WOF 376: Peter Kreeft on Socrates vs. the Sophists
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
Brandon Vogt
4.9 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Friends, in today’s episode of “The Word on Fire Show,” we share Lecture 1 from Peter Kreeft’s new 12-part video series on “Socrates’ Children: The Great Debates of Philosophy.” In this lecture series, Dr. Peter Kreeft examines key ideas in philosophy by comparing and contrasting two representative philosophers in each lecture. The first lecture compares the father of philosophy, Socrates, with the Sophists, whose philosophy is marked more by cleverness and emotion rather than by wisdom and truth.
This video series is being released alongside Word on Fire’s new book series by Kreeft, titled Socrates’ Children: An Introduction to Philosophy from the 100 Greatest Philosophers. In this four-volume series, Kreeft examines with his characteristic wit and clarity, the big ideas of four major eras—ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary—and immerses the reader in the “great conversation” the ongoing dialogue among the great thinkers of history.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vaat, the senior publishing director at Word on Fire. |
| 0:12.8 | Today, we're excited to share with you a new lecture from Dr. Peter Craved. Many of you will |
| 0:18.9 | know the name Dr. Craved. He is the longtime professor of philosophy at Boston College. |
| 0:24.2 | He's the author of over 80 books, a staggering output. In fact, at one point, I believe he was |
| 0:30.0 | 84 years old and had written 84 books, but I think the book number has since surpassed his age. |
| 0:35.8 | I think he's closer to 90 books by now. That includes, by the way, a set of books that he recently |
| 0:41.6 | wrote for Word on Fire called Socrates Children. Socrates Children. This is a new four volume series |
| 0:48.8 | that introduces the history of philosophy through a hundred of the greatest philosophers of all time. |
| 0:55.2 | There's a volume on ancient philosophers, one on medieval philosophers, a third one on modern |
| 1:00.4 | philosophers, and then contemporary philosophers. It was just released last week and thousands of |
| 1:05.8 | you have already ordered your copy. If you haven't gotten yours yet, I'd encourage you to check |
| 1:10.5 | it out and learn more at the website wordonfire.org slash philosophy. Well, along with that book series, |
| 1:17.6 | Word on Fire partnered with Dr. Craved to create a new 12-part lecture series titled Socrates |
| 1:24.0 | Children, The Great Debates of Philosophy. Instead of looking at specific philosophers, |
| 1:30.0 | this series examines key ideas in philosophy by comparing and contrasting two representative |
| 1:37.1 | philosophers in each lecture. So for example, lecture one, which we'll hear here in just a moment, |
| 1:42.8 | Dr. Craved examines the father of philosophy, Socrates, in conversation with the sophists. |
| 1:49.7 | So Socrates paved the way for reason by defining terms clearly and proving conclusions logically. |
| 1:57.2 | Craved discusses the importance of understanding Socrates mainly in order to respond to the philosophy |
| 2:03.1 | of Sophism, whose philosophy is marked by cleverness more than wisdom, by appearance more than truth, |
| 2:10.7 | by emotion more than logic. Today, this philosophy has re-emerged and it has taken root |
| 2:17.4 | in our current culture, which is why it's a very pressing philosophy to understand today. |
... |
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