On Bender's orientation to models: Towards a philosophical debate on covering laws, theory, emergence and mechanisms in nursing science

Abstract

AbstractNursing scholars continuously refine nursing knowledge and the philosophical foundations of nursing practice. They advance nursing knowledge by creating new knowledge and weighing the relevance of developments in cognate sciences. Nurse philosophers go further by providing epistemological and ontological arguments for explanations of nursing phenomena. In this article, I engage with Bender's arguments about why mechanisms should have more primacy as carriers of nursing knowledge. Despite the careful scholarship involved, Bender's arguments need to be more convincing. Accordingly, this article encourages debate about Bender's arguments for reorientating nursing science to mechanisms. I begin by suggesting that the claim that the theory‐practice divide can be overcome by reorientating to mechanisms is acceptable only if we accept Bender's depiction of the challenge. Then I question the ontology Bender relies on to justify reorientating nursing science. After that, I argue that mechanisms in models that parallel analytical sociology undermine the kind of nursing science Bender advocates. I illustrate my arguments with a social mechanism thought experiment. Then I explain why Bender's arguments cannot escape the received view of science or inform emancipatory nursing action without theory. Finally, I mention some caveats and implications for nursing science.