Summa Philosophica [Hardcover]

Peter Kreeft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2012 | ISBN-10: 1587318253 | ISBN-13: 978-1587318252 | Edition: 1st Edition

Next to the Socratic Method, the best method for organizing a logical debate over a controversial philosophical or theological issue is the method St. Thomas Aquinas uses in the Summa Theologiae. As the charm of the Socratic dialogue is its dramatic length, its uncertainty, and the psychological dimension of a clash between live characters, so the charm of the Summa method is the opposite: its condensation and its impersonality, objectivity, simplicity, directness, and logical clarity. Beginning philosophy students pick up both methods very quickly, and write adept imitations of them. It’s both profitable and fun to do it.    Yet professionally philosophers have not followed these tried-and-true roads. Why not? Probably it is pride, the refusal to stoop to conquer, the confusion of “stooped” with “stupid.”
      Peter Kreeft has written over a dozen books of Socratic dialogues, and readers like them – they like the form, or format, irrespective of the content. There is no reason that the Summa format cannot produce the same results. It is a very simple five-step procedure: (1) the formulation of the question; (2) the opponent’s leading objections to your answer or thesis, formulated as clearly and fairly and strongly as possible; (3) a short argument from some recognized past authority for your thesis; (4) your own longer, original argument; and (5) a refutation of each objection, “deconstructing” it and showing how and where it went wrong . . . all in one or two pages, severely condensed, clear and simple (and therefore usually in syllogisms, the clearest and simplest and most direct form of logical argument).
     Kreeft has taken 110 of the most important and most often argued-about questions in each major division of philosophy and applied this method to it. The answers usually match common sense (and therefore Aristotle’s philosophy and Aquinas’s theology). At the very least, this is a useful philosophical reference book for arguments; not necessarily the elaborate and artificial arguments that might occur to contemporary “analytic” philosophers, but the arguments ordinary people would give, and still give on both sides of these great questions. Why no one has written such a book before is mind-boggling. We fully expect that many readers of this book will imitate it, as Kreeft has imitated Aquinas. This book is pregnant with many children.

 

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Next to the Socratic Method, the best method for organizing a logical debate over a controversial philosophical or theological issue is the method St. Thomas Aquinas uses in the Summa Theologiae. As the charm of the Socratic dialogue is its dramatic length, its uncertainty, and the psychological dimension of a clash between live characters, so the charm of the Summa method is the opposite: its condensation and its impersonality, objectivity, simplicity, directness, and logical clarity. Beginning philosophy students pick up both methods very quickly, and write adept imitations of them. It’s both profitable and fun to do it.    Yet professionally philosophers have not followed these tried-and-true roads. Why not? Probably it is pride, the refusal to stoop to conquer, the confusion of “stooped” with “stupid.”
      Peter Kreeft has written over a dozen books of Socratic dialogues, and readers like them – they like the form, or format, irrespective of the content. There is no reason that the Summa format cannot produce the same results. It is a very simple five-step procedure: (1) the formulation of the question; (2) the opponent’s leading objections to your answer or thesis, formulated as clearly and fairly and strongly as possible; (3) a short argument from some recognized past authority for your thesis; (4) your own longer, original argument; and (5) a refutation of each objection, “deconstructing” it and showing how and where it went wrong . . . all in one or two pages, severely condensed, clear and simple (and therefore usually in syllogisms, the clearest and simplest and most direct form of logical argument).
     Kreeft has taken 110 of the most important and most often argued-about questions in each major division of philosophy and applied this method to it. The answers usually match common sense (and therefore Aristotle’s philosophy and Aquinas’s theology). At the very least, this is a useful philosophical reference book for arguments; not necessarily the elaborate and artificial arguments that might occur to contemporary “analytic” philosophers, but the arguments ordinary people would give, and still give on both sides of these great questions. Why no one has written such a book before is mind-boggling. We fully expect that many readers of this book will imitate it, as Kreeft has imitated Aquinas. This book is pregnant with many children.

 

From the Back Cover

Peter Kreeft has finally produced his own Summa. His admirers have been waiting for it for years without quite knowing what they were waiting for. Kreeft asks all the basic questions. He answers them, an even greater feat. Nothing is more needed in our academic world than a systematic working through of all the most important questions – both the ones we ask and the ones we should ask. Not only are the questions here but also the most sensible answers. No one else could do this welcome intellectual service quite so well or with quite so much wit and wisdom. The “reason” of the faith shines nowhere more clearly or more persuasively than in the work of Peter Kreeft. With this book, we have his finest gift to us, an account of the intelligibility of things, one that both makes sense and makes us aware of the vast wisdom that lies in the human mind and in the revelation addressed to it. – James V. Schall, s.j., Georgetown University

