Professor Esther Meek is a leading figure in the philosophy of knowledge – the field we call ‘epistemology’. As a young girl growing up in a Christian household, she was preoccupied with big questions which she thought it was sinful to ask: “How do I know that *God* exists?” and even more fundamentally “How do I know that *anything* exists outside my mind?”
Her career led her to develop an answer to those questions with a philosophy that puts humanity back at the centre of all ‘knowledge’. In her work she was inspired by the great Hungarian scientist Michael Polanyi whose epic works (such as ‘Personal Knowledge’) humanised ‘science’. Esther is no ‘ivory tower’ philosopher. She is committed to making her ideas practical and accessible. In fact, she says everybody is a ‘philosopher’ by virtue of being born a human being – we just need the toolkits to think things through.
Esther’s talks are vitally relevant to our search for meaning in a modern world that has lost its way to doubt and scepticism. They will be relevant for the full range of people from sceptics to Christians. She will give us all a much better toolkit to explain the gospel and faith to a modern generation that does not even think that faith is intellectually viable. And she will open the door for a more ‘Romantic’ theology that realises, along with Moses, that we cannot package up our knowledge of God too neatly, yet we can know Him intimately.
What you will learn and how You will learn to think and persuade like the apostle Paul. When he famously addressed the Greek gentiles in Acts 17, he grounded his argument in philosophy not religion. He built a bridge between the world of faith and philosophy. A bridge that left everybody with a bigger God and a bigger world of faith than merely ritualistic religion.
Esther will begin by critiquing the bedrocks of modern thinking – ‘thinking’ as science and proof. She will explain how it has restricted us, and is, in fact, inadequate to explain reality including science itself. She will then build an alternative toolkit that puts humanity at the centre of knowing – not facts – and that works with love as the core of knowing.
She will give us practical ways to work with this paradigm shifting idea. New language, new ways to think about things, and new mental disciplines to work on.
"Everybody is a ‘philosopher’ by virtue of being born a human being – we just need the toolkits to think things through."
This will be workshop not just a set of lectures. We want you to gain skills not just new ideas. Esther will be supported by Dr Sarah Golsby-Smith and Dr Mark Strom; Sarah will give a literary perspective (the Romantics) and Mark a Biblical perspective.
This will be workshop not just a set of lectures. We want you to gain skills not just new ideas. Esther will be supported by Dr Sarah Golsby-Smith and Dr Mark Strom; Sarah will give a literary perspective (the Romantics) and Mark a Biblical perspective.
