Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

  “There it is again!”

  “But Hegel’s dialectic is not only applicable to history. When we discuss something, we think dialectically. We try to find flaws in the argument. Hegel called that ‘negative thinking.’ But when we find flaws in an argument, we preserve the best of it.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Well, when a socialist and a conservative sit down together to resolve a social problem, a tension will quickly be revealed between their conflicting modes of thought. But this does not mean that one is absolutely right and the other totally wrong. It is possible that they are both partly right and partly wrong. And as the argument evolves, the best of both arguments will often crystallize.”

  “I hope.”

  “But while we are in the throes of a discussion like that, it is not easy to decide which position is more rational. In a way, it’s up to history to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. The reasonable is that which is viable.”

  “Whatever survives is right.”

  “Or vice versa: that which is right survives.”

  “Don’t you have a tiny example for me?”

  “One hundred and fifty years ago there were a lot of people fighting for women’s rights. Many people also bitterly opposed giving women equal rights. When we read the arguments of both sides today, it is not difficult to see which side had the more ‘reasonable’ opinions. But we must not forget that we have the knowledge of hindsight.

  If ‘proved to be the case’ that those who fought for equality were right. A lot of people would no doubt cringe if they saw in print what their grandfathers had said on the matter.”

  “I’m sure they would. What was Hegel’s view?”

  “About equality of the sexes?”

  “Isn’t that what we are talking about?”

  “Would you like to hear a quote?”

  “Very much.”

  “ The difference between man and woman is like that between animals and plants,’ he said. ‘Men correspond to animals, while women correspond to plants because their development is more placid and the principle that underlies it is the rather vague unity of feeling. When women hold the helm of government, the state is at once in jeopardy, because women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions. Women are educated—who knows how?—as it were by breathing in ideas, by living rather than by acquiring knowledge. The status of manhood, on the other hand, is attained only by the stress of thought and much technical exertion.’ “

  “Thank you, that will be quite enough. I’d rather not hear any more statements like that.”

  “But it is a striking example of how people’s views of what is rational change all the time. It shows that Hegel was also a child of his time. And so are we. Our ‘obvious’ views will not stand the test of time either.”

  “What views, for example?”

  “I have no such examples.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I would be exemplifying things that are already undergoing a change. For instance, I could say it’s stupid to drive a car because cars pollute the environment. Lots of people think this already. But history will prove that much of what we think is obvious will not hold up in the light of history.”

  “I see.”

  “We can also observe something else: The many men in Hegel’s time who could reel off gross broadsides like that one on the inferiority of women hastened the development of feminism.”

  “How so?”

  “They proposed a thesis. Why? Because women had already begun to rebel. There’s no need to have an opinion on something everyone agrees on. And the more grossly they expressed themselves about women’s inferiority, the stronger became the negation.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face. There’s a saying about ‘more grist to the mill.’ “

  “My mill began to grind more energetically a minute ago!”

  “From the point of view of pure logic or philosophy, there will often be a dialectical tension between two concepts.”

  “For example?”

  “If I reflect on the concept of ‘being,’ I will be obliged to introduce the opposite concept, that of ‘nothing.’ You can’t reflect on your existence without immediately realizing that you won’t always exist. The tension between ‘being’ and ‘nothing’ becomes resolved in the concept of ‘becoming.’ Because if something is in the process of becoming, it both is and is not.”

  “I see that.”

  “Hegel’s ‘reason’ is thus dynamic logic. Since reality is characterized by opposites, a description of reality must therefore also be full of opposites. Here is another example for you: the Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr is said to have told a story about Newton’s having a horseshoe over his front door.”

  “That’s for luck.”

  “But it is only a superstition, and Newton was anything but superstitious. When someone asked him if he really believed in that kind of thing, he said, ‘No, I don’t, but I’m told it works anyway.’ “

  “Amazing.”

  “But his answer was quite dialectical, a contradiction in terms, almost. Niels Bohr, who, like our own Norwegian poet Vinje, was known for his ambivalence, once said: There are two kinds of truths. There are the superficial truths, the opposite of which are obviously wrong. But there are also the profound truths, whose op-posites are equally right.”

  “What kind of truths can they be?”

  “If I say life is short, for example . . .”

  “I would agree.”

  “But on another occasion I could throw open my arms and say life is long.”

  “You’re right. That’s also true, in a sense.”

  “Finally I’ll give you an example of how a dialectic tension can result in a spontaneous act which leads to a sudden change.”

  “Yes, do.”

  “Imagine a young girl who always answers her mother with Yes, Mom ... Okay, Mom ... As you wish, Mom ... At once, Mom.”

  “Gives me the shudders!”

  “Finally the girl’s mother gets absolutely maddened by her daughter’s overobedience, and shouts: Stop being such a goody-goody! And the girl answers: Okay, Mom.”

