Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy Read online

  Sophie tried once again to use her own common sense, and not to think about what she had learned from others.

  Parmenides had refused to accept the idea of change in any form. And the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that, in a way, he had been right. His intelligence could not accept that “something” could suddenly transform itself into “something completely different.” It must have taken quite a bit of courage to come right out and say it, because it meant denying all the natural changes that people could see for themselves. Lots of people must have laughed at him.

  And Empedocles must have been pretty smart too, when he proved that the world had to consist of more than one single substance. That made all the transformations of nature possible without anything actually changing.

  The old Greek philosopher had found that out just by reasoning. Of course he had studied nature, but he didn’t have the equipment to do chemical analysis the way scientists do nowadays.

  Sophie was not sure whether she really believed that the source of everything actually was earth, air, fire, and water. But after all, what did that matter? In principle, Empedocles was right. The only way we can accept the transformations we can see with our own eyes—without losing our reason—is to admit the existence of more than one single basic substance.

  Sophie found philosophy doubly exciting because she was able to follow all the ideas by using her own common sense—without having to remember everything she had learned at school. She decided that philosophy was not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically.

  Democritus

  …the most ingenious toy in the world…

  Sophie put all the typed pages from the unknown philosopher back into the cookie tin and put the lid on it. She crawled out of the den and stood for a while looking across the garden. She thought about what happened yesterday. Her mother had teased her about the “love letter” again at breakfast this morning. She walked quickly over to the mailbox to prevent the same thing from happening today. Getting a love letter two days in a row would be doubly embarrassing.

  There was another little white envelope! Sophie began to discern a pattern in the deliveries: every afternoon she would find a big brown envelope. While she read the contents, the philosopher would sneak up to the mailbox with another little white envelope.

  So now Sophie would be able to find out who he was. If it was a he! She had a good view of the mailbox from her room. If she stood at the window she would see the mysterious philosopher. White envelopes don’t just appear out of thin air!

  Sophie decided to keep a careful watch the following day. Tomorrow was Friday and she would have the whole weekend ahead of her.

  She went up to her room and opened the envelope. There was only one question today, but it was even dumber than the previous three:

  Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?

  For a start, Sophie was not at all sure she agreed that it was. It was years since she had played with the little plastic blocks. Moreover she could not for the life of her see what Lego could possibly have to do with philosophy.

  But she was a dutiful student. Rummaging on the top shelf of her closet, she found a bag full of Lego blocks of all shapes and sizes.

  For the first time in ages she began to build with them. As she worked, some ideas began to occur to her about the blocks.

  They are easy to assemble, she thought. Even though they are all different, they all fit together. They are also unbreakable. She couldn’t ever remember having seen a broken Lego block. All her blocks looked as bright and new as the day they were bought, many years ago. The best thing about them was that with Lego she could construct any kind of object. And then she could separate the blocks and construct something new.

  What more could one ask of a toy? Sophie decided that Lego really could be called the most ingenious toy in the world. But what it had to do with philosophy was beyond her.

  She had nearly finished constructing a big doll’s house. Much as she hated to admit it, she hadn’t had as much fun in ages.

  Why did people quit playing when they grew up?

  When her mother got home and saw what Sophie had been doing, she blurted out, “What fun! I’m so glad you’re not too grown up to play!”

  “I’m not playing!” Sophie retorted indignantly, “I’m doing a very complicated philosophical experiment!”

  Her mother signed deeply. She was probably thinking about the white rabbit and the top hat.

  When Sophie got home from school the following day, there were several more pages for her in a big brown envelope. She took them upstairs to her room. She could not wait to read them, but she had to keep her eye on the mailbox at the same time.

  THE ATOM THEORY

  Here I am again, Sophie. Today you are going to hear about the last of the great natural philosophers. His name is Democritus (c. 460-370 B.C.) and he was from the little town of Abdera on the northern Aegean coast.

  If you were able to answer the question about Lego blocks without difficulty, you should have no problem understanding what this philosopher’s project was.

  Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually “changed.” He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.

  The word “a-tom” means “un-cuttable.” For Democritus it was all-important to establish that the constituent parts that everything else was composed of could not be divided indefinitely into smaller parts. If this were possible, they could not be used as blocks. If atoms could eternally be broken down into ever smaller parts, nature would begin to dissolve like constantly diluted soup.

  Moreover, nature’s blocks had to be eternal—because nothing can come from nothing. In this, he agreed with Parmenides and the Eleatics. Also, he believed that all atoms were firm and solid. But they could not all be the same. If all atoms were identical, there would still be no satisfactory explanation of how they could combine to form everything from poppies and olive trees to goatskin and human hair.

