Nursing as a Science and Philosophy Flashcards
What is a profession?
Learned vocation or occupation that has a status of superiority and precedence within a division of work
What are the 8 Characteristics of a Profession?
- Defined and specialized knowledge base
- Control and authority over training and education
- Credentialing system or registration to ensure competence
- Altruistic service to society
- Code of ethics (CNA)
- Formal training within institutions of higher education
- Lengthy socialization to the profession
- Autonomy (control of professional activities)
Is nursing a profession?
Nursing can be considered an evolving profession
What is an Occupation?
A job or career. Your main way of earning money.
What is an Academic Discipline?
A branch of knowledge ordered through the theories and methods evolving from more than one worldview of the phenomenon of concern
- A field of inquiry
- A branch of educational instruction or department of learning or knowledge
Disciplines are Organized by…
Structure and Tradition
Structure provides what for disciplines?
Organization and determines the amount, relationship, and ratio of each type of knowledge that comprises the discipline
Tradition provides what for disciplines?
The content, which includes ethical, personal, esthetic, and scientific knowledge
6 Characteristics of Disciplines include:
- A distinct perspective and syntax
- Determination of what phenomena are of interest
- Determination of the context in which the phenomena are viewed
- Determination of what questions to ask
- Determination of what methods of study are used
- Determination of what evidence is proof
What kind of discipline aims to know, has more descriptive theories in nature, and has both basic and applied knowledge?
Academic Discipline
What kind of discipline is more practical in nature, and has research that tends to be more prescriptive and descriptive?
Professional Discipline
What kind of discipline is nursing?
Professional Discipline
Areas that Identify Nursing as a Distinct Discipline include:
- Nursing has an identifiable philosophy
- Nursing has at least one conceptual framework
- Nursing has acceptable methodologies for the development of knowledge
Science
Causality to understand reality through observation, verifiability, and experience
- Hypothesis testing, experimentation as methods
Philosophy
Concern with the purpose of human life, the nature of being and reality, and the theory and limits to knowledge.
- Intuition, introspection, reasoning as methods
What is the goal of Science and Philosophy?
They share a common goal of increasing knowledge.
- The science of any discipline is tied to its philosophy
Who is considered the father of modern philosophy?
Rene Descartes
Which early philosopher was a rationalist?
Rene Descartes
What did Rene Descartes believe?
He believed that sensations were not the basis for all knowledge, so he developed a more scientific knowledge to achieve the truth
What is a rationalist?
Rationalists believe that reason is superior to experience as a source of knowledge. They attempt to determine the nature of the world and reality by deduction and stress the importance of mathematical procedures.
Cartesian Doubt states that… Which philosopher had the mindset of cartesian doubt? What does cartesian doubt state?
To find the truth one must doubt everything. However, it is in doubting that we can prove our existence. If we did not exist, we could not doubt.
This was the mindset of Rene Descartes
What is an empiricist?
Like rationalists, they support experimentation and scientific methods for solving problems
Which philosopher was an empiricist?
Francis Bacon
Who said: “I think. Therefore I am”
Rene Descartes
Who said: The only thing that I know, is that I know nothing.
Rene Descartes
Who set the foundations for many later developments in philosophy?
Immanuel Kant
Who believed that knowledge is relative and that the mind plays an active role in knowing?
Immanuel Kant
A Priori is
Knowledge without experience
A Posteriori is
Knowledge that arises from experience
The central philosophical concept of Immanuel Kant is…
The categorical imperative
What is the Categorical Imperative?
Commands or moral laws that all persons must follow, regardless of their desires or extenuating circumstances
Who said: Do the right thing because it is right
Immanuel Kant
Who said: Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life
Immanuel Kant
Metaphysics
The study of the fundamental nature of reality and existence
- General theory of reality
Epistemology
The study of knowledge
-Ways of knowing, Nature of truth, Relationship between knowledge and belief
Ontology
The study of the theory of being
-What is or what exists
Cosmology
The study of the physical universe
Logic
Study of principles and methods of reasoning
- Inference and argument
Ethics
Study of nature of values; right and wrong
- Moral philosophy
Esthetics
Study of appreciation of the arts or things beautiful
Philosophy of Science
Study of science and scientific pratice
Political Philosophy
Study of citizen and state
What is Nursing Philosophy?
(Epistomology) What does it refer to? How does it apply to nursing?
A statement of foundational and universal assumptions, beliefs and principles about the nature of knowledge and thought (epistemology) and about the nature of the entities represented in the metaparadigm.
It refers to the worldview of the profession and provides perspectives for practice, scholarship and research.
Nursing can be considered a multi-paradigm discipline, in which using multiple perspectives/worldviews in a unified way is valuable and even necessary for knowledge development
What is Nursing Science? What does it give rise to?
