LA SALLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL ADVANCED PLACEMENT MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY SUMMER READING 2016

SOCIAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT

BOOK: Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. ISBN: 13: 978-0425156841 Kindle Available: $ 9.94

SOPHIE’S WORLD: A NOVEL ABOUT the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION:

Students will read Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder in order to gain a deeper understanding of the major philosophical ideas that underpin Western Society from Ancient Greece up until the modern day. Students will complete a written assignment in two parts based on their reading. The first part requires choosing individuals that are discussed in the book, summarizing their ideas, researching their life and times, and responding to their main ideas. The second part requires students to choose from among a list of discussion questions regarding the book and to formulate responses to the chosen questions.

ASSIGNMENT:

Part I.

Directions:  Pick a total of 8 Names from the list of Chapters below  You must pick at least 1 name from the Chapters that have an * next to them  You can pick a maximum of 2 names from any 1 chapter  You are to write a 1 paragraph summary in your own words of the person’s ideas as presented in the novel, 1 paragraph of research on their life and times written in your own words, and 1 paragraph on your opinion of their ideas. For any outside research please include an in text MLA citation of where your source material is from.

The Renaissance*  Giordano Bruno  Galileo Galilei  Francis Bacon  Nicholas Copernicus  Johannes Kepler  Isaac Newton  Martin Luther  Erasmus  Leonardo DaVinci

The Baroque  Shakespeare  Galderon de la Barca  Petter Dass  Thomas Hobbes  La Mettrie  Laplace  Leibniz Descartes  Rene Descartes

Spinoza  Baruch Spinoza

Locke  John Locke

Hume  David Hume

Berkeley  George Berkeley

The Enlightenment*  Montesquieu  Voltaire  Rousseau  Olympe de Gouges

Kant  Immanuel Kant

Romanticism*  Beethoven  Goethe  Schelling  Johann Gottfried von Herder  Hans Christian Anderson  E.T.A. Hoffmann  Asbjornsen  Moe  Fichte  Henrik Ibsen

Hegel  George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Kierkegaard  Soren Kierkegaard

Marx  Karl Marx  Friedrich Engels  John Rawls

Darwin  Charles Darwin

Freud  Sigmund Freud  Andre Breton

Our Own Time*  Friedrich Nietzche  Martin Heidegger  Jean-Paul Sartre  Simone de Beauvoir  Albert Camus  Samuel Beckett  Eugene Lonesco  Witold Gombrowicz  Arne Naess

Part II.

Reading Group Guide

Directions:  Using the, “Reading Group Guide” contained in the back of the book and reproduced here you are to answer questions based on the following format o Questions 1 – 5 (Pick 2 questions) o Questions 6 – 10 (Pick 2 questions) o Questions 11 – 16 (Pick 3 questions)  Responses should be clearly numbered and should be approximately 2 paragraphs each

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. The first chapter’s title, “The Garden of Eden,” underscores the concept of beginnings and origins. How did you first respond to the initial two questions, “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” Did your answers change by the time you reached the end of the novel?

2. When Sophie first starts receiving letters from the philosophy teacher, she finds that each one is slightly damp, having “two little holes in it. ” Thinking of Sophie’s World as a mystery novel, what other “clues” did you encounter over the course of the book? Were you able to use them to solve any riddles?

3. As Sophie watched the video tape in secret, what was your understanding of how Alberto Knox was able to bring ancient Athens back to life? What distinctions are made in the novel between reality and the surreal? How do such distinctions play out in your own life?

4. How did you react to Aristotle’s views on women? In your opinion, which of the thinkers in Gaarder’s history provided admirable answers to questions about gender? What did you make of the fact that a vast majority of the authorities in the novel are men?

5. In the “Middle Ages” chapter, Alberto says, “We can say that Aquinas Christianized Aristotle in the same way that St. Augustine Christianized Plato.” What was the result as these great medieval thinkers applied the teachings of Christ to ancient philosophy?

6. “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?

7. “Bjerkely” marks the transition from Sophie’s to Hilde’s point of view. Both of the heroines in Sophie’s World 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?

8. What parallel does Hilde’s father build between the French Enlightenment and the United Nations? How does this parallel compare to the UN analogies in the “Kierkegaard” chapter? In what other ways does philosophy reverberate throughout current international politics?