  Democritus believed that nature consisted of an unlimited number and variety of atoms. Some were round and smooth, others were irregular and jagged. And precisely because they were so different they could join together into all kinds of different bodies. But however infinite they might be in number and shape, they were all eternal, immutable, and indivisible.

  When a body—a tree or an animal, for instance—died and disintegrated, the atoms dispersed and could be used again in new bodies. Atoms moved around in space, but because they had “hooks” and “barbs,” they could join together to form all the things we see around us.

  So now you see what I meant about Lego blocks. They have more or less the same properties as those which Democritus ascribed to atoms. And that is what makes them so much fun to build with. They are first and foremost indivisible. Then they have different shapes and sizes. They are solid and impermeable. They also have “hooks” and “barbs” so that they can be connected to form every conceivable figure. These connections can later be broken again so that new figures can be constructed from the same blocks.

  The fact that they can be used over and over is what has made Lego so popular. Each single Lego block can be part of a truck one day and part of a castle the day after. We could also say that lego blocks are “eternal.” Children of today can play with the same blocks their parents played with when they were little.

  We can form things out of clay too, but clay cannot be used over and over, because it can be broken up into smaller and smaller pieces. These tiny pieces can never be joined together again to make something else.

  Today we can establish that Democritus’ atom theory was more or less correct. Nature really is built up of different “atoms” that join and separate again. A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant’s trunk. A
carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.

  In our own time, however, scientists have discovered that atoms can be broken into smaller “elemental particles.” We call these elemental particles protons, neutrons, and electrons. These will possibly some day be broken into even lesser particles. But physicists agree that somewhere along the line there has to be a limit. There has to be a “minimal part” of which nature consists.

  Democritus did not have access to modern electronic apparatus. His only proper equipment was his mind. But reason left him no real choice. Once it is accepted that nothing can change, that nothing can come out of nothing, and that nothing is ever lost, then nature must consist of infinitesimal blocks that can join and separate again.

  Democritus did not believe in any “force” or “soul” that could intervene in natural processes. The only things that existed, he believed, were atoms and the void. Since he believed in nothing but material things, we call him a materialist.

  According to Democritus, there is no conscious “design” in the movement of atoms. In nature, everything happens quite mechanically. This does not mean that everything happens randomly, for everything obeys the inevitable laws of necessity. Everything that happens has a natural cause, a cause that is inherent in the thing itself. Democritus once said that he would rather discover a new cause of nature than be the King of Persia.

  The atom theory also explains our sense perception, thought Democritus. When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in space. When I see the moon, it is because “moon atoms” penetrate my eye.

  But what about the “soul,” then? Surely that could not consist of atoms, of material things? Indeed it could. Democritus believed that the soul was made up of special round, smooth “soul atoms.” When a human being died, the soul atoms flew in all directions, and could then become part of a new soul formation.

  This meant that human beings had no immortal soul, another belief that many people share today. They believe, like Democritus, that “soul” is connected with brain, and that we cannot have any form of consciousness once the brain disintegrates.

  Democritus’s atom theory marked the end of Greek natural philosophy for the time being. He agreed with ,Her-aclitus that everything in nature “flowed,” since Torms come and go. But behind everything that flowed there were some eternal and immutable things that did not flow. Democritus called them atoms.

  During her reading Sophie glanced out of the window several times to see whether her mysterious correspondent had turned up at the mailbox. Now she just sat staring down the road, thinking about what she had read. She felt that Democritus’s ideas had been so simple and yet so ingenious. He had discovered the real solution to the problem of “basic substance” and “transformation.” This problem had been so complicated that philosophers had gone around puzzling over it for generations. And in the end Democritus had solved it on his own by using his common sense.

  Sophie could hardly help smiling. It had to be true that nature was built up of small parts that never changed. At the same time Heraclitus was obviously right in thinking that all forms in nature “flow.” Because everybody dies, animals die, even a mountain range slowly disintegrates. The point was that the mountain range is made up of tiny indivisible parts that never break up.

  At the same time Democritus had raised some new questions. For example, he had said that everything happened mechanically. He did not accept that there was any spiritual force in life—unlike Empedocles and An-axagoras. Democritus also believed that man had no immortal soul.

  Could she be sure of that?

  She didn’t know. But then she had only just begun the philosophy course.

  Fate

  … the “fortune-teller” is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable ...

  Sophie had been keeping her eye on the mailbox while she read about Democritus. But just in case, she decided nevertheless to take a stroll down to the garden gate.

  When she opened the front door she saw a small envelope on the front step. And sure enough—it was addressed to Sophie Amundsen.

