An Interesting Philosophy

[Writer]

I think Philosophers stone is better.
Perhaps because I'm in england and that's the title here. Also that is the original title.
Also the philosophers stone is mythical and goes beyond and further back than the Harry Potter books. I'm not entirely sure where it first originated but the earliest mention I have heard of it was in Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Philosopher's stone', written in 1859. I think it goes further back than that, even. The exact nature of the stone has changed throughout different reincarnations in different stories, though stayed fundamentally the same. This is undoubtedly where JKR got her inspiration.
I'm a big fan of Hans Christian Andersen

[Nobby]

I to favour the philosopher's stone as i am from england as well. I think i heard in an interview somewhere that JK was happy with the title being changed but beared with it because she just wanted people to read her books

[Athena Appleton]

I know, this is an old old thread and I am guilty of not reading all the posts, but I have the official answer.

Philosopher's Stone was the original title of the first Harry Potter book in Great Britain. However, in America, the word "philosopher" conjurs up an image of a boring ancient man rather than a mystical character... So they changed it to Sorcerer's Stone in the US (and I don't know which it is in the other various countries) to create an image of a mystical, magic stone, instead of a sit-around-in-the-library-reading-Socrates image...

[Hermione Weasley]

Well I think thecheese is on the right track bc there are different translations in different countries so they use different words.

[paintballdecoy]

A prefer the Philosopher Stone, sounds more mysterious to me

[Athena Appleton]

Out of curiosity, paintball, where are you from?

I'm from the U.S. I can definately see why they changed it to Sorcerer's Stone here, because it does bring up a much more magical, mystical image than Philosopher...

[Alice I]

I personally like the Sourcers Stone better because That it all I knew about until joining this forum

I voted for Philosephers stone however because that is what JKR wanted to call it and did call it when she first wrote the book.

[Amon Rê]

Well the Philosopher's stone goes back into and before medieval history. The alchemists (similar to modern day pharmacists) were always looking for how to make the philosopher's stone. It wasn't said to give you immortal life until later, the primary reason for searching for it was the metal => gold property at the beginning.

I like philosopher's stone better because I know the history behind the Philosopher's stone, whereas the Sorceror's stone was something Scholastic came up with...

[Athena Appleton]

that does make sense... I think it's just that the target audience wouldn't have known the history of the philosopher's stone, so, without that background information, philosopher conjures images of Plato, Socrates, a lot of dead guys... sorcerer conjures up cool magical powers...

[Ferrus]

I voted for Philosophers Stone, because it conjures plenty of mistical/magical concepts, but then I know about the general backgruond of the Stone, the alchemists and all that. If someone isn´t familiar with the legend I suppose that "Sorcerors Stone" sound a lot more cool.