Best Things in Life

Rating:
Summary: Engage your mind
Review: Once again, Kreeft is able to imitate Socrates voice, and show us what the sage might have said had he been in contemporary society. Socrates' strength in not in the assertion, but in the cross-examination of ideas. Kreeft-Socrates, like Søren Kierkegaard, does not come out with direct assertions, but you are bale to read between the lines and find out what they believe.

The device of using Socrates talking to two college students is great. Sadly, universities are not longer places of learning, but more of a regimented indoctrination corps. And intellectual corpses is what they produce.

This book should be read BEFORE someone goes to college, as a form of intellectual inoculation. The prepared mind is he conquering mind. In fact, I would suggest that high school freshmen should be required to read this book.

The only problem I have is in chapter 11, the discussion of capitalism and Marxism. Kreeft misunderstands Adam Smith's whole philosophy. He is not describing Adam Smith's philosophy, but a general "conventional wisdom" understanding of capitalism.

In fact, the very word "capitalism" betrays Kreeft's hidden assumption. The essence of Adam Smith's theory is not capital, but freedom. By virtue of its size, Russia/USSR has far more capital than the United Sates, but is far poorer. The only difference is the freedom. That is why there was a brain-drain in 1989.

On page 142, Kreeft mentions that freedom of thought is not confined to capitalism and that freedom of thought is not the defining factor of capitalism. This is dead wrong. You have the economy, but who makes the products and transactions that actually move the economy? A free human mind.

He also says that you can have freedom of thought without capitalism, and capitalism without freed of thought. This is also dead wrong. As he presents it in the book, it is a "free-floating abstraction" since he never cites any historical data. In other words, he is not dealing with historic objective reality.

Free markets must have free minds. Modern prosperity-cultural, politcal, scientific, religious, and economic prosperity-stems from the Renaissance, which was the era the mind was freed.

To supplement your reading in this chapter, I suggest Frederic Bastiat's "The Law," Hayeck's "Road to Serfdom," Rand's, "Philosophy-Who needs it?" and "Capitalism: the Unknown Idea," and Hugh Nibley's "Approaching Zion."

I would also suggest reading Adam Smith himself: "Wealth of Nations" and his often-overlooked "Theory of Moral Sentiments." Remember, before being an economist, Smith was a moralist.

With this one exception, recommend this book for high school students before going to college. It is an easy read, easy to understand, and rather mind expanding.

I think the last chapter on relativism is a crown jewel. Kreeft covers the issue thoroughly, and in a friendly manner. He also included a scratch outline of the discussion. This outline should be memorized by everyone BEFORE they get higher education.

Note: I find it ironic that Kreeft points out that morality is seen by the eye of the mind, which sounds suspiciously similar to Adam Smith's "man within the breast" from his "Theory of Moral Sentiments." Aha! Kreeft is a crypto-capitalist!

Rating:
Summary: A weak apologia for the author's personal tastes
Review: Set aside the moment the presumption of a Christian author taking the voice of Socrates. (It seems clever to a Christian, but having been deeply religious and left it behind, it becomes a case of putting words in someone else's mouth, a rhetorical art that passed out of favor more than a millennium ago.) This book will not convince anyone not already predisposed to believing its message, nor is it really meant to.

This book is a work of apologetic writing, not for Christianity per se, but one of the largely conservative worldviews that go along with it. The book is not without virtues, as it teaches its college-aged protagonists to think about the world around them, and Kreeft is an excellent writer overall, but there is an insidious disapproval of modern life that is to be taken for granted rather than questioned. It is assumed that rock music is as cacophonous as Kreeft's Socrates hears it, and compassion is dismissed as a virtue where it conflicts with principle.

Returning to my comment at the beginning of this review: an author takes a risk assuming the voice of a real person. It can be done successfully, and was a well-respected literary technique during the classical period. Much of the Bible's New Testament was written that way, as later authors sought to place themselves in the same voice and theological groove as Paul the Apostle. But it's not a widely accepted technique today, as it is generally used not to extend the body of work of the assumed personality but to seek legitimacy for the new writer's agenda. (As an aside, I'm not too sure Plato wasn't guilty of the same thing, especially in the Republic; certainly the thought control aspects of Plato's republic, with its restrictions on music and the desire for a sharply defined meritocracy, have much the same resonance as this book.) For that reason, I think this book fails to anyone who, as I said, is not already predisposed to believing its message. As with many more overtly Christian books in the same genre (including others written by the same author), it's preaching to the choir.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent primer on philosophy!
Review: 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.