![]() ![]() There is no reason that the Summa format cannot produce the same results. Peter Kreeft has written over a dozen books of Socratic dialogues, and readers like them – they like the form, or format, irrespective of the content. Why not? Probably it is pride, the refusal to stoop to conquer, the confusion of “stooped” with “stupid.” Yet professionally philosophers have not followed these tried-and-true roads. ![]() Beginning philosophy students pick up both methods very quickly, and write adept imitations of them. As the charm of the Socratic dialogue is its dramatic length, its uncertainty, and the psychological dimension of a clash between live characters, so the charm of the Summa method is the opposite: its condensation and its impersonality, objectivity, simplicity, directness, and logical clarity. Thomas Aquinas uses in the Summa Theologiae. Next to the Socratic Method, the best method for organizing a logical debate over a controversial philosophical or theological issue is the method St. ![]()
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