what was to become science.The book is intriguing in its ability to spawn many more questions
with its questions. Besides covering the thoughts of Socrates, Plato, Aristole
and the philosophers who preceded them, Alberto also takes Sophie through
Hellenism to the rise of Christianity and its interaction with Greek thought
and on into the Middle Ages. Alberto also covers the Renaissance, Baroque,
Enlightenment and Romantic periods, and the philosophies that stemmed from
them. Important figures during these periods include Descartes, Spinoza, Locke,
Hume, Berkeley, Bjerkely, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Darwin and Freud.This is a very brief summary of Sophie?s World, which does not
even begin to include the many wondrous and magical moments of the novel.
Gaarder had managed to embed a beginner?s guide to philosophy within a
compelling story (within a story). It is a great read for anyone who wants
something with intelligence and depth.

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