I am currently reading “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder and it has reawakened the philosophical wonderment that I first experienced in high school. I remember I had an Ethics teacher who had to leave unexpectedly early on maternity leave and a substitute teacher was called in to take her place on the very short notice. He looked at the lesson plans and figured that our young minds needed to be exposed to some completely different, not so cookie-cutter, material. We needed a multisided story about life that some might not otherwise be exposed to sitting in a Jesuit classroom. We needed to learn about Camus and Freud and Nietzche. About Plato’s allegory of the cave. We needed to think for ourselves and about ourselves. I remember that I had the feeling that someone was finally exposing the personal questions I had about the meaning of life, existence, and purpose. Some students dismissed that class but these questions and more have stuck with me. I have once again found myself falling down that so-called rabbit hole.

There’s a lot in this book to take in and that is worthy of repeating but alas I cannot write it all. I am also only up to the Baroque period and have a lot more to rediscover about late and modern day philosophy. One excerpt stuck out to me due in part to the state of the world at the moment. The narrator is speaking to the main character, a 14-year old girl, he is giving a long philosophical history lesson to via letters and later in-person meetings. He is finished speaking about antiquity and explains that almost one thousand years have passed since the days of the early Greek philosophers. Next would be the Christian Middle Ages, which also lasted for about a thousand years. He states:

The German poet Goethe once said that ‘he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.’ I don’t want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.

I thought that this excerpt was so powerful and a great message to all people who choose not to learn from what has come before them before shouting their opinions from the rooftops. You might have heard the quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” by the writer and philosopher George Santayana. This is so widely accepted yet so many people fail or choose not to learn from those who came before them.

Early Greek philosophers reasoned using nothing more than the thoughts in their heads and the experiences with the society around them. Philosophy has evolved over thousands of years but we should not forget those roots and all that has been learned since then. Sir Francis Bacon’s quote, “ipsa scientia protestas est” or “knowledge itself is power” is what I believe will make the world a better place. A focus on education and open dialogue will do wonders for close-minded fear-mongering people. You are an individual who shares this world with everyone around you.

What if we lived in a world made up of people with an insatiable desire for knowledge?