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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great introduction to "how we know stuff"!, July 8, 2003
This review is from: Longing to Know (Paperback)
This text is written for people who want to begin thinking about how we know "stuff" with any level of assurance. Meek sets the stage by exploring the big questions and lays out an very comprehensible epistemology based on her vast knowledge of Michael Polanyi (if you don't know Polanyi, don't worry). I rated this 5-stars because she accomplishes all that she sets out to do in concise clear language. She also introduces the reader to the idea of a biblical epistemology (how we can talk biblically about knowing reality and God). She rightly dissects modernism and post-modernism and gives a more realistic view of knowing things, people, and even how we can know God. Meek is writing a entry-level text on what might be the most complex and abstract topic in humanity. She explains the topic systematically and historically. She gives plenty of "street level" examples. No advanced degrees are required.
For these reasons, I do not hestitate to recommend this book to people who are interested in the topic.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Longing and Reasons of our Hearts, February 17, 2005
This review is from: Longing to Know (Paperback)
This is a delightful book on epistemology written by a college classmate of mine. Don't let the fact that the book is philosophical scare you. It is actually fun to read. Meek in developing her argument uses illustrations and word-pictures on almost every page. You will read about magic-eye 3-D pictures, copperhead snakes, throwing a Frisbee or playing golf, and movies like The Hunt For Red October. Part of why this book is so delightful to read is the imaginative ways she conveys her ideas. In one place she compares the act of knowing to a wedding ceremony and putting on leotards.
What is her basic argument? Meek makes a case that we know God the same way we come to know other people or things. Knowing God, she says, is like knowing your auto mechanic. She defines knowing as "the responsible human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality." Meek also wants to replace the notion of certainty with the notion of confidence. She also emphasizes that knowing is an activity; it is not something that happens to us but something we seek to accomplish.
I think Meek accurately describes the "epistemic act." There is more to knowing than meets the eye. As I read through her book, my mind kept going back to Pascal. His insights affirm the viability of truth that transcend the limits of rationality while at the same time affirm the distinction between the longing and the reasons of our hearts. Meek also helped me understand that my body functions as an axis or bridge that makes knowledge possible.
Meek's book is a passionate handbook toward confident faith. Its conducive for group study with questions at the end of each chapter.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
And it's good for strange people, too!, September 18, 2004
This review is from: Longing to Know (Paperback)
Who knew epistemology could be such fun?! Meek's down-to-earth approach and real life personal illustrations make for a delightful read. At the same time, her gracious but unapologetic applications to her Christian faith give the work an impressive weight.
In the face of modern despair and post-modern whateverism, Dr. Meek couragously seeks to answer the troubling fundamental question: How do you know? Amazingly, her answer rings true. Many stubborn conundrums, ones I had long considered insoluble, fell like so many Berlin Walls before her gentle, evocative words. To call LTK an eye-opener would be a huge understatement. It has given me more "Oh! I see it!" moments, as Meek colorfully calls them, than any other book aside from the Bible itself.
By offering a model for confident contact with the real, LTK has the potential to restore hope to those who have despaired for a lack of absolute certainty, humble those who thought they had absolute certainty, and aid understanding in every legitimate field of human endeavor I can think of. It even helped me understand my wife better! Boy, was that an "unexpected future manifestation"!
Oh, uh, if, perchance, you don't consider yourself an ordinary person, despair not. The Polanyi/Meek model is helpful for us eccentrics, too. :-)
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