Socrates debates life’s big questions with 8 minds that shaped the modern world.
Using a classic text as the foundation for each volume, Peter Kreeft invites Socrates to cross-examine the thinker behind it, challenging the assumptions, logic, and consequences behind the modern world’s most influential ideas. The result? Eight captivating debates that bring bold (and sometimes dangerous) ideas face-to-face with timeless wisdom.
Socrates Meets
By Peter Kreeft
Word on Fire | March 17, 2025
Box Set | Paperback | 8 Volumes | 6” x 9”
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About Socrates Meets
In the Socrates Meets series, renowned author Peter Kreeft revives the classic method of bringing philosophy to life through dialogue—infusing it with imagination, wit, and surprising relevance. In eight engaging volumes, he explores the foundational principles, hidden assumptions, and sometimes dangerous conclusions of some of history’s most influential and provocative minds.
Each dialogue imagines a sort of timeless purgatory where we can listen in as Socrates engages in spirited conversations with the great thinkers who, centuries later, picked up the philosopher’s torch. With sharp questions and unrelenting logic, Socrates cross-examines each thinker, pressing them on the meaning and implications of their ideas.
Each volume focuses on one of the philosopher’s central works—a short, accessible classic that serves as the launching point for deep discussion. These conversations go beyond theory, grappling with the core questions that shape human life: What is truth? What is justice? What makes us free? What does it mean to live well?
Both intellectually rich and surprisingly entertaining, Socrates Meets is a fresh, imaginative way to explore the great ideas that have shaped the modern world—through the eyes of history’s greatest questioner.
8 Captivating Conversations Centered Around 8 Classic Philosophical Texts
Socrates Meets Descartes:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Modern Philosophy
Paperback | 224 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy and author of the Discourse on Method, exploring the certainty of human knowledge.
Socrates Meets Freud:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Psychoanalysis
Paperback | 200 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and author of Civilization and Its Discontents, exploring science, religion, happiness, and the pleasure principle.
Socrates Meets Hume:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Modern Skepticism
Paperback | 216 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines David Hume, the father of modern skepticism and author of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, exploring human knowledge, causality, miracles, and the idea of the self.
Socrates Meets Kant:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Modern Idealism
Paperback | 312 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Immanuel Kant, the father of modern idealism and author of the Critique of Pure Reason and Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, exploring the framework of human knowledge, the will, and the foundation for morality.
Socrates Meets Kierkegaard:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Christian Existentialism
Paperback | 168 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Søren Kierkegaard, the father of Christian existentialism and author of Philosophical Fragments, exploring imagination, truth, faith, love, and Jesus Christ.
Socrates Meets Machiavelli:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Modern Political Philosophy
Paperback | 176 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Niccolò Machiavelli, the father of modern political philosophy and author of The Prince, exploring justice and authority, fortune and power, love and fear, and good and evil.
Socrates Meets Marx:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Communism
Paperback | 200 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Karl Marx, the father of communism and author of The Communist Manifesto, exploring freedom and oppression, history and change, property, education, women, and the family.
Socrates Meets Sartre:
The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Existentialism
Paperback | 216 Pages | 6” x 9”
In this volume, Socrates cross-examines Jean-Paul Sartre, the father of existentialism and author of Existentialism and Human Emotions, exploring human identity, atheism, morality, and meaning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the author of more than one hundred books. His many bestsellers cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include Making Sense of Suffering, Because God Is Real, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Ethics for Beginners, the Socrates’ Children series, and the Food for the Soul series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Peter Kreeft is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and the author of more than one hundred books. His many bestsellers cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include Making Sense of Suffering, Because God Is Real, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Ethics for Beginners, the Socrates’ Children series, and the Food for the Soul series.
What People Are Saying
“In this brilliant series, Peter Kreeft, like a modern-day Virgil, guides us into corners of purgatory where the father of philosophy, Socrates, instigates conversations with eight of the most provocative minds in Western history. We are in Kreeft’s debt for reminding us that philosophy is not essentially a college or university subject, a strange if not grotesque discipline we undergo in pursuit of a degree, but live mind encountering live mind in live conversation in pursuit of truth—and that the most fruitful conversations are often with the live minds of the dead. The humor and plainspokenness of this series make it ideal for beginning students of philosophy, whether in formal courses or in independent study, but the intellectual vigor of these dialogues will remind even the most seasoned thinkers that a bracing engagement with Socratic questioning is the best way to shake up the complacency that too often obstructs the quest for wisdom.”
— Daniel McInerny, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Christendom College, and author of Beauty & Imitation: A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts
“Peter Kreeft’s writing exhibits wit and erudition, but these qualities alone would not be enough to pull off the ambition of these texts: to explore major historical thinkers by putting each in dialogue with Socrates. A flexible and generous interpreter, Kreeft’s imagined conversations allow each thinker to speak for himself, while inviting the reader to participate in the dialectical questioning that draws out the ideas, appreciating their motivations and historical context, and, as often as not, putting them under gentle but critical scrutiny. Kreeft is above all a sensitive reader of texts, and he has composed works that invite new readers to learn how to think alongside, and in critical engagement with, many of modernity’s most influential minds.”
— Joshua Hochschild, Professor of Philosophy, Mount St. Mary’s University
“How Peter Kreeft finds the time to write so many helpful books is beyond me. How he manages to fill them with such sensible wisdom is known to God alone. The Socrates Meets series is just further proof that we are witnessing something special.”
— Fr. Gregory Pine, OP, the Dominican House of Studies
“What you will encounter in this series of cross-examinations of the world’s most important modern philosophers is Kreeft at his best. Through the character of Socrates and his famous interlocutors, you are introduced to some of the most influential and difficult thought in the history of philosophy, but in a way that requires no prior philosophical background. In the hands of this master teacher, you will come to appreciate both the strengths and the weaknesses of these towering figures and how the intellectual tradition of the Church ought to engage them.”
— Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of Graduate Studies in Philosophy, Baylor University
