Sophie's World_ A Novel About The History Of Philosophy Part 34

"What do you mean by more or less?"

"I have the feeling there won't be any more."

But as he said this, something began to happen in the middle of the lake. Something was bubbling up from the depths. A huge and hideous creature rose from the surface.

"A sea serpent!" cried Sophie.

The dark monster coiled itself back and forth a few times and then disappeared back into the depths. The water was as still as before.

Alberto had turned away.

"Now we'll go inside," he said.

They went into the little hut.

Sophie stood looking at the two pictures of Berkeley and Bjerkely. She pointed to the picture of Bjerkely and said: "I think Hilde lives somewhere inside that picture."

An embroidered sampler now hung between the two pictures. It read: LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY.

Sophie turned to Alberto: "Did you hang that there?"

He just shook his head with a disconsolate expression.

Then Sophie discovered a small envelope on the mantelpiece. "To Hilde and Sophie," it said. Sophie knew at once who it was from, but it was a new turn of events that he had begun to count on her.

She opened the letter and read aloud: Dear both of you, Sophie's philosophy teacher ought to have underlined the significance of the French Enlightenment for the ideals and principles the UN is founded on. Two hundred years ago, the slogan "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" helped unite the people of France. Today the same words should unite the whole world. It is more important now than ever before to be one big Family of Man. Our descendants are our own children and grandchildren. What kind of world are they inheriting from us?

Hilde's mother was calling from downstairs that the mystery was starting in ten minutes and that she had put the pizza in the oven. Hilde was quite exhausted after all she had read. She had been up since six o'clock this morning.

She decided to spend the rest of the evening celebrating her birthday with her mother. But first she had to look something up in her encyclopedia.

Gouges ... no. De Gouges? No again. Olympe de Gouges? Still a blank. This encyclopedia had not written one single word about the woman who was beheaded for her political commitment. Wasn't that scandalous!

She was surely not just someone her father had thought up?

Hilde ran downstairs to get a bigger encyclopedia.

"I just have to look something up," she said to her astounded mother.

She took the FORV to GP volume of the big family encyclopedia and ran up to her room again.

Gouges ... there she was!

Gouges, Marie Olympe (1748-1793), Fr. author, played a prominent role during the French Revolution with numerous brochures on social questions and several plays. One of the few during the Revolution who campaigned for human rights to apply to women. In 1791 published "Declaration on the Rights of Women." Beheaded in 1793 for daring to defend Louis XVI and oppose Robespierre. (Lit: L. Lacour, "Les Origines du feminisme contem-porain," 1900)

Kant

...the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me...

It was close to midnight before Major Albert Knag called home to wish Hilde a happy birthday. Hilde's mother answered the telephone.

"It's for you, Hilde."

"h.e.l.lo?"

"It's Dad."

"Are you crazy? It's nearly midnight!"

"I just wanted to say Happy Birthday ..."

"You've been doing that all day."

"... but I didn't want to call before the day was over."

"Why?"

"Didn't you get my present?"

"Yes, I did. Thank you very much."

"I can't wait to hear what you think of it."

"It's terrific. I have hardly eaten all day, it's so exciting."

"I have to know how far you've gotten."

"They just went inside the major's cabin because you started teasing them with a sea serpent."

"The Enlightenment."

"And Olympe de Gouges."

"So I didn't get it completely wrong."

"Wrong in what way?"

"I think there's one more birthday greeting to come. But that one is set to music."

"I'd better read a little more before I go to sleep."

"You haven't given up, then?"

"I've learned more in this one day than ever before. I can hardly believe that it's less than twenty-four hours since Sophie got home from school and found the first envelope."

"It's strange how little time it takes to read."

"But I can't help feeling sorry for her."

"For Mom?"

"No, for Sophie, of course."

"Why?"

"The poor girl is totally confused."

"But she's only ..."

"You were going to say she's only made up."

"Yes, something like that."

"I think Sophie and Alberto really exist."

"We'll talk more about it when I get home."

"Okay."

"Have a nice day."

"What?"

"I mean good night."

"Good night."

When Hilde went to bed half an hour later it was still so light that she could see the garden and the little bay. It never got really dark at this time of the year.

She played with the idea that she was inside a picture hanging on the wall of the little cabin in the woods. She wondered if one could look out of the picture into what surrounded it.

Before she fell asleep, she read a few more pages in the big ring binder.

Sophie put the letter from Hilde's father back on the mantel.

"What he says about the UN is not unimportant," said Alberto, "but I don't like him interfering in my presentation."

"I don't think you should worry too much about that."

"Nevertheless, from now on I intend to ignore all extraordinary phenomena such as sea serpents and the like. Let's sit here by the window while I tell you about Kant."

Sophie noticed a pair of gla.s.ses lying on a small table between two armchairs. She also noticed that the lenses were red.

Maybe they were strong sungla.s.ses . . .

"It's almost two o'clock," she said. "I have to be home before five. Mom has probably made plans for my birthday."

"That gives us three hours."

"Let's start."

"Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in the East Prussian town of Konigsberg, the son of a master saddler. He lived there practically all his life until he died at the age of eighty. His family was deeply pious, and his own religious conviction formed a significant background to his philosophy. Like Berkeley, he felt it was essential to preserve the foundations of Christian belief."

"I've heard enough about Berkeley, thanks."

"Kant was the first of the philosophers we have heard about so far to have taught philosophy at a university. He was a professor of philosophy."

"Professor?"

"There are two kinds of philosopher. One is a person who seeks his own answers to philosophical questions. The other is someone who is an expert on the history of philosophy but does not necessarily construct his own philosophy."

"And Kant was that kind?"

"Kant was both. If he had simply been a brilliant professor and an expert on the ideas of other philosophers, he would never have carved a place for himself in the history of philosophy. But it is important to note that Kant had a solid grounding in the philosophic tradition of the past. He was familiar both with the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume."

"I asked you not to mention Berkeley again."

"Remember that the rationalists believed that the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind. And that the empiricists believed all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses. Moreover, Hume had pointed out that there are clear limits regarding which conclusions we could reach through our sense perceptions."

"And who did Kant agree with?"

"He thought both views were partly right, but he thought both were partly wrong, too. The question everybody was concerned with was what we can know about the world. This philosophical project had been preoccupying all philosophers since Descartes.

"Two main possibilities were drawn up: either the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason."

"And what did Kant think?"

"Kant thought that both 'sensing' and 'reason' come into play in our conception of the world. But he thought the rationalists went too far in their claims as to how much reason can contribute, and he also thought the empiricists placed too much emphasis on sensory experience."

"If you don't give me an example soon, it will all be just a bunch of words."

"In his point of departure Kant agrees with Hume and the empiricists that all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. But-and here Kant stretches his hand out to the rationalists-in our reason there are also decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us. In other words, there are certain conditions in the human mind that are contributive to our conception of the world."

"You call that an example?"

"Let us rather do a little experiment. Could you bring those gla.s.ses from the table over there? Thank you. Now, put them on."