This article summarizes a virtual live‐streamed panel event that occurred in August 2020 and was cosponsored by the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS) and the University of California, Irvine's Center for Nursing Philosophy. The event consisted of a series of three self‐contained panel discussions focusing on the past, present and future of IPONS and was moderated by the current Chair of IPONS, Catherine Green. The first panel discussion explored the history of IPONS and the journal Nursing Philosophy. The second (...) panel involved a reflection on the challenges of doing nursing philosophy in a research‐intensive context of a Canadian university and the history and current movements in nursing philosophy in the Nordic countries. The final panel involved presentations on the future potential for philosophy in/and for nursing, the critical connections between nursing philosophy and nursing theory, dismantling racism in nursing and the potential for process philosophy to help explore nursing's unique efficacy in creating possibilities for health. The panels were followed by a lively Q&A session with participants, of which there were 252 registrants from across the globe. The event underscored the wide and diverse interests of nurses in philosophical discussion and the need for more virtual events and other connective modalities bringing nurses together to discuss and analyze the value and potential of philosophy to better understand and advance nursing theory and practice. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the meaning of physical touch as it occurs in the nurse–patient interaction. There are two aspects of the nurse–patient relationship that are found in most nurse–patient interactions which together have profound implications for nurses as practitioners and as individual human persons. The first is the clinical intimacy of the nurse–patient relationship where nurses touch, rub, smooth, clean, dress and otherwise physically interact with patients. The other is the existential crisis, the possibility of loss, suffering and (...) death that lurks at the horizon of most, if not all, healthcare encounters. Edmund Husserl, Merleau‐Ponty and more recently Robert Sokolowski argue that tactile sensations and resultant perceptions are fundamental to all sensory perception. Further, they argue that tactile sensation is fundamental for the ongoing constitution of ‘my’ self as a person and for the development and exercise of human intersubjectivity. If tactile interaction is crucial to the development of our very selves as persons and a significant aspect of our interaction with patients includes direct or observed tactile sensations and if further these sensations occur around the context of existential crises for our patients, then nurse's very selves as persons are being challenged by these interactions. Here, then I examine the philosophical argument for the role of tactile sensations in our human development and briefly look at contemporary neurophysiologic research that supports this philosophical account. I then suggest ways such physical intimacy can lead to a strengthening or weakening of the person of the nurse and the nursing interaction and end with some thoughts about ways to support nurses in these activities. (shrink)

This article explores a problem of the articulation of an adequate account of the human person in both philosophical and nursing theory. It follows the lead of philosopher Norris Clarke in suggesting that there has been a significant division in the way philosophers have looked at the human person and goes on to suggest that this division is paralleled in prominent nursing theories. The paper reviews and argues for the synthesis of two contemporary philosophic theories of the person that arise (...) from the traditional philosophical division, and uses Clarke's account to show the ontological need for such a synthesis if we are to have a more adequate account of the human person. Next, accounts of the person identified in a number of the prominent theories of nursing are briefly reviewed revealing the vast complexity of the person encountered in nursing practice. It is suggested that each new theory of nursing is founded, at least in part, on the need to account for attributes of the person missing from prior nursing theories. It will be seen that the synthesized account of the person argued for here more adequately accounts for the various attributes identified in these nursing accounts and it is hoped that this synthesized account will serve as a somewhat more complete basis for a continued exploration of the persons encountered in nursing practice in its many and varied manifestations. (shrink)

An understanding of the nature and development of nursing intuition can help nurse educators foster it in young nurses and give clinicians more confidence in this aspect of their knowledge, allowing them to respond with greater assurance to their intuitions. In this paper, accounts from philosophy and neurophysiology are used to argue that intuition, specifically nursing intuition, is a valid form of knowledge. The paper argues that nursing intuition, a kind of practical intuition, is composed of four distinct aspects that (...) include: embodied knowledge rather like that knowledge we have when we have learned to ride a bicycle; well‐trained sensory perceptions attentive to subtle details of complex, often rapidly changing situations; a significant store of pertinent conceptual knowledge; and a history of habitual actions intentionally directed towards achieving the best outcomes for our patients. Contemporary neurophysiology research strongly suggests that human persons experience other persons such that they directly understand the meaning of a variety of different human actions, intentions, emotions, and sensations in immediate, non‐reflective, and non‐conceptual perceptions. This research is supported by the philosophical theories of Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon found in their accounts of practical knowledge. Together, these accounts offer us a rich view of the reality of nursing intuition that helps us understand why we find intuitive actions in some but not all nurses and gives us some specific information about how to develop intuition in young nurses. Finally, this research shows us a path for further research. (shrink)

The article explores the problem of nursing as a practical discipline and suggests that there are several kinds of nursing science. Following the lead of Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon, the authoress begins with an account of the distinguishing characteristics of theoretical knowledge, to which the term “science” has historically been applied, and distinguishes it from practical knowledge or prudence. Next she reviews Maritain and Simon’s discussion of two intermediate levels of inquiry that share some characteristics of both science (...) and practical knowledge. Finally, using the writings of several nurse theorists whose seminal ideas in this area have established a basis for nurse theorist’s discussion of these issues, she distinguishes four kinds of nursing inquiry which range from the very theoretical to the very practical. (shrink)

Simon argues that there is an objectivity possible in moral action analogous to the objectivity found in science. While it does not allow algorithmic reasoning to certain conclusions, it does allow the agent who is determined to achieve the good to attain a relative level of comfort in his choices while acknowledging the possibility of a bad outcome resulting from contingency or unavoidable ignorance. Simon calls this "affective knowledge." He argues that the best way to grasp this "affective knowledge" is (...) to explore "intentional" relations. Simon argues that there is an analogical relation between intentional existence as it is found in cognitive knowledge and as it is found in affective knowledge. In this thesis we explore the nature of the object that exists intentionally in cognition and compare it with the object that exists intentionally in acts of volition. ;We argued that, according to Simon's metaphysics, the cognitive object is involved in several different intentional relations that deliver it intact to the cognitive agent and allow the agent to be formed by the thing itself, precisely as that extramental thing is formed in the world. Things in the world are able to make their forms present to the knower and the knower is able to achieve that form without altering the form or itself. This is intentional existence in the realm of forms. ;In volition, the agent conforms his own possibilities in relation to the good he desires to constitute a physical action that is determined to achieve that good. What allows us to choose one good possibility over another is the intentional relation our created nature gives us to that which is good in itself. We make the possible good actual. This is intentional existence in the realm of finality. ;The objectivity of knowing, then, is a relation of formal consonance between the thing itself and that thing known. The objectivity of practical action is an existential consonance between the good of the possibility, the truly good desire, and the good choice. (shrink)

This book exemplifies the clarity and precision which Simon brought to the various subjects he addressed. Why though, would one be interested in virtue? Do not such theories as the natural goodness of man, social engineering, or perhaps psycho-technology provide us with more fruitful and less difficult means of finding the end of good human action? In a particularly enlightening discussion of the problem of nature and use, Simon shows that theories of the natural goodness of man and psycho-technology are (...) true insofar as they provide necessary preconditions for good human action, but he claims that they are not sufficient individually or collectively to assure such action. Simon notes that the nature of things determines how it will be possible to use them well. For example, someone with severe neuroses or psychoses is unable, because of these problems, to make good use of himself as a human being; he is unable to act morally as a result of inappropriate fears or anxieties. On the other hand, man's natural goodness, Simon suggests, is perfected by its good use, just as one's talents as a musician or as a thinker are perfected by the use of these faculties. (shrink)