There is no better way to understand our present world than by exploring the Great Books written by the great minds that have made it.There is no better way to study the beginning of modern political philosophy than by studying its foundations in Machiavelli's The Prince.
There is no better way to study the Great Books than with the aid of Socrates, the philosopher par excellence.
What if we could overhear a conversation in the afterlife between Socrates and Machiavelli, in which Machiavelli has to submit to an Oxford tutorial style examination of his book conducted by Socrates using his famous "Socratic method" of cross-examination? How might the conversation go?
This imaginative thought-experiment makes for both drama and a good lesson in logic, in moral and political philosophy, in "how to read a book," and in the history of early modern thought.
Thus this book is for readers looking for a thought-stretching "good read" and for use in college classes in logic, philosophy, ethics, political science, literature, communication, rhetoric, anthropology, and history.
Peter John Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of numerous books as well as a popular writer on Christian theology, and specifically Roman Catholic apologetics. He also formulated together with Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".
Kreeft took his A.B. at Calvin College (1959), and an M.A. at Fordham University (1961). In the same university he completed his doctoral studies in 1965. He briefly did post graduate studies at Yale University. He joined the Philosophy faculty of the Department of Philosophy of Boston College in 1965. In 1994 he was a signer of the document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.
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