TRANSCENDENCE FOR BEGINNERS

short bluesky summary

 ⌘ A bit of an odd one: six lectures on the topic of "natural theology," drafted by a Spinoza scholar who has also written biographies on Kierkegaard and George Eliot. Plenty of cross-disciplinary firepower here, but what it all added up to eluded me 

⌘ You're clearly in the presence of someone who has thought deeply and insightfully about a variety of different topics, and who can move between them deftly, but the more I read the less convinced I felt that a big picture was emerging from the weave 

⌘ I don't object to a cross-disciplinary book being joined loosely—I adore the messy abundance of, say, Fanny Howe's inimitable nonfiction, which gains force from its refusal to decisively draw its strands together. But even if one could emulate it I don't think that's what's Carlisle's going for 

⌘ so I guess I wanted Carlisle's book to be either tidier or messier, or possibly both at the same time. an impossible ask, sure, but the heart wants what it wants

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Notes [oldest to newest]

1. "Milieu"

2. "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies"

3. "Kalon"

4. The "cosmogram"

5. "The most pertinent spiritual question" in Christianized cultures

6. Spinoza on Christ

7. The German Romantics and divine power

8. Kierkegaard's "Repetition"

9. Spinoza, God, and personhood

10. Romain Rolland