  “I would have slapped her.”

  “Perhaps. But what would you have done if the girl had answered instead: But I wonf to be a goody-goody?”

  “That would have been an odd answer. Maybe I would have slapped her anyway.”

  “In other words, the situation was deadlocked. The dialectic tension had come to a point where something had to happen.”

  “Like a slap in the face?”

  “A final aspect of Hegel’s philosophy needs to be mentioned here.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Do you remember how we said that the Romantics were individualists?”

  “The path of mystery leads inwards ...”

  “This individualism also met its negation, or opposite, in Hegel’s philosophy. Hegel emphasized what he called the ‘objective’ powers. Among such powers, Hegel emphasized the importance of the family, civil society, and the state. You might say that Hegel was somewhat skeptical of the individual. He believed that the individual was an organic part of the community. Reason, or ‘world spirit/ came to light first and foremost in the interplay of people.”

  “Explain that more clearly, please!”

  “Reason manifests itself above all in language. And a language is something we are born into. The Norwegian language manages quite well without Mr. Hansen, but Mr. Hansen cannot manage without Norwegian. It is thus not the individual who forms the language, it is the language which forms the individual.”

  “I guess you could say so.”

  “In the same way that a baby is born into a language, it is also born into its historical background. And nobody has a ‘free’ rel
ationship to that kind of background. He who does not find his place within the state is therefore an unhistorical person. This idea, you may recall, was also central for the great Athenian philosophers. Just as the state is unthinkable without citizens, citizens are unthinkable without the state.”

  “Obviously.”

  “According to Hegel, the state is ‘more’ than the individual citizen. It is moreover more than the sum of its citizens. So Hegel says one cannot ‘resign from society.’ Anyone who simply shrugs their shoulders at the society they live in and wants to ‘find their soul/ will therefore be ridiculed.”

  “I don’t know whether I wholly agree, but okay.”

  “According to Hegel, it is not the individual that finds itself, it is the world spirit.”

  “The world spirit finds itself?”

  “Hegel said that the world spirit returns to itself in three stages. By that he means that it becomes conscious of itself in three stages.”

  “Which are?”

  “The world spirit first becomes conscious of itself in the individual. Hegel calls this subjective spirit. It reaches a higher consciousness in the family, civil society, and the state. Hegel calls this objective spirit because it appears in interaction between people. But there is a third stage ...”

  “And that is ... ?”

  “The world spirit reaches the highest form of self-realization in absolute spirit. And this absolute spirit is art, religion, and philosophy. And of these, philosophy is the highest form of knowledge because in philosophy, the world spirit reflects on its own impact on history. So the world spirit first meets itself in philosophy. You could say, perhaps, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit.”

  “This is so mysterious that I need to have time to think it over. But I liked the last bit you said.”

  “What, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit?”

  “Yes, that was beautiful. Do you think it has anything to do with the brass mirror?”

  “Since you ask, yes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I assume the brass mirror has some special significance since it is constantly cropping up.”

  “You must have an idea what that significance is?”

  “I haven’t. I merely said that it wouldn’t keep coming up unless it had a special significance for Hilde and her father. What that significance is only Hilde knows.”

  “Was that romantic irony?”

  “A hopeless question, Sophie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not us working with these things. We are only hapless victims of that irony. If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can’t ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.”

  “You give me the shudders.”

  Kierkegaard

  …Europe is on the road to bankruptcy…

  Hilde looked at her watch. It was already past four o’clock. She laid the ring binder on her desk and ran downstairs to the kitchen. She had to get down to the boathouse before her mother got tired of waiting for her. She glanced at the brass mirror as she passed.

  She quickly put the kettle on for tea and fixed some sandwiches.

  She had made up her mind to play a few tricks on her father. Hilde was beginning to feel more and more allied with Sophie and Alberto. Her plan would start when he got to Copenhagen.

  She went down to the boathouse with a large tray.

  “Here’s our brunch,” she said.

  Her mother was holding a block wrapped in sandpaper. She pushed a stray lock of hair back from her forehead. There was sand in her hair too.

  “Let’s drop dinner, then.”

  They sat down outside on the dock and began to eat.

  “When’s Dad arriving?” asked Hilde after a while.

  “On Saturday. I thought you knew that.”

  “But what time? Didn’t you say he was changing planes in Copenhagen?”

  “That’s right.

  Her mother took a bite of her sandwich.

  “He gets to Copenhagen at about five. The plane to Kristiansand leaves at a quarter to eight. He’ll probably land at Kjevik at half-past nine.”

  “So he has a few hours at Kastrup ...”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Nothing. I was just wondering.”

  When Hilde thought a suitable interval had elapsed, she said casually, “Have you heard from Anne and Ole lately?”

