Nursing Philosophy

Running Head: NURSING
NURSING PHILOSOPHY
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NURSING 2
Introduction
Philosophy of science refers to a viewpoint in which one views the world. An individual's
philosophy of science forms a picture or a message that progressively becomes a model and a
point of orientation. An individual's philosophy of science permits some occurrences to happen
and others to be blocked. It allows some thoughts to be open to some people and locked to other
people. Philosophy deems some ideas correct and others inconsistent while others are considered
to be wrong. Philosophy of science is not supposed to be regarded as a black or white
proposition, but one that provides outlooks includes given ideas and thoughts, and therefore, it is
good to exclude others.
Modern science was developed 400 years ago and was meant to formalize the phenomena
of interest, which was aimed at explaining, describing, and controlling the state of affairs in
nature. Modern science has led to the development and improvement of the quality of life for
human beings. It brought a sense of order and understanding (Masters, 2014).
The development of nursing science evolved since the 1950s and was aimed at
understanding scientific disciplines. Being a scientific discipline entails the identification and
acknowledgment of the contribution of nurses to the care of patients, families, and communities.
It means that nurses can carry out clinical and basic nursing research and form a scientific base
for the care for persons across their lifespan (Smith, 2015). The fundamental questions
concerning epistemology need to be answered. The issues involved include; what are the
methods used in the production of scientific knowledge and what is the difference between
science and truth. Epistemology is concerned with the theory of experience in the philosophical
inquiry. The philosophical perspectives in which the answers are made will answer the question
of how scientists use scientific activities to interpret outcomes.

NURSING 3
There are two foundations of philosophical science that have evolved in the era of
modern science and that have several variations. These alternative epistemologies have a central
concern with the power of reason, sensory, and experience. The philosophical foundations
include rationalism and empiricism (Alligood, 2017). Nursing science has characterized by two
branches of philosophies of knowledge as the discipline continued to develop. The branches have
been explained by the use of two different terms, empiricist and interpretive. Understanding each
word will contribute to appreciating what nursing does to increase nursing knowledge.
Rationalism
This branch puts more emphasis on the appropriate method that can be used in the
advancement of knowledge. A priori reasoning utilizes deductive logic. The reasoning uses
deductive logic through the argument from cause and effect. This causal reasoning is a
hypothesis unless proven wrong (Alligood, 2017).
Empiricism
This is based on the idea that scientific knowledge can be derived from sensory
experience. Scientists believed that scientific facts were discovered through the generalization of
ideas (Zaccagnini, 2019). This inquiry uses inductive reasoning, which is based on the belief
that the collection of concepts aims at the generalization of facts around the world. Precisely, this
branch deals with theory then research approach.
Views of Science and Theory in the Early Twentieth Century and Later Years
This is the period when philosophers focused on the analysis of theoretical structure,
whereas scientists focused on empirical research. There was no such inquiry in the history of
science during this period. Empiricists argued that theoretical prepositions should be tested. This
led to the development of the idea that empirical facts exist independently of theories. In the