Abstract

Preparing to lecture on Aristotle's contribution to Nursing at the International Philosophy of Nursing Conference August 22, 2016, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, I came upon the recently published article by my IPONS colleague, Allmark (2016), “Aristotle for Nursing.” Allmark (2016) provides a comprehensive and understandable overview of Aristotle's philosophical system including the substantial nature of being and the four causes of change. Nurses using Aristotle to support practice and theoretical research will benefit from a careful reading of Allmark to enrich their use of the realist understanding of knowledge of nature (epistemology) and the matter–form causal relationships within natural being (ontology and teleology). Allmark carefully displays the distinction between good health and flourishing; a distinction sometimes hard to grasp. Nurses are concerned with the end of health, but cannot achieve for others, the fullness of living which is flourishing.We will limit ourselves to expanding three areas that seem important, first, that nursing is much more than a productive science or craft, second, that Aristotle does provide an important note on the persistence of the soul, and, third, while Aristotle does not address the possibility of a personal creative highest being as Allmark says, his references to the divine are worth considering.