[Opinion] Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

[thorme]

Anyone else read this book?  I read it about 6 months ago, and was reminded about it today when I saw it in the bookstore.

As a philosophical newbie with neither the interest nor patience to dive deeply into philosophy, this book provided a great overview for me.  The kicker:  it was wrapped in a delightfully creative storyline.  I appreciated the easy-to-read and engaging context, allowing me to get an overview of the more famous philosophers' views.

I heartily recommend this book to those without a lot of philosophy knowledge.  I wonder what any of you philosophy guru's thought of this book, and whether its worth reading for those who are well versed in philosophy.

[Bram]

Only elitist bastards who wanna show off their superior inside knowledge say they don't like it

It's well-written and it does indeed provide a nice comprehensive overview for beginners. All philosophy students I have the patience to be around like it, too.

[waSP]

I read it for a crappy high school "philosophy" class.  It was most certainly the high point of that class.  Where I only bothered to skim the other texts, I read far ahead on this one.  It's the reason I started reading again after about a 4 year drought.  Finally something that was interesting and intelligent.

I dunno about you guys, but I find philosophical texts to be absolutely dry and overly lengthy (doing Hobbes for a Pol Phil class right now).  Explorations in Philosophy seem to be much better suited for a discussion rather than a written text.  The best philosophy lessons I've received have been on an internet radio show called "The Infidel Guy."  Anyone heard of that?

Are there any Philosophy texts that don't just kill you with their attempting to lay down a strong argument?

[Hi-Val]

I'm a philosophy major, so take my word when I say that all philosophy is boring as total shit. The Greek tragedies are the most entertaining tracts on it. It gets better when you hit the medievalists but then you get poeple like Kant and Hume who are boringly exacting.

I haven't read Sophie's World yet, much to my dismay. Any time that philosophy is entertaining, it's much better recieved and acted upon, IMO. Being dry and exact is one thing, but if you want people to actually believe you, there has to be some passion in the writing.

[Jacob Orlove]

Sophie's World was fun, but the ending was wayyyyy too postmodern. I liked Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a LOT more.