Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Interview

Gaarder’s World

Philosophy Now interviews Jostein Gaarder, author of the best-selling history of philosophy, Sophie’s World.

The surprise bestseller of the last year not only in Britain but in Germany and Scandinavia too has been Sophie’s World by the Norwegian schoolteacher Jostein Gaarder. The surprise has been that this is a history of philosophy, not previously regarded as a particularly sexy subject by the publishing barons. The central character, a teenager called Sophie, receives a series of envelopes from a mysterious stranger, each one containing a lecture on philosophy. The plot has a good twist about halfway through, which in the best Mousetrap tradition we won’t reveal here.

PN So far as your publishers can tell, this book is being bought by people of all ages, but it was originally intended for teenagers.

…