By two stars, it was genuinely okay. And- I'm glad I read it. I both liked and hated it.

Summary:
In The Best Things in Life, Kreeft imagines conversations Socrates might have on a college campus (Desperate State University) today with two students - Peter Pragma and Felicia Flake. Conversation topics bounce around in Peter's chapters on the purpose of education, careers, technology, AI, superstitions, and success/the greatest good. With Felicia, Socrates tackles happiness/pot, music, sex/love, sexism, communism/capitalism, and especially our idea of objective values.

Push-backs:
First, my complaints... it is corny... painfully so. Every chapter starts with some straightforwardly corny statements and jokes. His representations of the college president, another professor, a new age guru, Karl Marx and Adam Smith were all so overly parodied, it was difficult to take them seriously. And his conversation sparring partners (Peter and Felicia) were hardly up to snuff.

Second, Socrates felt pretty Christian. He quotes scripture, along with numerous other contemporary philosophers and writers, which was fine, but to me, Socrates seemed to have more of a Christian agenda than I would've expected.

Third, and this is relatively minor, there are no references or bibliography. Kreeft literally references and quotes dozens of other writers and thinkers, but never tells us who he's referencing. For one wanting to know more, it was frustrating.

Fourth and final, some of the arguments were less than convincing. Some were great, but discussing AI seemed way over simplified and naive (the book was written in the 80s...), and the one on superstitions I don't think would convince anyone. In short he argued against the claim that "Santa Clause doesn't exist," referring also to God, because it's impossible to know the reaches of the universe and a finite mind like ours cannot claim to know whether anything or anyone could exist or not because we cannot know the ends of the universe. I mean, come on. On some level, interesting point, but it's a very modernistic question that I feel fewer and fewer are asking or care to rebut.

Okay - finally final, most people today will be annoyed by the philosophizing I think. We generally don't elevate Reason like Socrates (or Kreeft) does, which means the arguments often don't resonate. I think (and this is mostly ignorance speaking), Kreeft is making modernistic arguments that just don't fly for we postmoderns... which isn't a word.

Conclusion:
All that being said, I (mostly) enjoyed and appreciated the dialogues and seeing the Socratic method in practice. In pursuit of the "best things in life," I think it did well to ask some of the bigger questions and wrestle with them. And - Socrates and basic philosophy is another gap in my education, so that was a plus.

Take-aways
Three quick thoughts that I really appreciated:

In discussing career and a liberal education, Socrates says, "Then we must consider two questions: what ends they serve and how well they serve those ends. If one of them helps you to a better end, or better helps you to the same end, it would be the better thing to choose, wouldn't it?"

... obviously better in context, but that was a helpful idea for me, as I'm looking to make another career change. The discussion of ends and means was delightful.

In discussing technology Socrates says that all the premodern philosophers "agreed that the most important thing in life was somehow to conform the human soul to objective reality..., which was gods, or God, or the will of God, or the laws of God. Even when the philosophers substituted Justice for Zeus and Beauty for Aphrodite and Truth for Apollo, the great task of human life remained essentially the same: to conform the soul to these divine, superhuman realities." (p.41)

For me, that is a profound and moving idea that corresponds to my own journey toward God and wrestling with faith. The Christian, biblical God remains as much (or more) hidden as she is revealed, which confounds and enriches this pursuit of divine mystery.

Lastly was this fun quote, again of Socrates: "The world, it seems to me, is divided into the wise who know they are fools, and the fools, who think they are wise." Hopefully our folly isn't merely false humility. As others have said, "Age makes fools of us all," so we might as well be gracious to others.

If you're curious about Socrates or appreciate the Socratic method, or if you enjoy wrestling with "the best things in life," and you're willing to overlook the corny, terrible parodies and (modernistic) Christian undertones, this might be a good book for you. Mostly I enjoyed it. Kreeft is a thoughtful writer. ( )

In twelve short, Socratic dialogues Peter Kreeft explodes contemporary values like success, power and pleasure. And he bursts the modern bubbles of agnosticism and subjectivism. He leaves you richer, wiser and more able to discern what the best things in life actually are.