Socrates' Children: An Introduction to Philosophy from the 100 Greatest Philosophers: Volume III: Modern Philosophers

by Peter Kreeft, Peter Voth (Illustrator)

Overview

Peter Kreeft, esteemed philosophy professor and author of over eighty books, has taught college philosophy for sixty years. Throughout those decades, he yearned for a beginner's philosophy text that was clear, accessible, enjoyable, and exciting (perhaps even funny). Finding none that met those criteria, he eventually decided to write it himself.

In this four—volume series, Kreeft delivers, with his characteristic wit and clarity, an introduction to philosophy via the hundred greatest philosophers of all time. Socrates’ Children examines the big ideas of four major eras―ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary―and immerses the reader in the “great conversation,” the ongoing dialogue among the great thinkers of history, including the most influential philosopher of all: Socrates, the father of Western philosophy. 

Volume III: Modern Philosophers explores a philosophical world caught up in the spirit of the Enlightenment―a time of both scientific discovery and social upheaval―and examines the philosophers who sought above all to answer the great questions of epistemology and politics: What is knowledge? How can we be certain? What is society? What is its greatest good? 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781685780074
Publisher:	Word on Fire
Publication date:	02/27/2023
Series:	Socrates' Children , #3
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dr. Peter Kreeft is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and the author of almost 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, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, Summa of the Summa, Christianity for Modern Pagans, and How to Destroy Western Civilization. 

Table of Contents

A Salesman’s—Pitch Introduction to This Book

A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy

A Doable Do—It—Yourself Course in the Classics of Philosophy

A Personal Bibliography

A Few Recommended Histories of Philosophy

Introduction to Modern Philosophy

The Epistemological Philosophers

55. René Descartes

56. Blaise Pascal 

57. Baruch Spinoza 

58. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

59. Francis Bacon

60. John Locke 

61. George Berkeley

62. David Hume 

63. Thomas Reid

64. Immanuel Kant

65. Johann Gottlieb Fichte

66. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling

67. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

68. Arthur Schopenhauer

The Political Philosophers

69. Niccolò Machiavelli

70. Thomas Hobbes 

71. Jean—Jacques Rousseau 

72. Karl Marx

Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

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

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

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