Esther Meek

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Esther Lightcap Meek is Professor of Philosophy emeritus at Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, PA. She is also a Fujimura Institute Fellow Scholar, working with Artist Makoto Fujimura, and an Associate Fellow with the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology, in Cambridge, UK. She is a member of the Michael Polanyi Society.

Esther is committed to creative philosophizing that makes a concrete difference for people in all walks of life. An author and public speaker, her books and talks offer innovative philosophizing “for all of us,” and are also used in high schools, colleges and seminaries.

Biography[]

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Meek received a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies/Philosophy from Cedarville College, her MA in Humanities/Philosophy from Western Kentucky University, and a PhD in philosophy from Temple University. Her PhD dissertation explored the epistemic realism of 20th century premier scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi.

She has taught philosophy part-time for Western Kentucky University, Temple University, University of Southwest Louisiana, Fontbonne University, St. Louis University, and Covenant Theological Seminary. While at Covenant Seminary, she also served as Director of Publications, inaugurating her career as a popular writer.

Meek began her tenure with Geneva College in 2004, co-anchoring the College’s Philosophy Program, as well as teaming in the College’s Core Humanities sequence, and offering its introductory Logic requirement. Meek is a Board Member with the Michael Polanyi Society, and a frequent contributor to the Polanyi Society Journal, Tradition and Discovery. She contributes also to other scholarly and popular journals.

Meek speaks to universities, seminaries, and high schools, faculty and students, as well as to churches, giving keynote talks, and conducting epistemology workshops. She is featured selectively on some public videos and podcasts.

A majority of her work to date engages epistemology, the philosophical study of how it is that we know what we know. She titles her own epistemic proposals "covenant epistemology." Covenant epistemology proposes that the best paradigm of human knowing is the interpersonal, covenantally constituted, encounter and relationship. She works to challenge the widespread but defective "epistemic default" of Western modernist epistemology, carrying out the "epistemological therapy" required for transformative philosophical healing. Covenant epistemology describes how knowing works in all areas or work and life. Restoring the way we make sense of knowing positively and practically impacts a person’s work, as well as proving personally, transformatively, healing.

Books[]

• Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (Brazos, 2003)
• Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology (Cascade, 2011)
• A Little Manual for Knowing (Cascade, 2014)
• Contact With Reality: Michael Polanyi's Realism and Why It Matters (Cascade, 2017)
• An earlier book she coauthored with Church Expert Donald J. MacNair: The Practices of a Healthy Church (P&R, 1999).
• Her current book project is a series, Doorways, in which each small volume will work out covenant epistemology's application in a specific discipline such as art, business, therapy, and education.

External links[]

• Esther Lightcap Meek - Official website
• Knowing, Knowing, Knowing God: Contours of Covenant Epistemology - Lecture at the Henry Center for Theological Understanding, TEDS