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calypsomarie 's review for:
Sophie's World
by Jostein Gaarder
I've been meaning to read this for years! Here are some thoughts:
Good things: if you are at all interested in philosophy, this book is very accessible, and gives a wonderful overview of the history of philosophy from Ancient Greece to the existentialism of the twentieth century. I think the best way to describe it would be to say that this is what a Goosebumps book written by a professor would look like. Really weird and eerie but also highly academic.
Not so good things: I had a lot of criticisms while reading. The most important one is that throughout the book, the author emphasizes how different humans are from animals- going so far as to write several times that animals don't think. I think this is so backwards and a really dangerous viewpoint to put forward in a book meant for young adults. There are so many hundreds of studies about animal intelligence (see the May 2015 edition of National Geographic on dolphin languages) and I think it's the height of arrogance for humans to differentiate ourselves from animals and to claim that we have superior thoughts and feelings. So many people view animals and nature as some sort of hierarchy, with us on top. I completely disagree. Animals are not imperfect humans, and we shouldn't judge them by our own standards. You'd think that a book that had the tagline "the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder" would keep an open, wondering mind when it comes to animals, but it doesn't. This was the worst part about this book.
Otherwise, I found the dialogue very stilted, but I am going to give the author the benefit of the doubt since the book is originally written in Norwegian. Also, apart from some very brief mentions of Buddhism, this is a book on Western philosophy only. I also found that by the end of the novel, there were so many philosophers that they all blurred together. I couldn't tell you the difference between Hegel or Kierkegaard and I literally just finished the book. The two main characters, who are taking a philosophy course, keep on referring to how many times they are re-reading sections, as if the author is trying to hint to the reader that we should re-read the book. Which is okay, but in a novel, things should really be clear the first time through.
I'm glad I read it, but I had to keep in mind that this book is definitely biased. For example, the author is extremely harsh on both the Epicureans/Lucretians, as well as those who believe in telepathy/ESP, both of which I think have a lot of merit. So, read this book with a grain of salt.
Good things: if you are at all interested in philosophy, this book is very accessible, and gives a wonderful overview of the history of philosophy from Ancient Greece to the existentialism of the twentieth century. I think the best way to describe it would be to say that this is what a Goosebumps book written by a professor would look like. Really weird and eerie but also highly academic.
Not so good things: I had a lot of criticisms while reading. The most important one is that throughout the book, the author emphasizes how different humans are from animals- going so far as to write several times that animals don't think. I think this is so backwards and a really dangerous viewpoint to put forward in a book meant for young adults. There are so many hundreds of studies about animal intelligence (see the May 2015 edition of National Geographic on dolphin languages) and I think it's the height of arrogance for humans to differentiate ourselves from animals and to claim that we have superior thoughts and feelings. So many people view animals and nature as some sort of hierarchy, with us on top. I completely disagree. Animals are not imperfect humans, and we shouldn't judge them by our own standards. You'd think that a book that had the tagline "the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder" would keep an open, wondering mind when it comes to animals, but it doesn't. This was the worst part about this book.
Otherwise, I found the dialogue very stilted, but I am going to give the author the benefit of the doubt since the book is originally written in Norwegian. Also, apart from some very brief mentions of Buddhism, this is a book on Western philosophy only. I also found that by the end of the novel, there were so many philosophers that they all blurred together. I couldn't tell you the difference between Hegel or Kierkegaard and I literally just finished the book. The two main characters, who are taking a philosophy course, keep on referring to how many times they are re-reading sections, as if the author is trying to hint to the reader that we should re-read the book. Which is okay, but in a novel, things should really be clear the first time through.
I'm glad I read it, but I had to keep in mind that this book is definitely biased. For example, the author is extremely harsh on both the Epicureans/Lucretians, as well as those who believe in telepathy/ESP, both of which I think have a lot of merit. So, read this book with a grain of salt.