A day spent with Dr Esther Lightfoot Meek

On Monday 15 August we were privileged to engage with Dr Esther Lightfoot Meek in a series of addresses and conversations. Dr Meek’s key interest is epistemology – the study not of what we know, but of the nature of knowing itself and how this shapes us as individuals and communities.

Dr Meek is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from Geneva College in

Western Pennsylvania. Her teaching career at this esteemed College, and her association with such forwardthinking institutions as the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge both give evidence to the importance of a search for knowledge that transforms the ways that we exist in the world. Dr Meek has a deep and challenging view that presents knowing, and being known, ultimately as a profoundly spiritual journey. It is deep because it distinguishes between knowledge as a mere set of facts to be memorised, even assented to, and knowing, an experience that connects with ideas and experiences in a personal way that shapes an individual’s being, seeing, understanding, and relating to others and to God.

Dr Meek acknowledged “the exciting moments in the adventure of knowing” – from the journey of the Magi to our own challenges and pathways. She argued for the importance of this kind of knowing. It challenges us, discomforts us, shapes us and leads us further; it is the essence of our being. Dr Meek’s asserted that we are all philosophers: it is, in fact, our birthright. In a series of addresses, to both staff and students, Dr Meek asked her listeners to see themselves on a journey of knowing rather than on one of merely gathering knowledge. This was a challenging concept to groups of people engaged in the teaching and learning processes.

The afternoon’s program included Dr Meek’s visit to Mrs Morphew’s Year 10 Christian Studies class. It was an interactive session built around the question of what it means to really know something. Her analogy of her own experience of learning to ride a bicycle, that she had presented earlier in the day to larger groups, resonated with students. In asking them to identify

Dr Esther Lightfoot Meek (centre) with Mrs Pamela Nutt and Dr Burigs. We were privileged to have Dr Meek as our guest speaker for the 2022 Pamela Nutt Address.

Dr Meek has a deep and challenging view that presents knowing, and being known, ultimately as a profoundly spiritual journey.

a skill they now had that they’d needed to learn, she encouraged them to remember what it felt like when they first attempted it. One student, clearly now a proficient swimmer, recalled the feeling that initially, it felt more like drowning. Dr Meek’s response (“What does it feel like now? Can you identify an “aha!” moment when your learning experience moved from incompetence to confidence?) allowed students to see that “knowledge” of the necessary facts was a different matter from an experience of “knowing”, and that the movement from one to the other was clearly discernable. Following this, Dr Meek discussed with the students the role of an authoritative guide in helping individuals to move from struggling to being competent. In this way, she argued for the complex and holistic nature of knowing and the process of integration essential to this. Certainly, Dr Meek asked her listeners to think in a new direction about matters each of them had encountered, and in doing so elevated the concept of “knowing” to a level that integrated physical, intellectual, social and spiritual learning.

Mrs Pamela Nutt

Juvenilia Coordinator, English Department

Mrs Cassandra Morphew

Director of Chaplaincy and Christian Studies