Nursing Philosophy as a Profession
Philosophy of Nursing as a Knowledge Foundation
A philosophy of nursing lays the essential foundation for nursing knowledge. Whether explicitly articulated or just implied, all nursing knowledge begins and ends with a philosophy of nursing.
A philosophy of nursing is important because it represents the values, visions, and convictions of nurses about what ought to be nursing's central phenomena, that is, those phenomena that are both necessary and sufficient to provide a viable frame- work for the discipline and practice of nursing (Silva, 1997).
Therefore, to generate nursing knowledge, nurses must understand what are considered to be nursing's central phenomena. To better understand the underpinnings of nursing's central phenomena, nurses must turn to the relationship between philosophy and philosophy of nursing.
What is Philosophy itself
Philosophy is a specific discipline that deals with ultimate or first cause questions and phenomena that transcend other disciplines and cannot be answered by science or scientific investigation, for example, what is reality?
Like philosophy, nursing is viewed as a specific discipline; Thus, a
philosophy of nursing should address big or ultimate questions about nursing
and its phenomena. Example follow:
- What ought to be the basic phenomena of the discipline of nursing?
- What are the metaphysical and ontological claims that underlie the phenomena of the discipline of nursing?
- What are the moral claims that underlie the phenomena of the discipline of nursing? what are the aesthetic claims that underlie the phenomena of the discipline of nursing?
- How can the basic phenomena of the discipline of nursing be known?
- How should the basic phenomena of the discipline of nursing articulate with basic phenomena of other human, helping service disciplines?
Emergence of Nursing as a Philosophy
As health care professionals living in the 21st century, distinct disciplinary boundaries are blurring rapidly and more interdisciplinary fields are emerging. As this trend continues, so too will the questions that constitute the essence of nursing philosophy.
In summary, the preceding
questions raised about nursing have metaphysical, ontological, moral, and
aesthetic claims that emerge from philosophy but manifest themselves in
phenomena related to nursing and ultimately to nursing philosophy.
Nursing in Philosophical View
As a philosopher, Rescher (2001) believes that human beings have an innate curiosity “rooted in the need-to-know” (p. 6) answers to life's questions. To get at these answers, Rescher advocates philosophical inquiry as a methodology; this methodology includes a systematic process of “constructing a doctrinal system that answers.[life's] questions in a coherent and comprehensive way” (p. 1).
But, according to Rescher, there is more:
philosophers not only must deal with the estimation of truth that involves
errors of omission and/or commission but also must discern what constitutes
“the data of philosophy” (p. 15).
How Philosophical Thoughts Add Nursing Knowledge
Philosophical inquiry in nursing is one approach to advancing nursing knowledge. It follows the same method of philosophizing as previously described by Rescher (2001) but applies the method to substantive philosophical questions in nursing.
The goal is coherent and comprehensive answers to nursing's philosophical questions (eg, Jacobs, BB, 2001; Jones, T., 2003; Newman, 2002) with the best-fit estimation of truth (eg, Pilkington & Mitchell, 2003).
Like philosophical inquiry in philosophy, nurses who conduct
philosophical inquiry in nursing must discern what constitutes the data of
nursing.
Philosophy & Science
Philosophy is not science, and nursing philosophy is not nursing science.
But philosophy is the foundation of science, and nursing philosophy is
the foundation of both nursing science (ie, the body of nursing's scientific
knowledge) and nursing research (eg, the process of obtaining not only
nursing's body of scientific knowledge but also the process of obtaining
knowledge derived from scholarly critical analyses).
What is Human In Nursing Philosophy
Implicit in nursing research are assumptions about human beings (ie, study subjects or participants), about selected phenomena of the discipline (eg, variables), and about how the selected phenomena can be known (ie, the research method). In addition, in qualitative research the meaning or artistry of the selected phenomena is often addressed (eg, hermeneutics, photography).
Finally, regardless of whether the research is quantitative,
qualitative, and/or scholarly critical analysis, it must be ethical. Thus, all
research grounded in nursing contains explicit or implicit philosophies of
nursing that determine research approaches.
Future of Nursing Philosophy for Nurses
Future directions about philosophies of nursing and about nurses and nurse researchers include the following:
(a) nurses need greater knowledge about and appreciation for the discipline of philosophy
(b) nurse researchers must interact regularly with nurse philosophers to grasp more fully that a philosophy of nursing provides a foundation for nursing science and other nursing knowledge
(c) nurses must commit themselves in greater numbers to philosophical inquiry as a legitimate method of obtaining nursing knowledge
(d) nurses must prepare themselves for the blurring of distinct disciplinary
boundaries as more interdisciplinary fields emerge.
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