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“LOVING TO KNOW/CREATE: EPISTEMOLOGICAL THERAPY FOR ARTISTS AND OTHER KNOWERS”
Esther Lightcap Meek 2015 DT S Arts Conference
My story
Knowing (Ad)Ventures
Pilgrimage
Gift
…and why/how that matters to art and the creative act
This week:
Today: The Need for
Epistemological Therapy
Tomorrow: How Knowing (and the
Creative Act) Works
Thursday: Loving to Know: Covenant
Epistemology for Artists and other Knowers
Friday: Inviting the Real, and the
Real We Invite
Today: The Need for
Epistemological Therapy
Epistemology shapes our lives.
“…the patterns of epistemology can help us decipher the patterns of our lives. Its images of the knower, the known, and their relationship are formative in the way an educated person not only thinks but acts. The shape of our knowledge becomes the shape of our living; the relation of the knower to the known becomes the relation of the living self to the larger world.”
Parker Palmer
You may not have thought about it, but you may have felt it.
Intellectually
Spiritually
Psychologically
Artistically
Physically
The Knowledge-as-Information Mindset
INFORMATION.
Facts.
Linear.
Impersonal.
Bits are better:
Knowledge is power.
Reduce. Analyze. Split.
for Power and Control.
Just read it off the world.
“Esther’s Daisy of Dichotomies”
Knowledge…
Facts…
Reason…
Science…
Theory…
Objective…
Public…
Mind…
Male…
Knowledge… Facts… Reason… Science… Theory… Objective… Public… Mind… Male…
Belief Opinions, interpretations,
values, morals Faith, emotions Art, imagination, religion,
authority, tradition Application Subjective Private Body Female
DEFECTIVE!!!!!! The Knowledge-as-
Information Mindset
The Defective Epistemic Default (DED)
Modernity: the ambition of power over nature
“Human knowledge becomes mature and manly, able to beget children, only when it is directed to its true end, namely, power over nature in order to minister to the needs of life.”
--Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Modernity: the ambition of power over nature
“Instead of speculative philosophy we can find a practical one, by which, knowing [natural things]…we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves masters and possessors of nature.”
“The entire class of causes which derive from a thing’s ‘end,” I judge to be utterly useless in Physics.”
--Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Modernist Epistemology
“A substantive decision is required of us, for modernity has eroded even our readiness to hold to the miraculous scandal [of the Resurrection].”
“But the matters of life and faith cannot be expressed in the tongues of modernity, for its technical epistemology, incapable of doxology, has consigned us to death and despair.”
Walter Brueggemann
Toxic modernism
Pragmatism
Utilitarianism
Commercialism
The transactional
Commodification
“Scarcity”
Reductivism
Fragmentation
“The soil in which I was
planted was not soil I
could thrive in.”
“I am a misfit.”
DED-ly Fallout Depersonalization Disengagement Irresponsibility Indifference Boredom
Cluelessness Hopelessness Skepticism Cynicism Atheism
Secularism Compartmentalization
Fragmentation Disembodiment
Wonder Dynamism Adventure Confidence Risk Hope Wisdom Jesus the Truth
Protestant Christian epistemic default?
Comprehensive Christian Information Sermons, Bible studies, conferences,
heaven… Christian Daisy: Absolute Truth Relativism Reason Faith Theory Application Theology Relat’p w/ Jesus
I love Jesus!
So chuck Modernism!...for what?
Knowing (Ad)Ventures …tomorrow
Compromise? NO!
A THIRD way.
Healing our epistemic default.
Loving to Know
Wonder
Adventure
Hope
Promise
Risk
Responsibility
Integration
Insight
Transformation
Confidence
Joy
Reality
Wisdom
Jesus the Truth
Conversations
Examples of the DED
Impact of the DED
Recommended