Dead Philosophers' Cafe

<p>Eleven-year-old Nora K. received Jostein Gaarder's <i>Sophie's World </i>as a birthday present and in it she read about Plato's theory of ideas. One problem especially intrigued her: What about the Platonic idea of the dinosaur? Ideas are timeless and cannot die. The dinosaurs however became extinct ages ago. Does the idea of the dinosaur still exist all the same? Could it even be that the material world is a dream and time an illusion? Moreover is there such a thing as free will or is everything predetermined? Is the soul eternal? Do animals have a consciousness? Is the universe infinite? Is there such a thing as objective truth? Does God exist and why is there evil in the world?</p><p>These are some of Nora's questions which prompted her correspondence with Vittorio Hösle a philosopher by profession who invents a wonderful philosophical fantasy. Taking the film <i>Dead Poets Society</i> as his inspiration he creates a place where the great philosophers of antiquity and their modern successors can all meet. They gather in the Café of the Dead but Ever Young Philosophers and discuss Nora's letters--Parmenides and Socrates Descartes and Hobbes (whom Nora doesn't like at all) Mac (Machiavelli) and Kant Nora's patron philosopher Giambattista Vico and Hans Jonas and many others. The sparks fly from time to time as the great thinkers squabble quite frequently--no wonder since conflicting arguments from the entire history of philosophy collide with each other head-on.</p><p>Nora's letters are intelligent never precocious and always imaginative. Vittorio Hösle provides answers which are entertaining but still critical and he is clearly concerned about not setting his expectations of the child too low. In his afterword on children's philosophy and philosophy with children he sketches what role philosophy could play in raising children. The correspondence with Nora an authentic exchange of letters between January 1994 and January 1996 is a lovely document of a philosophical friendship between an adult and a child.</p><p><i>The Dead Philosophers' Café</i> has been widely translated and is now making its first appearance in the English language.</p>