Transcendence for Beginners

Clare Carlisle is the author of eight books on philosophy and philosophers, including Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard and The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life, which won the 2024 PEN Prize for Biography. Clare grew up in Manchester, studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, and now lives in Hackney. She is Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London.

‘We can make our own shape out of [Carlisle's] words because she is never dogmatic and because she is clearly on an open-ended quest herself. All possibilities remain alive in this subtle, generous and humane book.’— Sarah Bakewell, Guardian