Thinking about Sophie's World

My friend, Gustavo, recommended Sophie's World. I like the idea of a story that has something bigger in it. (In this story, we have a history of philosophy.) But I'm only 30 pages in, and I'm seeing that I'll have lots to disagree with.

I googled 'philosophical responses to Sophie's World', and got lots of study guides (no thanks!) and no critiques. I am not a philosopher myself, but I have read a few books by a radical feminist philosopher (Marilyn Frye, author of Willful Virgin and Politics of Reality) and try to see the world through an anti-racist, anti-colonialist lens as well. I don't think the author questions the world as widely as he might think he does. I would welcome responses here by liberationist philosophers.

What I'm writing here are somewhat spontaneous notes. I expect to come back and edit them later.



page 2: Sophie's father was the captain of a big oil tanker, and was away for most of the year.

My question: Will this create issues for Sophie, as her eyes open? (Perhaps my idea of philosophy is more political than the author's?)


page 26: Around 700bc, much of the Greek mythologywas written down by Homer and Hesiod. Ths created a whole new situation. Now that the myths existed in written form, it was possible to discuss them.

I know the book will oversimplify complex things, and that's not really the problem I have here. My problem is partly the credit that's given to writing, partly the implicit idea of progress, partly the Eurocentric path we are taking in this story, and partly settig up philosophy as a better way to understand the world than myth. I don't think he understands how myth works. Hmm. Do I understand well enough to spell it out? Not sure.

I'd have to check with an anthropologist, but I'm guessing that unwritten myths evolve over time, shifting to contain more wisdom, perhaps. But written texts are static. For how many centuries did people simply believe Aristotle's proclamations? Scientific progress in the west was stymied for centuries.


page 26: During that period, the Greeks founded many city-states ... where all manual work was done by slaves, leaving the citizens free to devote all their time to politics and culture.

He doesn't seem to wonder whether that class (caste?) division affected the philosophy they created.


page 31: So philosophy gradually liberated itself from religion. We could say that the natural philosophers took the first step in the direction of scientific reasoning.

Except that, since all manual labor was done by slaves (lower caste), the philosophers were loathe to actually do experiments, which would involve manual labor.

Bedtime. More later...