words

Sophie's world

Jostein Gaarder

Translated by Paulette Møller(1994)

London: Phoenix, 1995

an excerpt:

"...Hello again! As you see, this short course in philosophy will come in handy-sized portions. Here are a few more introductory remarks:

Did i say that the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder? If i did not, I say it now: the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.

Babies have this faculty. That is not surprising. After a few short months in the womb they slip out into a brand-new reality. But as they grow up the faculty of wonder seems to diminish. Why is this? Do you know?

If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to everything it sees.

As words are gradually acquired, the child looks up and says 'Bow-wow' every time it sees a dog. It jumps up and down in it´s stroller waving its arms: 'Bow-wow! Bow-wow!' We who are older and wiser may feel somewhat exhausted by the child´s enthusiasm. 'All right, all right, it´s a bow-wow,' we say, unimpressed. 'Please sit still.' We are not enthralled. We have seen a dog before.

This rapturous perfomance may repeat itself hundreds of times before the child learns to pass a dog without going crazy. Or an elephant, or a hippopotamus. But long before the child learns to talk properly - and long before it learns to think philosophically - the world will have become a habit.

A pity, if you ask me..."