First, Peter Kreeft imitated the Socratic dialogue form to put Socrates in conversation with Jesus, Hume, Descartes, Kant, and Machiavelli. Now, in Summa Philosophica, Kreeft employs the medieval quaestio debate format used so successfully by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. This tour-de-force takes up 110 perennial questions asked through the centuries. Kreeft covers questions about metaphysics, knowledge, and ethics, including, “Does evil disprove God’s existence?”, “Is time travel possible?”, “Is the soul immortal?” and “Whether institutional religion has done more harm than good?” If you want a summary of all the most important questions in philosophy, as well as the most convincing answers to these questions, this book is the single most reliable and enjoyable guide available. – Christopher Kaczor, Loyola Marymount, is author of How to Stay Catholic in College and The Ethics of Abortion.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: St. Augustines Press; 1st Edition edition (June 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587318253
• ISBN-13: 978-1587318252
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is really a terrific book, and it ought be used as a textbook for beginners May 23, 2012

By Peter S. Bradley

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Peter Kreeft manages to recapture the form and spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Kreeft approaches the perennial philosophical topics by breaking the questions down into their essential propositions, and, then, sharpening the engagement by following the Scholastic approach of posing objections to the proposition, an argument supporting the proposition and answers to the objections. Anyone familiar with the Summa Theologica will immediately recognize the style.

Kreeft breaks his Summa into ten subject areas - Logic and Methodology, Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Cosmology, Philosophical Anthropology, Epistemology, General Ethics, Applied Ethics, Political Philosophy and Aesthetics. He then breaks these areas down into specific questions covering the great controversies in each area, usually going from general to specific, as he lays the foundation for a later question in a prior answer. In the area of Logic, for example, Kreeft starts with whether philosophy is "still rightly defined as the love of wisdom" and ends with "whether symbolic logic is superior to Aristotelian logic for philosophizing?"

The great thing about Kreeft's book is that it is pure philosophy. What Kreeft provides are the "naked" arguments on the key questions of the important topics. Rather than offering a historical retrospective, which follows the evolution of a controversy through time and which relies on tying particular positions to particular philosophers, Kreeft goes directly to the arguments. There is no historical retrospective here; very few philosophers are identified by name, except in passing. Instead the focus is on the clash of ideas, which, for beginners, and for apologists, and lovers of wisdom, is where philosophy ought to begin.

The philosophical positions staked out are very much those of Peter Kreeft. Consequently, we get very pragmatic answers to pragmatically phrased questions. For example, in responding to the argument that the order in the cosmos is not teleological since "simpler explanations are to be preferred to more complex ones," i.e., Ockham's Razor or the principle of parsimony (Q.IV, a.1), Kreeft writes: "Ockham's Razor is a good methodological principle for modern science, but it is not a good ontological principle; for the real universe, as distinct from scientific explanations, is much fuller than it needs to be. There is no need for ostriches. Yet they exist." (Q. IV, a.1.)

Badda-boom, badda-bing.

Perfect Kreeft - simple, succinct and with a startling zing.

Kreeft's Summa is decidedly not academic; there are no footnotes and few references. But it does provide a way of entering into the key philosophical topics from Kreeft's Thomistic perspective. It makes for good, casual reading that one can dip into on specific topics, and is a pretty good manual for a survey of the arguments for and against a broad variety of positions. I think that it would make for a good discussion starting tool, whether in the school or a philosophy club. (Or for that matter, for anyone who wants a good source for pragmatic, Thomistic apologetic arguments.)

Clearly, the reader's satisfaction with the substance of Kreeft's arguments may vary depending on how much they "buy into" Kreeft's pragmatic, Thomistic approach to philosophy. However, I don't think that Kreeft's philosophical perspective should dissuade anyone from reading or using the book. Rather, it ought to challenge them to respond to Kreeft's arguments in as rational, logical and lucid a way as Kreeft outlines his position.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Syllogism Boot-Camp July 4, 2012

By Thomas L. Cook

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Don't be deceived- this slender green hardback, just barely two hundred pages, is a monster. Peter Kreeft could not have written this in his early or mid-career. It is both more rigorous than his earlier writings, and amazingly, at the same time, the style is more fluid, and funnier, too. You know your mind is tired of real thinking, real syllogistic exercise, when you can only get through several articles in here, and already have to take a break.

This one not only compiles a career of acquired wisdom, and contains many of Kreeft's favorite quotes that are commonly given in his many audio lectures, it also contains some totally novel quotes and arguments. I should know- I have read most of his 60 books and listened to every lecture available online. (twice). It is humbling to have to go back again and again to a writer who seems to offer so much. It's so much easier to say, I've already read a few books by so and so, what else could he possibly say? Kreeft it seems has so much to say because he allows the classics to speak through him. He has humbled himself before the masters, and adroit in quoting them.

The best overview of philosophy I've ever seen. Puts any intro philosophy text to shame. A true work of erudition. And a syllogistic workout. (Reading the Objections before reading the 'I answer that' is especially a workout.)

Right up there with his best books: in my opinion, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Socratic Logic, The Best Things in Life, Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must January 6, 2013

By Beatrice

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A must for those with curious minds who are looking for philosophical answers. Highly recommended for philosophy and theology students.