Socrates Meets Sartre: The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Father of Existentialism

by Peter Kreeft

Overview

In the Socrates Meets series, Peter Kreeft revives the classic method of bringing philosophy to life through dialogue. In eight innovative volumes, he uncovers the principles, assumptions, and sometimes dangerous conclusions of some of history’s most influential minds.

Each dialogue imagines a purgatory where we can listen in on conversations between Socrates and the great thinkers who, centuries later, picked up the philosopher’s torch. Each conversation investigates one of the philosopher’s key works, a short, readable classic that raises central questions both for philosophy and for life.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781685781613
Publisher:	Word on Fire
Publication date:	05/05/2025
Series:	Socrates Meets , #1
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. In Hell?

2. The First Principle of Existentialism

3. Atheism and Honesty

4. “Being-in-itself” and “Being-for-itself”

5. Method

6. Man (and Woman)

7. Am I My Life?

8. Responsibility

9. Freedom and Values

10. Freedom

11. The Family

12. Love

Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

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

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

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

Among the most formative influences on my development as a philosopher has been Peter Kreeft. When I first encountered his work when I was in college I could not believe that someone could make philosophy so accessible and so alive. Although I never took a formal class from Professor Kreeft, I have been a student of his for many decades. Through The Unaborted Socrates I was persuaded to embrace a sanctity of life ethic; through The Best Things In Life I was taught how to think about virtue, vice, intrinsic goodness, and practical Thomism (though the genius of Kreeft is that he never explicitly tells you he’s doing that). Later, when I was journeying back to the Church, it was Kreeft’s explication of the Catechism and his commentary on Aquinas’ Summa theologiae that helped me to see how Catholicism made sense and that much of what I believed as a lapsed-Catholic Evangelical was an inheritance from Rome and not something I had discovered by exercising my rational powers on Scripture alone. I thought I had hit a triple, but Kreeft showed me that I had been born at third base. 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