Developing Nursing Knowledge: Practice Issues Raised from Four Philosophical Perspectives

Abstract

Analysis and comparison of emerging perspectives in nursing on some of the key issues of practice theory can create an enhanced vision of the discipline. Four philosophy-of-science perspectives — realism, relativism, interpretivism, and humanism — are catalysts for fruitful insights about practice. However, together they generate more questions than they answer, both from each perspective and from the intersection of the assumptions of the four philosophies about the nature of knowledge. The nature of knowledge for practice emerges from examining how the philosophical basis and the derived practice theories address such issues as the phenomena of the discipline, environment, teleology, and nursing theoretical frameworks. This is the time for good debate and collaborative knowledge-building among scholars of various persuasions within a milieu of ethos, pathos, and logic.