About this title: When 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen finds two questions in her mailbox: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?", she begins a tour through Western philosophy guided by a mysterious mentor.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780425152256ISBN:0425152251
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Light edge and corner wear. Previous owner's name crossed out inside. Tight binding. Crease on front cover from opening book. Corner creases on front and back cover. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 523 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780425152256ISBN:0425152251
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Light edge wear to soft cover. Just a hint of page tanning from age. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 523 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780425152256ISBN:0425152251
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Creasing to spine. No Writing. No Highlighting. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 523 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"The philosophy teacher, Alberto Knox, probably a literary stand-in for the author himself, laments that he knows of no good philosophy book for young people. Sophie's World is supposed to be that book. Written by a teacher of high school philosophy, written about a teenage girl who is abruptly drawn into a beginner's course in philosophy, this book doesn't risk letting you forget its project: THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT PHILOSOPHY.
So let's judge it at that. Is it a good book of philosophy? Yes. It provides a solid summary of the dominant strains of human philosophical thought from the ancients through the Twentieth Century. And it isn't too detailed to follow, which is important, I guess, if you're going to cram a couple millennia's worth of ideas into less than 600 pages. The bulk of the book is written in dialogue -- Alberto, the teacher, explains, and Sophie, the student, listens. From time to time she makes snappy student-like comments ("How stupid! We know now that's not true...") and asks exactly the questions Alberto needs her to ask to transition between each philosopher's main points. Sophie is a keen student -- the kind I would have loved to have (but never exactly did have) in my freshman English courses. Anyway, if you're a teacher of philosophy and are looking for a text to supplement your class, you needn't look farther than Sophie's World. The book even makes a convenient pivot at the halfway mark -- at the threshold to the Enlightenment -- that could smartly divide your philosophy course into two semesters. First semester: Sophie studies philosophy. Second semester: Sophie realizes she's a character in a book about philosophy. Cute, no?
The book is an adequate basics course in philosophy. Fine. But is it a good "Novel About the History of Philosophy", as its subtitle advertises? No. As a "novel", particularly a novel aimed at the teenage audience, it is a horror: preachy, stylistically repetitive, and often flat-out boring. The existential/meta sub-plot and the introduction of the character Hilde enliven the last 200 pages, but to reach that point you first have to plod through the tedious 300 preceding pages.
You may want to fix yourself a nice pot of coffee before you set in on this one. If you don't, you -- like Hilde -- may jump awake in the middle of the night to the sound of Sophie's World slipping off your chest and onto your bedroom floor."
"Presents a straight-forward yet entertaining look on the different worldviews we encounter in life. A great introduction to philosophy book for youth, but really for all ages."
"I enjoyed the book immensely. I studied basic philosophy in college so I soon became aware that many philosophers were left out and whole era's were glossed over in this book. You know, that's OK. One - It's not a text book and two - It's NOT a text book!
The stories are separate and finally come together in a fairly predictable way. It is a bit didactic, but imagine yourself a very bright, curious, thoughtful and sensitive 14, 15 or 16 year-old struggling with the usual thoughts and feelings of angst and hormones and loneliness and you stumble onto this book and identify with the character (or at least like her) and suddenly your not the only one thinking these thoughts or dreaming these ideas. They aren't being forced on you by a teacher, but are shared through a book. You are not alone, there are entire schools of thought written about these thoughts and feelings. For that child is this book written. So he or she can then explore what they found in the pages of this book and see where it takes them. It's not a textbook, it's Alice's potion or Neo's pill. To me, that is worthy of 5+ stars any day of the week."
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