Peter Kreeft’s Socratic Dialogues (7 vols.)

Kreeft presents this introduction to philosophy to help beginners not only understand philosophy, but fall in love with it. In his forty years of teaching, Kreeft says the most effective way to accomplish this purpose has been reading Plato’s Socratic dialogues.

Philosophy means “the love of wisdom.” In this volume Kreeft uses the dialogues of Plato to help the reader grow in that love of wisdom. No philosopher has ever been more simple, clear, and accessible to beginners as Socrates through Plato. He focuses on the Apology, what Kreeft calls “the Magna Carta of philosophy” and “a portable classroom,” as a model partner for the reader to dialogue with.

According to Kreeft, Socrates and Descartes are perhaps the two most important philosophers who have ever lived, because they are the two who made the most difference to all philosophers after them. These two fathers of philosophy stand at the beginning of the two basic philosophical options: the classical and the modern. Through an imagined dialogue between Socrates and Descartes, Kreeft focuses on seven features that unite these two major philosophers and distinguish them from all others.

Peter Kreeft calls Hume the “most formidable, serious, difficult-to-refute skeptic in the history of human thought.” In Socrates Meets Hume, Kreeft challenges Hume’s ideas via a Socratic examination of human understanding in relation to Hume’s skepticism. Kreeft invites you to take part in the process of refuting Hume’s skeptical arguments, with the aid of Socrates. Based on a fictional dialogue between Socrates and Hume that takes place in the afterlife, this profound and witty book makes an entertaining and informative exploration of modern philosophy.

In this volume, Kreeft explains how Immanuel Kant was both a philosopher about how we know things (epistemology) and a philosopher of right and wrong (ethics). Kant’s philosophy of knowing truly was a “Copernican revolution in philosophy,” and his ethics were intended to lay a rational foundation for morality. If he had written only on either topic, he would still be among the most important and influential of the modern philosophers. The combination of the two, though, makes for a formidable thinker, one it would take a figure such as the father of philosophy, the relentless Socrates, to confront. The conversation between the two great minds lays out the key issues. Kreeft’s Socrates reflects what the historical philosopher would likely have made of Kant’s ideas, while also recognizing the genius of Kant. The result is a helpful, highly readable, even amusing dialogue that makes the thought of these two giants easily accessible.

In this volume political theory’s foundational thinker has a conversation with the father of philosophy. Peter Kreeft’s reincarnation of the gadfly examines Machiavelli’s virtù, fortuna, and other concepts. The practical power player engages the classical seeker of the ideal in an approachable book on logic, ethics, and politics.

In a unique and compelling take on the philosophies of Marx and Socrates. Kreeft pits the ancient Greek philosopher against the founder of Communism. Among the various topics discussed are private property, the individual, the “three philosophies of man”, individualism, and more. This is a wonderful introduction for the uninitiated, and a joy for the experienced student.

In Socrates Meets Sartre, Kreeft takes the reader through the world of existentialist philosophy, posing questions that challenge Sartre’s existentialist concepts. Based on a fictional dialogue between Socrates and Sartre that takes place in the afterlife, this profound and witty book makes an entertaining and informative exploration of modern philosophy.