The Journey

I just finished reading “The Journey” by Peter Kreeft.  It was a very quick read.  Essentially it is an allegory where along the road the main character has discussions with different philosophers throughout history using the Socratic method to debunk their various claims.

I’m not well-versed in the history of philosophy, so on one hand this was kind of an intro to philosophy for me.  In that sense it was informative.  On the other hand, the book seemed a bit heavy-handed.  The main character was quick to dismiss various philosophical positions as being untrue while I was still trying to get a basic understanding of what each was claiming.

The other challenging aspect of the book for me, which required rereading lots of sentences was the author’s use of the Socratic method.  I don’t have a lot of Socratic conversations in my daily life, so it wasn’t easy to follow.

Overall I found the book helpful.  My main critique is that the author didn’t give a fair hearing to several of the competing philosophies.  I don’t disagree with his conclusions, I just wish he had taken more time to draw them out.