Socrates' Children Special Edition Box Set

Peter Kreeft, a highly regarded professor of philosophy and author of over eighty books, has spent the last sixty years lecturing on philosophy. Throughout the course of those years, he desired for a beginner's philosophy book that would be comprehensible, interesting, and engaging (perhaps even funny). When he couldn't find anything that fit the bill, he set out to write it himself.

In this four-part series, Kreeft provides a primer on philosophy via the lens of the century's top thinkers, all presented with his trademark humour and clarity. The four major epochs covered in Socrates' Children are the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary, and the reader is thrust into the "great conversation," an ongoing dialogue among the great thinkers of history, including the most influential philosopher of all: Socrates, the father of Western philosophy.

Includes:

Volume I: This first volume, Ancient Philosophers, explores how ancient sages, Greeks, and Romans established the groundwork for philosophy and introduces the thinkers who posed the first big questions concerning the nature of reality, the nature of the self, the  universe, and God.

Volume II: Medieval Philosophers examines the medieval philosophers of the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as they strove to unite the Greek intellectual heritage with divine revelation.

Volume III: With an eye towards the major concerns of epistemology and politics, Modern Philosophers investigates a philosophical world swept up in the spirit of the Enlightenment, a period of scientific discovery and social upheaval. What is knowledge, and how can we be certain?   In what ways does society benefit us?

Volume IIII: Contemporary Philosophers examines the major philosophers of the last two centuries and notes the diversification of philosophical endeavours. Some, attempting to recreate historic discussions, return to and reexamine the most fundamental concerns about meaning, happiness, and the human being; while yet others, unattached from the past, fight against the very enterprise of philosophy.

Four Paperback books in a box set.

PRAISE:

“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

"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

“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