The substantive, discipline-specific knowledge that focuses on the human-universe-health process articulated in the nursing framework and theories
Gives rise to methodological processes used to develop and apply substantive nursing knowledge and provides the knowledge for all aspects of nursing
What is the Goal of Nursing Science?
The goal of nursing science is to represent the nature of nursing - to understand it, to explain it, and to use it for the benefit of humankind. It is to develop and apply the discipline-specific knowledge, and recognize the relationships of human responses in health and illness and addresses biologic, behavioral, social and cultural domains.
The study of the origins of nursing knowledge, its structure and its methods, the patterns of knowing of its members, and the criteria for validating its knowledge claims
Nursing epistemology
What did Carper contribute to Nursing Epistemology?
Carper identified 4 fundamental patterns for nursing knowledge: empirics, esthetics, personal, ethics
The science of Nursing.
Draws on traditional ideas that can be verified through observation and proved through hypothesis testing.
- Empirical Knowledge
The art of Nursing.
Involves sensing the meaning of a moment, having empathy, interactions of a nurse in response to another
- Esthetic Knowledge
Refers to the way in which nurses view themselves and the client. Knowing what impact the nurse will have.
- Personal Knowledge
Moral Knowledge in Nursing
Refers to the moral code for nursing and is based on the obligation to service and respect for human life.
Need of obligation, carrying out what must be done
- Ethical Knowledge
What did Shultz and Meleis contribute to Nursing Epistemology?
They concluded that Carper’s work did not incorporate practical knowledge into the ways of knowing of nursing.
They described 3 patterns of knowledge: Clinical knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, empirical knowledge
Refers to the individual nurse’s personal knowledge. Results from using multiple ways of knowing while solving problems during client care provision. It is manifested in the act of practicing nursing.
Communicated retrospectively through publication in journals
Clinical Knowledge
Abstracted and generalized beyond personal experience. Patterns revealed in multiple client experiences which occur in multiple situations articulated in models and theories. Uses knowledge from nursing and other disciplines- involves the use of curiosity, imagination, persistence, commitment.
Conceptual Knowledge
Results from experimental, historical, phenomenological research and is used to justify actions and procedures in practice. Evaluated through systematic review.
Empirical Knowledge
What did Chinn and Kramer contribute to Nursing Epistemology?
They expanded on Carper’s patterns of knowing to include Emancipatory knowing
Designated as the praxis of nursing, refers to human’s ability to critically examine the current status quo and to determine why it currently exists. Expressed in actions that are directed toward changing existing social structures and establishing practices that are more favorable to human health and well-being.
Emancipatory Knowing
Who proposed that the human sciences require concepts, methods, and theories that are fundamentally different from natural sciences?
Wilhelm Dilthey
Nursing as a human science consists of…
- Descriptive theories regarding the structures, processes, relationships.
- Value the subjective component of knowledge.
- Produces descriptions and interpretations to help understand the nature of human experiences.
Involves incorporating obersvation/description, accurte measurement, quantification of variables, mathematical and statistical analysis, experimental methods, and verification through replication whenever possible.
Quantitative methodology
Grounded in the social sciences. Incorporates means for determining interpretation of the phenomena of concern from the perspective of the client or care recipient. Many nurse scientists believe that qualitative inquiry contains features of good science including theory and observation, logic, precision, clarity, and reproducibility.
Qualitative methodology
Both quantitative and qualitative studies have strengths and weaknesses. It can be considered that the methods are complimentary and both essential for nursing science development
Nursing scholars accept the premise that scientific knowledge is generated from systematic study.
Methodologic pluralism
What did Karl Popper contribute to the study of knowledge in nursing?
Used 3 world to attempt to explain metaphysics …or what is really REAL about reality …
What did Karl Popper’s world’s of knowledge help to establish?
The philosophy of science within the study of philosophy. A philosophy of science attempts to uncover knowledge and truth about science in to itself
It is not about what science discovers, it is about the structure of thinking in the discipline.
Physical
Created by nature
Geography
Humans and Animals
5 senses
disciplines exist (such as medicine, experimentation, etc)
World 1
Mental Processes
The act of Learning creates this world
Philosophy exists in this world.
World 2
- Socially constructed (created by humans)
- Products of thought in another world
- This world can cause unintentional changes in other worlds
- Learning also changes world 2.
- Brings more meaning to the other worlds
World 3
- Reality/truth considered separate from context
- Objective
- Prediction and Control
- Deductive
- One Truth
- Quantitative research methods
Example of world 1
Received Worldview
- Reality/truth considered in context
- Subjective
- Description and understanding
- Inductive
- Multiple truths
- Qualitative research methods
Example of world 3
Perceived worldview
-Macroanalysis
- Contextual meaning/narration
- Reality/truths/facts considered with regard to history
- Metanarrative analysis
- Different views
- Uncovering opposing views
- Macrorelationship/Microstructures
- Methodologic pluralism methods
Example for world 2
Postmodern worldview
