Reflections & Connections #4

In the chapter about Hume and Berkeley in Sophie’s World, there are many twists that came straight out of left field. First of all, it blew my mind when Hilde ripped open the ominous package in her room only to find a book written by her father entitled Sophie’s world. As soon as this happened, I knew that the book had trolled me hard. I thought something was up when Sophie started seeing and hearing weird things, but I thought nothing of it. I was absolutely sure that Alberto was somehow playing tricks on Sophie; hiding the cross underneath her pillow, and deceiving her into believe that Hermes could speak. It never even crossed my mind that Sophie’s existence may not be real. In the book, Sophie’s life and actions seem entirely plausible, and I would have never guessed that it was fiction. In the novel, if Sophie truly does not exist at all in the real world at all in the real world I will be thoroughly upset. I can relate the events occurring in the book to my life because all of my actions and all of the people in my life seem entirely real. Only until I was enrolled in the Honors Philosophy course and stated reading Sophie’s World did I start to question the reality of my existence. My life could be similar to Sophie’s and that is scary. I could just be a thought in someone’s head or words on a sheet of paper. My existence could be entirely false. I really really hope it’s not.

Reflections and  Connections #3

As I delve further and further into the novel that is known as Sophie’s World, I begin to notice many similarities between Spinoza’s philosophy and Sophie’s life. Although I have only just learned of Spinoza, many of his philosophies seem to be related to the events that occur in Sophie’s life; I feel a strong link between them. Spinoza had the belief that the universe was rational, and things that seemed irrational were really just complex versions of rational things. Sophie sees many things that are unbelievable and unexplainable and, most of all, irrational. In her world she sees dogs that can talk and finds messages inside of bananas. These things do not happen to your normal human being. Although it seems impossible to see and hear these things, Spinoza would believe that there were rational explanations. It seems pretty rational to me that Sophie could have been staring at Hermes’ mouth and she may have heard the words “happy birthday” come from someone else’s mouth. The senses of hearing and sight would link in Sophie’s brain and she would conclude that Hermes had spoken, when he really didn’t. Sophie could have been experiencing something entirely rational, but she may have convinced herself that it was irrational. So, as Sophie tries to learn Spinoza’s philosophy she literally experiences a situation relating to it first-hand. Although she doesn’t agree with Spinoza’s philosophy yet and believes that irrational things do happen I believe that she will shortly realize that her mind can deceive her and lead her to believe that irregular things happen.