  “They call from time to time. They are coming home on vacation sometime in July.”

  “Not before?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So they’ll be in Copenhagen this week... ?”

  “Why all these questions, Hilde?”

  “No reason. Just small talk.”

  “You mentioned Copenhagen twice.”

  “I did?”

  “We talked about Dad touching down in ...”

  “That’s probably why I thought of Anne and Ole.”

  As soon as they finished eating, Hilde collected the mugs and plates on the tray.

  “I have to get on with my reading, Mom.”

  “I guess you must.”

  Was there a touch of reproach in her voice? They had talked about fixing up the boat together before Dad came home.

  “Dad almost made me promise to finish the book before he got home.”

  “It’s a little crazy. When he’s away, he doesn’t have to order us around back home.”

  “If you only knew how much he orders people around,” said Hilde enigmatically, “and you can’t imagine how much he enjoys it.”

  She returned to her room and went on reading.

  Suddenly Sophie heard a knock on the door. Alberto looked at her severely.

  “We don’t wish to be disturbed.”

  The knocking became louder.

  “I am going to tell you about a Danish philosopher who was infuriated by Hegel’s philosophy,” said Alberto.

  The knocking on the door grew so violent that the whole door shook.

  “It’s the major, of course, sending some phantasm to see whether we swallow the bait,” said Alberto. “It costs him no effort at all.”

  “But if we don’t open the door and see who it is, it won’t cost him any effort to tear the whole place down either.”

  “You might have a point there. We’d better open the door then.”

  They went to the door. Since the knocking had been so forceful, Sophie expected to see a very large person. But standing on the front step was a little girl with long fair hair, wearing a blue dress. She had a small bottle in each hand. One bottle was red, the other blue.

  “Hi,” said Sophie. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Alice,” said the girl, curtseying shyly.

  “I thought so,” said Alberto, nodding. “It’s Alice in Wonderland.”

  “How did she find her way to us?”

  Alice explained: “Wonderland is a completely borderless country. That means that Wonderland is everywhere—rather like the UN. It should be an honorary member of the UN. We should have representatives on all committees, because the UN also arose out of people’s wonder.”

  “Hm ... that major!” muttered Alberto.

  “And what brings you here?” asked Sophie.

  “I am to give Sophie these little philosophy bottles.”

  She handed the bottles to Sophie. There was red liquid in one and blue in the other. The label on the red bottle read DRINK ME, and on the blue one the label read DRINK ME too.

  The next second a white rabbit came hurrying past the cabin. It walked upright on two legs and was dressed in a waistcoat and jacket. Just in front of the cabin it took a pocket watch out of its waistcoat pocket and said:

  “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”

  Then it ran on. Alice began to run after it. Just before she ran into the woods, she curtsied and said, “Now it’s starting again.”

  “Say hello to Dinah and the Queen,” Sophie called after her.
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  Alberto and Sophie remained standing on the front step, examining the bottles.

  “DRINK ME and DRINK ME too,” read Sophie. “I don’t know if I dare. They might be poisonous.”

  Alberto merely shrugged his shoulders.

  “They come from the major, and everything that comes from the major is purely in the mind. So it’s only pretend-juice.”

  Sophie took the cap off the red bottle and put it cautiously to her lips. The juice had a strangely sweet taste, but that wasn’t all. As she drank, something started to happen to her surroundings.

  It felt as if the lake and the woods and the cabin all merged into one. Soon it seemed that everything she saw was one person, and that person was Sophie herself. She glanced up at Alberto, but he too seemed to be part of Sophie’s soul.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” she said. “Everything looks like it did before, but now it’s all one thing. I feel as if everything is one thought.”

  Alberto nodded—but it seemed to Sophie that it was she nodding to herself.

  “It is Pantheism or Idealism,” he said. “It is the Romantics’ world spirit. They experienced everything as one big ‘ego.’ It is also Hegel—who was critical of the individual, and who saw everything as the expression of the one and only world reason.”

  “Should I drink from the other bottle too?”

  “It says so on the label.”

  Sophie took the cap off the blue bottle and took a large gulp. This juice tasted fresher and sharper than the other. Again everything around her changed suddenly.

  Instantly the effects of the red bottle disappeared and everything slid back to its normal place. Alberto was Alberto, the trees were back in the woods and the water looked like a lake again.

  But it only lasted for a second, because things went on sliding away from each other. The woods were no longer woods and every little tree now seemed like a world in itself. The tiniest twig was like a fairy-tale world about which a thousand stories could be told.

  The little lake suddenly became a boundless ocean— not in depth or breadth, but in its glittering detail and the intricate patterns of its waves. Sophie felt she might spend a lifetime staring at this water and to her dying day it would still remain an unfathomable mystery.