  So he had tricked her! Today of all days, when she had kept such careful watch on the mailbox, the mystery man had sneaked up to the house from a different angle and just laid the letter on the step before making off into the woods again. Drat!

  How did he know that Sophie was watching the mailbox today? Had he seen her at the window? Anyway, she was glad to find the letter before her mother arrived.

  Sophie went back to her room and opened the letter. The white envelope was a bit wet around the edges, and had two little holes in it. Why was that? It had not rained for several days.

  The little note inside read:

  Do you believe in Fate?

  Is sickness the punishment of the gods?

  What forces govern the course of history?

  Did she believe in Fate? She was not at all sure. But she knew a lot of people who did. There was a girl in her class who read horoscopes in magazines. But if they believed in astrology, they probably believed in Fate as well, because astrologers claimed that the position of the stars influenced people’s lives on Earth.

  If you believed that a black cat crossing your path meant bad luck—well, then you believed in Fate, didn’t you? As she thought about it, several more examples of fatalism occurred to her. Why do so many people knock on wood, for example? And why was Friday the thirteenth an unlucky day? Sophie had heard that lots of hotels had no room number 13. It had to be because so many people were superstitious.

  “Superstitious.” What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called “faith.” But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition?

  Sophie was sure of one thing, though. Democritus had not believed in fate. He was a materialist. He had only believed in atoms and empty space.

  Sophie tried to think about the other questions on the note.

  “Is sickness the punishment of the gods?” Surely nobody believed that nowadays? But it occurred to her that many people thought it helped to pray for recovery, so at any rate they must believe that God had some power over people’s health.

  The last question was harder to answer. Sophie had never given much thought to what governed the course of history. It had to be people, surely? If it was God or Fate, people had no free will.

  The idea of free will made Sophie think of something else. Why should she put up with this mysterious philosopher playing cat and mouse with her? Why couldn’t she write a letter to him. He (or she) would quite probably put another big envelope in the mailbox during the night or sometime tomorrow morning. She would see to it that there was a letter ready for this person.

  Sophie began right away. It was difficult to write to someone she had never seen. She didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. Or if he or she was old or young. For that matter, the mysterious philosopher could even be someone she already knew. She wrote:

  Most respected philosopher, Your generous correspondence course in philosophy is greatly appreciated by us here. But it bothers us not to know who you are. We therefore request you to use your full name. In return we would like to extend our hospitality should you care to corne and have coffee with us, but preferably when my mother is at home. She is at work from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day from Monday to Friday. I am at school during these days, but I am always home by 2:15 p.m., except on Thursdays. I am also very good at making coffee.

  Thanking you in advance, I remain

  Your attentive student,

  Sophie Amundsen (aged 14)

  At the bottom of the page she wrote RSVP.

  Sophie felt that the letter had turned out much too formal. But it was hard to know which words to choose when writing to a person without a face. She put the letter in a pink envelope and addressed it “To the philosopher.”

  The problem was where to put it so her
mother didn’t find it. She would have to wait for her to get home before putting it in the mailbox. And she would also have to remember to look in the mailbox early the next morning before the newspaper arrived. If no new letter came for her this evening or during the night, she would have to take the pink envelope in again.

  Why did it all have to be so complicated?

  That evening Sophie went up to her room early, even though it was Friday. Her mother tried to tempt her with pizza and a thriller on TV, but Sophie said she was tired and wanted to go to bed and read. While her mother sat watching TV, she sneaked out to the mailbox with her letter.

  Her mother was clearly worried. She had started speaking to Sophie in a different tone since the business with the white rabbit and the top hat. Sophie hated to be a worry to her mother, but she just had to go upstairs and keep an eye on the mailbox.

  When her mother came up at about eleven o’clock, Sophie was sitting at the window staring down the road.

  “You’re not still sitting there staring at the mailbox!” she said.

  “I can look at whatever I like.”

  “I really think you must be in love, Sophie. But if he is going to bring you another letter, he certainly won’t come in the middle of the night.”

  Yuck! Sophie loathed all that soppy talk about love. But she had to let her mother go on believing it was true.

  “Is he the one who told you about the rabbit and the top hat?” her mother asked.

  Sophie nodded.

  “He—he doesn’t do drugs, does he?”

  Now Sophie felt really sorry for her mother. She couldn’t go on letting her worry this way, although it was completely nutty of her to think that just because someone had a slightly bizarre idea he must be on something. Grownups really were idiotic sometimes.

  She said, “Mom, I promise you once and for all I’ll never do any of that stuff... and he doesn’t either. But he is very interested in philosophy.”