SOPHIE'S WORLD

It has been published in forty-four languages and in 1995 Sophie's World was the best selling book in the world. Gaarder is one of the best-known contemporary Scandinavian writers. Sophie's World has spawned a movie, a musical, a board game, and a CD-ROM. Jostein Gaarder lives in Oslo with his wife Siri and their two sons and he now writes full-time.

the book is subtitled "A Novel About the History of Philosophy," and in it Gaarder tackles 2000 years worth of western philosophical thought. Much of the book's popularity stems from the fact that it takes complicated ideas and presents them in language comprehensible to young adults. It has been used as a textbook in many freshman year introductory surveys to philosophy. Gaarder himself taught high school philosophy for eleven years, so he must have been extremely aware of both the pitfalls and the importance of teaching the subject

Chapter Index...

Chapter I--The Garden of Eden

Chapter II--The Top Hat

Chapter III--The Myths

Chapter IV--The Natural Philosophers

Chapter V--Democritus

Chapter VI--Fate

Chapter VII--Socrates

Chapter VIII--Athens

Chapter IX--Plato

Chapter X--The Major's Cabin

Chapter XI-Aristotle

Chapter XII--Hellenism

Chapter XIII--The Postcards

Chapter XIV--Two Cultures

Chapters XV--The Middle Ages

Chapter XVI--The Renaissance

Chapter XVII--The Baroque

Chapter XVIII--Descartes

Chapter XIX--Spinoza

Chapter XX--Locke

Chapter XXI--Hume

Chapter XXII--Berkeley

Chapter XXIII--Bjerkely

Chapter XXIV--The Enlightenment

Chapter XXV--Kant

Chapter XXVI--Romanticism

Chapter XXVII--Hegel

Chapter XXVIII--Kierkegaard

Chapter XXIX--Marx

Chapter XXX--SUMMARY / REVIEW & DARWIN

Chapter XXXI--Freud

Chapter XXXII--Our Own Time

Chapter XXXIII--The Garden Party

Chapter XXXIV--Counterpoint

Chapter XXXV--The Big Bang

"The universe and life did not 'come into being': they have always existed."

"Our grandchildren may well feel ashamed when they read the 'reasons' put forward by today's adults for denying children's rights."

O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?...

I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living...

I am that gadfly which God has given
the state and all day long and in all places
am always fastening upon you, arousing
and persuading and reproaching you.