The Best Things in Life: A Contemporary Socrates Looks at Power, Pleasure, Truth the Good Life

by Peter Kreeft

Book Overview

What are the best things in life?

Questions like that may boggle your mind. But they don't boggle Socrates. The indomitable old Greek brings his unending questions to Desperate State University. With him come the same mind-opening and spirit-stretching challenge that disrupted ancient Athens.

What is the purpose of education?Why do we make love?What good is money?Can computers think like people?Is there a difference between Capitalism...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877849226
• ISBN13: 9780877849223
• Release Date: July 1984
• Publisher: IVP
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent primer on philosophy!

What is the meaning of life? Should I go to college? What kind of job do I want? - These are the kinds of questions Kreeft (via Socrates) presents to the reader in his book. The dialogs are short, witty, and make excellent points. This book proves that Kreeft is a master of common sense and philosophy. This book would be perfect for mature high school students and any college student (and beyond college too). Of course, the focus of the book is on a question we hardly stop to think about as we trudge through life: What are we living for? Using "means" and "ends" Aristotelian principles, he does an excellent job of bringing about awareness of the Summum Bonum. It is a short and easy read that will challenge the way most Americans live.

The Best Things in Life

I read this book because I teach logic and public policy debate to high school home schoolers. Peter Kreeft harpoons sacred cows, political correctness, philosophy and lazy thinking with humor and razor sharp logic. What a delight! Like all of Kreeft's work, this is not a quick read, but a trememndously valuable one. I'll be introduing this book during second semester. I am buying it for a high school student for Christmas, as well as a personal shelf copy.

Think about your world: ask questions!

This short, simple book carries a powerful punch. A real education is contained within: not mere factual information, but how to actually ask questions and think. I only wish someone had given me a copy when I was in high school, so I could have avoided needless, stupid mistakes.

Great, Entertaining Philosophy

I read this book while taking a Socratic Dialogue Class with Dr. Kreeft at Boston College. "The Best Things in Life" is one of my favorite Kreeft books. It is a real page-turner, and poses simple yet perplexing philosophy throughout the dialogue. Kreeft's humor is a little corny, but his presentation of questions and conclusions are winning and convincing.Highly recommended for young readers.

A fine Socratic Dialogue

What would happen if Socrates returned to the present, showing up on a college campus over 2,000 years later? What sorts of things would interest him and what would he think about the modern world? With fine imagination, Peter Kreeft explores these questions in a book that discusses issues pertinent to the modern reader's life. Entertaining and instructive, this book is good for stimulating ethical and moral reflection.