Peter Kreeft has taught philosophy at Boston College for 58 years and he has written more than 100 books, many of them dealing with philosophy. He’s a Catholic philosophy professor who has been compared favorably with C. S. Lewis due to his clear, concise and lively writing style. Kreeft’s 101st book, Philosophy – What Every Catholic Should Know delivers on what its title promises, and it is a truly excellent book that is destined to become a Catholic classic. Let’s quickly look at highlights from some of the key chapters: Chapter 2 deals with the question of why we should study philosophy. Kreeft’s answer is that philosophy is a love of wisdom, and wisdom is supremely worth loving. So philosophy is very much worth studying. Happiness comes from perfecting yourself, and philosophy helps to perfect your behavior and your mind, leading to ultimate happiness. Chapter 21 deals with epistemology: We must accept that as the foundation of our knowledge, both faith and reason are uncertain. Common sense, common experience and the foundational principles of thought are the strongest start points in reasoning. Most of our mistakes in judgment are based on mistakes in understanding, many of which are due to poorly defined terms. Chapter 22 talks about how your ethics depends on your metaphysics. Catholic metaphysics affirms life, orders life, and sets up a hierarchy of all the goods in human life. Chapter 51 is titled “Is the Soul Immortal” and it lists 10 good arguments for the immortality of the soul, so the case for an immortal soul is strong. Among those 10 is Aquinas’ argument that the human mind and the human will both seek spiritual, immaterial and universal goods, which shows that men have spiritual souls. Saint Augustine argued that an eternal truth is that an eternal good is better than a temporal good. This means that we should value spiritual goods like goodness, beauty and truth as more important than material goods like wealth or power. Chapter 52 is titled “What Happens at Death?” and it gives an excellent summary on what different philosophies and different religions think happens at death. The key point is that we only live once, so live it with gusto and passion. Chapter 54 is about the moral virtues: A virtue that is presupposed by all other virtues is honesty, or the will to truth. It is directed not only toward others (telling the truth) but also toward oneself (both telling oneself the truth and listening to it) and toward God (both telling the truth to God and listening to God’s truth). The virtue of honesty both seeks and tells and values truth everywhere. Other important moral virtues, recognized by nearly all cultures, are gratitude, forgiveness, humility, empathy, fidelity, kindness, respect (or reverence), and mercy. Chapter 60 is titled “Does Virtue Make You Happy?”: Does virtue make you happy? Yes, virtue is what perfects man, and the perfection of man brings happiness. In fact and in long-range experience, both in individual lives and in the life of the human race, moral character and behavior in fact makes us happier, and immorality always makes us unhappy deep down and in the long run, even though on the surface and immediately it strongly appeals to our desire for happiness and can give us a short-lived satisfaction or thrill. The close causal relationship between moral virtue and personal happiness is the reason why (1) ethical philosophies that focus only on personal happiness, like hedonism and utilitarianism, and (2) ethical philosophies that focus only on duty and obedience (ignoring virtuous character acting out of love for God and neighbor), are incomplete and ineffective. We often reduce happiness to a feeling, but happiness is a state of human perfection, or human virtue, which results a feeling of contentment. Chapter 70 deals with the political problem of balance the common good with the individual good: The mutual reinforcement of solidarity and subsidiarity is also the political reflection of the well-known paradox that obsession with your own happiness makes you unhappy, while self-forgetfully working for others’ happiness makes you happy. Every religion in the world teaches some version of this paradox. Philosophy – What Every Catholic Should Know should be required reading at every Catholic high school and college. Philosophy is about the good, the beautiful and the true, and this philosophy book is very good, very true and very beautifully written.

Peter Kreeft has taught philosophy at Boston College for 58 years and he has written more than 100 books, many of them dealing with philosophy. He’s a Catholic philosophy professor who has been compared favorably with C. S. Lewis due to his clear, concise and lively writing style. Kreeft’s 101st book, Philosophy – What Every Catholic Should Know delivers on what its title promises, and it is a truly excellent book that is destined to become a Catholic classic. Let’s quickly look at highlights from some of the key chapters: Chapter 2 deals with the question of why we should study philosophy. Kreeft’s answer is that philosophy is a love of wisdom, and wisdom is supremely worth loving. So philosophy is very much worth studying. Happiness comes from perfecting yourself, and philosophy helps to perfect your behavior and your mind, leading to ultimate happiness. Chapter 21 deals with epistemology: We must accept that as the foundation of our knowledge, both faith and reason are uncertain. Common sense, common experience and the foundational principles of thought are the strongest start points in reasoning. Most of our mistakes in judgment are based on mistakes in understanding, many of which are due to poorly defined terms. Chapter 22 talks about how your ethics depends on your metaphysics. Catholic metaphysics affirms life, orders life, and sets up a hierarchy of all the goods in human life. Chapter 51 is titled “Is the Soul Immortal” and it lists 10 good arguments for the immortality of the soul, so the case for an immortal soul is strong. Among those 10 is Aquinas’ argument that the human mind and the human will both seek spiritual, immaterial and universal goods, which shows that men have spiritual souls. Saint Augustine argued that an eternal truth is that an eternal good is better than a temporal good. This means that we should value spiritual goods like goodness, beauty and truth as more important than material goods like wealth or power. Chapter 52 is titled “What Happens at Death?” and it gives an excellent summary on what different philosophies and different religions think happens at death. The key point is that we only live once, so live it with gusto and passion. Chapter 54 is about the moral virtues: A virtue that is presupposed by all other virtues is honesty, or the will to truth. It is directed not only toward others (telling the truth) but also toward oneself (both telling oneself the truth and listening to it) and toward God (both telling the truth to God and listening to God’s truth). The virtue of honesty both seeks and tells and values truth everywhere. Other important moral virtues, recognized by nearly all cultures, are gratitude, forgiveness, humility, empathy, fidelity, kindness, respect (or reverence), and mercy. Chapter 60 is titled “Does Virtue Make You Happy?”: Does virtue make you happy? Yes, virtue is what perfects man, and the perfection of man brings happiness. In fact and in long-range experience, both in individual lives and in the life of the human race, moral character and behavior in fact makes us happier, and immorality always makes us unhappy deep down and in the long run, even though on the surface and immediately it strongly appeals to our desire for happiness and can give us a short-lived satisfaction or thrill. The close causal relationship between moral virtue and personal happiness is the reason why (1) ethical philosophies that focus only on personal happiness, like hedonism and utilitarianism, and (2) ethical philosophies that focus only on duty and obedience (ignoring virtuous character acting out of love for God and neighbor), are incomplete and ineffective. We often reduce happiness to a feeling, but happiness is a state of human perfection, or human virtue, which results a feeling of contentment. Chapter 70 deals with the political problem of balance the common good with the individual good: The mutual reinforcement of solidarity and subsidiarity is also the political reflection of the well-known paradox that obsession with your own happiness makes you unhappy, while self-forgetfully working for others’ happiness makes you happy. Every religion in the world teaches some version of this paradox. Philosophy – What Every Catholic Should Know should be required reading at every Catholic high school and college. Philosophy is about the good, the beautiful and the true, and this philosophy book is very good, very true and very beautifully written.