Philosophy is often viewed as man's contemplations, autobiographical revelations, and the values and belief systems that underlie man's actions, Can an explicit philosophy of nursing allow for more meaningful quality practice, be a resource for nurses, improve service, be available for reexamination, correction, and the forwarding of knowledge? If nursing practice is viewed as the implementation of scientific facts and what they call forth in the nursing situation related to man's condition of existence, is a heuristic science of nursing developed from this situation, by nurses, an appropriate practical professional aim?
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This presentation is my answer, a committed "Yes."
The method offered here, a phenomenological method of nursology, aims at the reality of man, how he experiences his world, or it aims at a subjective-objective state. It aims at description of the professional clinical nursing situation which in reality is subjective-objective world that occurs between subjective-objective beings. The description focuses on this between and preserves the complex mobile flow of the river of nursing to make apparent that superficial precise portrayals are only an overlay of its river bed, course, and eventual destinations.
The relevance of phenomenological nursology ranges from the formulation of nursing constructs to the creation of theoretical propositions. It is applicable to one's own clinical data and to others' clinical data, here and now, or in historical study of the literature.
METHODOLOGICAL STARTING POINT
This method addresses itself to the question: How can a nurse, a subjective-objective human being know self and the other and compare and complementarily synthesize these known betweens?
Basic to this method is a belief system, a philosophy about the nature of man explicitly commented on by thinkers throughout human history.
Plato said:
"I cannot be sure whether or not I see it as it really is; but we can be sure there is some such reality which it concerns us to see."[4]