Philosophy, Plato tells us, begins in wonder. But Clare Carlisle’s Transcendence for Beginners ends there. Wondering is not a confusion to be overcome; it is an aspiration, a vocation, a calling. Not all confusions can be resolved, she realizes. (A hard lesson for philosophers to absorb; I speak from experience.) “I am learning to live with these confusions,” she confesses. As both a philosopher and a biographer (of George Eliot and Søren Kierkegaard), in this new book Carlisle explores “what it could mean for a philosopher to work from life”: “Looking at a life this way prompts us to wonder what truth – and what mystery – it embodies and transmits.” Sometimes reaching mystery is an achievement. Sometimes wisdom is found only when you learn “to consider yourself a beginner.”

Clare Carlisle invites us to see our own lives under the aspect of eternity.