Sophie’s World and Philosophy — Why the Questions Still Matter

I haven't finished Sophie’s World.

In fact, at the time of writing this, I've barely begun the journey properly. But perhaps that's rather fitting for a book about philosophy.

Philosophy isn't really something we finish. There is no last page where we can confidently close the cover and announce, Right then. I've worked out life.

If only.

A book, a coffee, and a question you might still be thinking about tomorrow.

Jostein Gaarder's Sophie’s World has been sitting on my reading list because it represents something I keep returning to in my own writing: the importance of questioning what we think we know.

Who are we?

Why are we here?

What makes something right or wrong?

What is consciousness?

What makes a good life?

How much of what we believe have we actually chosen for ourselves?

And perhaps one of my favourites: How do we know that what we think we know is actually true?

These questions aren't new. Some of them have been argued over for thousands of years.

And yet here we are.

Still asking.

Sophie’s World and Philosophy — Why the Questions Still Matter

Sophie’s World and philosophy come together through an ordinary girl receiving an extraordinary question:

Who are you?

Simple enough.

Until you try to answer it.

You can give your name, your age, your occupation, where you live and perhaps a few words describing your personality. But none of those things completely answers the question.

Who are you beneath all of that?

That question sits beautifully alongside something I have returned to repeatedly here at Deb Eternal: the idea that we are not one fixed person travelling unchanged through life.

We become...

We learn something and change our minds. We experience grief and see the world differently. We love someone. Lose someone. Raise children. Make mistakes. Read books. Meet people whose beliefs challenge ours. Discover that something we accepted at twenty makes absolutely no sense to us at fifty or sixty.

Perhaps wisdom isn't knowing more.

Perhaps part of wisdom is becoming increasingly comfortable saying:

I don't know. But I'd like to understand.

That is where philosophy begins.

Philosophy Isn't Just Something Ancient Men Did

Mention philosophy, and it's easy to picture bearded Greek men standing around in robes discussing existence while everyone else gets on with the practical business of living.

But philosophy has always been practical.

Socrates questioned how people should live.

Epicurus considered what actually makes us happy.

The Stoics explored how we respond to circumstances outside our control.

Plato questioned reality and knowledge.

Aristotle examined ethics, politics, reason, nature and what it means for human beings to flourish.

Centuries later, philosophers continued asking about consciousness, freedom, morality, society, religion, knowledge and existence.

Change the clothing, remove the columns and give everyone a smartphone, and many of the questions remain remarkably familiar.

What makes a meaningful life?

Why do people behave as they do?

What should we believe?

Who should we trust?

What do we owe one another?

What is enough?

What happens when our beliefs collide?

Maybe people haven't changed quite as much as we imagine.

Why Philosophy Matters in the World Today

We have something the ancient philosophers could never have imagined: almost unlimited access to information.

And strangely, that may make philosophy more important rather than less.

We can search for an answer within seconds. Algorithms can decide what information appears in front of us. Social media can turn an opinion into an apparent fact simply because thousands of people repeat it. Headlines compete for our emotions. Artificial intelligence can produce explanations faster than most of us could research them ourselves.

But access to information and the ability to think about information are two very different things.

Philosophy asks us to slow the process down.

Who said this?

What evidence supports it?

What assumptions am I making?

Why do I believe this?

Would I still believe it if I had been born somewhere else?

What might change my mind?

Those questions matter enormously in a world overflowing with answers.

Philosophy in the World Today Begins With Questioning

One of the strongest threads running through my writing has become the simple instruction to question everything.

Not because everything is false.

Because everything deserves examination.

There is an enormous difference.

Questioning isn't cynicism. It isn't automatically rejecting religion, science, tradition, authority or other people's experiences. It means being curious enough to look more closely.

Where did this idea come from?

Does it still make sense?

Is this something I believe - or something I inherited?

And what happens if I allow myself to think differently?

This is where philosophy stops being an academic subject and becomes something deeply personal.

The Person You Were Isn't the Person Reading This

There is another reason Sophie’s World appeals to me.

Reading philosophy can change the reader.

A book may contain exactly the same words when we return to it ten years later, yet somehow we read a completely different book.

The words haven't changed.

We have.

Experience has happened between those readings.

This is something that fascinates me.

Throughout a lifetime, we become many versions of ourselves. We don't necessarily notice the transition because it happens gradually. Yet look backwards far enough and you may barely recognise the person who once made certain decisions, held particular beliefs or worried desperately about things that now seem insignificant.

That doesn't mean the earlier version of you was foolish.

That person simply knew what they knew then.

Learning gives the next version of us something more to work with.

Perhaps this is one of philosophy's greatest gifts. It gives us permission to change our minds.

Ancient Questions in Modern Clothes

Consider how much the world has changed since Socrates walked through Athens.

Cars. Aircraft. Electricity. Modern medicine. Computers. Satellites. The internet. Smartphones. Artificial intelligence.

Extraordinary progress.

Now consider the human being carrying the smartphone.

We still fall in love.

We still become jealous.

We still fear losing people.

We still compare ourselves with others.

We still worry about money, status, ageing and death.

We still want to belong.

We still argue about power.

We still wonder whether we're making the right decisions.

We still search for happiness and occasionally discover that getting what we wanted didn't make us nearly as happy as we expected.

The scenery has changed dramatically.

The internal conversation?

Perhaps not nearly as much.

And that may explain why someone who lived two thousand years ago can still occasionally say something that makes us put down the book and think:

Well. That's uncomfortably accurate.

Philosophy Doesn't Have to Give Us the Answer

I don't think the purpose of philosophy is necessarily to find the answer.

I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that humanity may never have one.

Perhaps its value lies in teaching us how to ask better questions.

There is something freeing about that.

We can explore science without believing science has answered everything.

We can explore spiritual ideas without surrendering our critical thinking.

We can read ancient philosophy without pretending ancient philosophers knew everything.

We can listen to people whose beliefs are completely different from ours without immediately needing to prove them wrong.

We can even question ourselves.

Especially ourselves.

That might be the hardest philosophy of all.

Books Worth Opening. Ideas Worth Questioning.

This is why I'm going to read Sophie’s World.

Not because I expect Jostein Gaarder - or Socrates, Plato, Aristotle or anyone else encountered along the way - to tell me exactly what life means.

I'm reading because I want to keep asking.

And perhaps that's why books have become such an important part of what I'm building here.

A good book doesn't always give us something to believe.

Sometimes it gives us something to question.

Sometimes it introduces an idea we reject completely.

Sometimes we carry one paragraph around in our heads for days.

And occasionally a book gives language to something we've quietly suspected for years.

Those are the books worth opening.

A Thought to Take With You

Imagine meeting yourself at eighteen.

Then thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

Would each version of you believe exactly what you believe today?

Probably not.

And that's a wonderful thing.

We are allowed to reconsider.

We are allowed to learn.

We are allowed to say, I used to think this, but now I'm not so sure.

Maybe philosophy has survived for thousands of years because human beings haven't changed nearly as much as our surroundings have.

We still want to know who we are.

We still wonder why we're here.

We still want to understand other people.

We still search for meaning.

And somewhere, thousands of years after the questions were first written down, another person opens another book and begins again.

Who am I?

What a wonderful question to never completely finish answering.

Namaste

Deb xx

Thoughtful writing across life, mind, and meaning.

📚 Read It With Me

Curious too? Find Sophie’s World in the Deb Eternal Book Library, read it with me, then come back and share what made you think.