摘要：These reflections summarize and critically respond to Esther Meek’s Longing to Know: The Philosophy of
Knowledge for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press/Baker Book House, 2003. Pp. 208.
$16.99. ISBN 1-58743-060-6). The book seeks to explain on the basis of the ideas of Michael Polanyi how
ordinary acts of knowing happen to work, how they are indeed instances of genuine knowing, and, in
comparison with them, how knowing God can possibly work and be a live possibility. Meek’s argument’s most
vulnerable premise is its unquestioned acceptance of Scripture as an authoritative guide, which directly raises
the question whether Meek’s position is fully post-critical in the sense identified by Polanyi, and indirectly
raises the question how Meek is able to handle religious pluralism.
关键词：Esther Meek, Michael Polanyi, epistemology, knowing ordinary things, personal
participation in knowing, perceptual integration, knowing God, modernism, post-modernism, post-critical,
authority in knowing, scripture as authority, religious pluralism.
