Sophie's World

I like reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. It is an introduction to philosophy in an interesting way.

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. Gave me my first glimpses of philosophy at a young age and allowed me to get some perspective on my place in life.

"Mr Penumbra's 24 hour bookstore" - Robin Sloan (a brilliant mix of history, mystery, humour and technology) "The Cuckoo's Egg" - Clifford Stoll (it really is as good as they always say ;-) ) "Winnie the Pooh" - A.A. Milne (delightful, not only for children) "Sofie's World" - Jostein Gaarder (a novel about the history of philosophy) several Discworld novels - Terry Pratchett (a series that manages to satirize fantasy and real life at the same time) ... as well as a few others, but those were the best.

> Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder) A mindbender. I have fond memories of that book.

Sophie's World: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World Atlas Shrugged.

Granted it doesn't delve deep and is just a broad overview couched in a fun story, but do you know of better books that gives a chronological history of the development of philosophy? Some things I find useful to understand how they developed, in what chronological order, philosophy especially. Much of philosophy is a response to preceding ideas, and it helps to understand it all if you start at the beginning and work your way forward to present day, rather than read disjointed segments of it out of context from how it developed. I'm sure there's something better than Sophie's World for that, I just don't know what it is.

Why not? Do you consider it misleading, or just too simplistic? If the former, fair enough (though I'd love to hear details; I quite enjoyed Sophie). If the latter: I'm a big fan of light overviews. You can always go deeper into the areas you find interesting, whereas it's easy to get lost if you dive straight into the in-depth stuff.

Sophie's World is by far the best introduction to philosophy that you can read. It's presented in a narrative and the lessons are in conversation form. The plot is really good-- it goes very meta at the end.

It is with joy that I answer your question. And if I may be allowed to answer it philosophically. The books you find incredibly interesting may be the books the validate your worldview. There are many of these. The book you find eye-opening may be the books that open the door into the world of philosophy proper for you. There are not many of these because you only need to go through that door once I feel. Also, I would observe that besides Ayn Rand (who for many is not a philosopher) not a single female philosopher has been mentioned here which I find is a damning indictment on the state of affairs of the world of ideas. To remedy that I would recommend to you read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft or anything by De Beauvoir (and do ignore her contemporary Sartre for he was nothing but a windbag).…

I think the quality of advice you're getting on this thread is very mixed. Some of the books mentioned are absolutely great-- like "Being and Time", or Husserl's "Logical Investigations"-- but incredibly difficult to read unprepared. If you were ready to be reading them, you wouldn't be asking the question here. The two books you mention in the question (Common Sense and "On the Fourfold Root") are both quite readable, as are a few of the primary texts mentioned in the responses ("Existentialism is a Humanism", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra") but in general, I'd have to suggest you stay away from primary texts at first. In other words, begin by reading works about philosophy, rather than works of philosophy. A single-volume work on the history of philosophy will give you the broad scope (for example, Durant, or Russell, or "Sophie's World" if you prefer fiction), but will tend to turn the philosophers discussed into caricatures of themselves. You mention that you are in school; I'd suggest you take a philosophy course or two, if you are interested in the field. Having an experienced guide will definitely help.

Sophie's world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World It's a great book that takes you on a whirlwind tour of the most famous philosophers and their thoughts. What's more, it's woven into a suspense novel, so it keeps you reading!

Sophie's World is a fun novel and a map of the historical development of philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists). http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.htm... (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.html) My best friend in college was a Russian Jew whose family immigrated to US during the Cold War, and he kept that book on his coffee table. It's the Yin to Howard Zinn's Yang - A People's History of the United States - which even though it's not philosophy is worth reading too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United_States)

Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder Lives - Hendrik van Loon

How about... How the mind works (Pinker) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (Pirsig) Sophie's World (Gaarder)