Fate In Sophie's World

The Progression of History and Philosophy with Sophie

These weekly writings are connected by how history is always progressing due to people connecting better with themselves, and acknowledging how we can open up to things we don’t understand. If you believe in free will, you can’t believe in fate. Sophie Amundsen from the novel Sophie’s World is in this position. She has been learning all about philosophy and why things happen by her philosophy teacher, Alberto Knox. She starts to get random letters from this man named Albert Knag, addressed to Hilde, his daughter. This confuses them both, but they eventually connect the dots. They are both characters in a book Albert is reading to Hilde, inside this novel. Jostein Gaarder shows us the twist

The first question is, “Do you believe in Fate?” In this novel, she isn’t sure if she believes in fate at first. She thought if you believed in astrology, you believed in fate also. According to Sophie, “Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition?” (Gaarder 50). Superstition and fate were two different concepts; however, if you believe in fate, you don’t believe in free will. The second question is, “What forces govern the course of history?” She had a tougher time answering this question. She thought people could govern the course of history. According to Sophie, “If it was God or Fate, people had no free will” (Gaarder 50). Because of this, people can control what can happen to them only if they don’t believe in God or

The novel begins with an epigraph: "He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth" (Gaarder 161). This quote in Sophie’s World is included in this chapter because you need to be able to understand how history came to be. If you can’t understand history or don’t know what is going on right now in the world, then you are as poor as can be. For example, if you don’t know how Christianity began, you don’t understand why people believe in what they do. In philosophy, belief has a lot of importance because it defines and sets the blueprint for what and who people want to be. All the things humans do are based on what we believe in. It determines our lifestyle and the culture we are involved in. Even though philosophy is more than believing, it still helps us determine our reasoning and understanding of the world around us. According to Gaarder, “Aristotle held that all our thoughts and ideas have come into our consciousness through what we have heard and seen” (Gaarder 108). He believed there is a purpose for everything, and he understood what was going on around him. Everybody has something they believe in, whether it’s reincarnation or Christianity. You need to know about your historical roots in order to be a human being. Without knowing about the people and events that have happened before us, we are just ordinary, ignorant