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By Peter Kreeft

Word on Fire | February 27th, 2023

Special Edition Box Set  | 4 Paperback Books |
6” x 9”

Special Edition Box Set: $79.95 $63.96 (20% OFF + FREE U.S. Shipping!)

Questions? Need help placing your order? Email us at support@wordonfire.org or call 866-928-1237.

— PETER KREEFT

“When I first began to pursue philosophy, I wanted a single resource to introduce me to all its principal players, to teach me their names, relative importance, and chief works, and to help me think their greatest thoughts. I wanted an introduction that let the philosophers have their say, but at the same time avoided the false impartiality of indifference to truth—one that, moreover, went about the whole daunting business with such brevity, directness, enthusiasm, wonder, storytelling, and humor as would suit my needs as a beginner. That resource did not exist. Now it does. It is Socrates’ Children.”

— Michael Augros, Author of Who Designed the Designer? and The Immortal in You

“The moral, social, and religious problems of our time all ultimately reflect deep philosophical errors and thus, at least in part, require a philosophical solution. Yet philosophy has in recent decades retreated so far within the academy that the average person would not know where to begin to look for instruction. Peter Kreeft has long helped to remedy this problem, and this new work may be his most important yet.”

— Edward Feser, Professor of Philosophy, Pasadena City College

“Peter Kreeft provides bite-sized snapshots of one hundred of the most famous and influential philosophers who shape, often in unrealized ways, today’s world. In his trademark crisp and clear style, he presents ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary thinkers. While putting each philosopher in historical context, Socrates’ Children also avoids historical relativism. This book provides both historical context and philosophical summaries of the most important ideas of the most important philosophers. Kreeft focuses on the ideas that make a difference for our lives, as well as on the most influential views of all time.”

— Christopher Kaczor, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, St. Thomas Aquinas Fellow for the Renewal of Catholic Intellectual Life for the Word on Fire Institute

“Philosophy professors are always seeking ways to reach students with fresh approaches to the wisdom we have found so wonderful. Here is a fine option.”

— Ronda Chervin, Emerita Professor of Philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary

“True philosophy is a love affair: as Socrates taught long ago, philosophy is born in wonder, and is lived in passionate seeking. In Socrates' Children, Peter Kreeft guides the beginner through the history of philosophy with his characteristic wonder, wit, and wisdom. Reading these volumes is like taking a class in philosophy with one of its greatest living teachers. In Kreeft's hands, the history of philosophy becomes a dramatic story, a great conversation punctuated with surprise, humor, and insight. For the beginner curious about philosophy, beware: to pick up Socrates' Children is to embark on the great adventure of philosophical thinking, and so to risk falling in love. And when you fall in love, life is changed forever.”

— Paul A. Camacho, Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Augustinian Institute, Villanova University

In this lecture series, Dr. Peter Kreeft examines key ideas in philosophy by comparing and contrasting two representative philosophers in each lecture.

In lecture 1, Dr. Kreeft examines the father of philosophy, Socrates, who paved the way for reason by defining terms clearly and proving conclusions logically. He discusses the importance of understanding Socrates in order to be able to respond to the philosophy of the Sophists, whose philosophy is marked more by cleverness than by wisdom, more by appearance than by truth, and more by emotion than by logic. Today, this philosophy has reemerged, and it has taken root in our current culture.

In lecture 2, Dr. Kreeft examines the importance of finding and defining the fundamental differences between Plato—whose logic is inductive, deductive, and seductive–and Machiavelli —who, 2,000 years after Plato, set out a radical alternative to Plato’s ideal city and ruler. 

In lecture 3, Dr. Kreeft examines the epistemology and ethics of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant. Modern students have great difficulty believing common sense because our modern philosophies have percolated down to them through our modern culture. 

In lecture 4, Dr. Kreeft details the differences between Augustine, the lover of truth, and Sartre, whose ultimate enemy is truth. We are faced with a stark choice between Augustine’s road to the source of all love and light and life, and Sartre’s road into the darkness.

In lecture 5, Dr. Kreeft presents the synthesis of faith and reason achieved by Aquinas, which overcomes the problem of the double-truth theory of Averroes. 

In lecture 6, Dr. Kreeft contrasts Descartes, who is universally known as the father of modern philosophy and a rationalist, and Bacon, who is an empiricist. These two philosophers, though taking opposite epistemological approaches, find agreement in their view of the greatest good of human life—the conquest and mastering of nature.

In lecture 7, Dr. Kreeft discusses the differences between Pascal and Descartes on just about everything—though both were believers and practicing Catholics. Pascal was a great scientist and mathematician who saw philosophy as a way of life, while Descartes tried to make philosophy like mathematics, formulating clear and distinct ideas aimed at achieving absolute certainty. 

In lecture 8, Dr. Kreeft summarizes Hegel, who dropped the distinction between thought and being, denying the existence of anything outside of thought and embracing absolute idealism. Kierkegaard’s own philosophy asks not how thought progresses through stages, as Hegel does, but how an individual human being progresses through life.

In lecture 9, Dr. Kreeft discusses Nietzsche, whose views on truth and meaning created something of a catastrophe in the history of philosophy. Heidegger tried to dig his way out of the ruins created by Nietzsche by appealing to what he called Sein—“Being itself.”

In lecture 10, Dr. Kreeft examines two totalitarians, Hobbes and Rousseau, on the question of what makes a good society. He contrasts Hobbes’ “hard totalitarianism” with the “soft (democratic) totalitarianism” of Rousseau, and identifies the flaws in both approaches.

In lecture 11, Dr. Kreeft highlights the sharp contrast between Confucius and Marx. While the principles of Confucius’ morality were directed to the preservation of natural order and peace, Marx’s most basic values were revolutionary, competitive, and violent. 

In lecture 12, Dr. Kreeft discusses the possible unity between what he claims is the best of the old and the best of the new—a marriage of the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas with the anthropology of Personalism.