Sophie’s World Reading Questions
TOK 11
In addition to answering the following questions (in depth!) also write one paragraph summaries
of three chapters from the reading (must include the last chapter of the reading)
Questions on reading through the “Athens” chapter:
1. What are Sophie’s presuppositions (i.e. fundamental beliefs)?
2. Explain the author’s take on philosophy and what is required to study this field.
3. Why are the questions “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from”
important? What is being communicated by entitling chapter one as “The Garden of
Eden”?
4. What distinctions are made in the chapter on Socrates between reality and the surreal?
Are these distinctions legitimate descriptions of these topics?
5. What are Aristotle’s views on women? Does the fact that the vast majority of the
authorities in the western philosophy are men mean that human history up to the modern
day is fundamentally sexist?
6. Describe at least four differences between Plato and Aristotle as it pertains to their
philosophical thought (Ladder of Being must be one of them).
7. In the “Middle Ages” chapter, Alberto says, “We can say that Aquinas Christianized
Aristotle in the same way that St. Augustine Christianized Plato.” Discuss the legitimacy
of these claims. Make sure to highlight similarities and differences. What was the result
as these great medieval thinkers applied the teachings of Christ to ancient philosophy?
8. Take two philosophers from different time periods (any two you’ve encountered so far)
and discuss the ways in which their historical context played a role in their philosophy.
9. “You could say,” Alberto tells Sophie, “that a process started in the Renaissance finally
brought people to the moon. Or for that matter to Hiroshima or Chernobyl.” What is this
process? What is the relationship between philosophy, religion, economics, and science?
How much of contemporary life is the result of Renaissance ideals?
10. Explain how Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke are all three dualists. Highlight their
dualistic similarities and differences.
11. “Bjerkely” marks the transition from Sophie’s to Hilde’s point of view. Both of the
heroines in the novel are going through phases of rapid physical, intellectual, and
emotional development. How do their lives, personalities, and philosophies compare?
What makes Berkeley/Bjerkely an appropriate backdrop for putting such dualities in the
spotlight?
12. Explain the ‘red-tinted glasses’ experiment employed in the “Kant” chapter. What does
Sophie discover about rationalists and empiricists along the way?
13. In what way is Kant a milder version of David Hume? Is it fair to say that without Hume
we do not have Kant and without Kant we do not have our current mindset on the
fact/value dichotomy?
14. How is Hegel’s dialectic system a reaction to the rugged individualism of the Romantic
period? In what ways does this tension exist in both our country and in others around the
world?
15. In the “Romanticism” chapter, Alberto quotes a character from Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Bynt
as saying, “One cannot die in the middle of Act Five.” How should this line be
interpreted? What do poets and the other philosophers in this chapter say about the
nature of life and identity? Compare and contrast this with the thought of Kirkegaard.
16. “In a sense,” Alberto tells Sophie, “Freud demonstrated that there is an artist in
everyone.” Is this point of view valid? Compared to other ideas we’ve encountered
in the book, were Freud’s the most radical or most mundane?
17. Discuss the role of reason, perception, and faith in the thought of Marx, Darwin,
and Freud. Show how these ways of knowing affect the major ideas discussed in the
chapters devoted to them.