“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