Nature of Philosophy

Philosophy
Comes from the 2 Greek words
philos -love and sophia
-wisdom
tasks that requires a deliberate effort
to seek the truth.
The act of questioning or wanting to
know initiates philosophy, and most of
the time we relate philosophy to
thinking.

 Knowledge of all things, through this

ultimate causes, aquired through the
use of reasoning
Is the intense and critical
examination of beliefs and
assumptions

Philosopher
Lover of knowledge
A person who seeks knowledge for its
own sake and not for any other
motive.
Philosophers examine questions
dealing with lifes most important
aspects

Raphael (1994) describes philosophy as

essentially divided into two branches: the
Philosophy of knowledge and the
Philosophy of practice.

The Philosophy of knowledge is

attentive to critical examination of
assumptions about matters of fact and
argument.
Included in this
branch are:
epistemology (study
of knowledge), metaphysics (the study of
ultimate reality), the philosophy of
science, philosophy of mind and
philosophical logic.

Philosophy of practice, on the

other hand, focuses on critical
examination of assumptions about
norms or values and includes ethics,
social and political philosophy, and
the philosophy of the law. It is the
Philosophy of practice, particularly
moral philosophy, that provides a
groundwork for discussion of many of
the troubling issues facing nurses.

Objectives of Philosophy
To seek the deepest explanations of
existence and the nature of being. It
specifically uses reasoning to show
its natural scope in deriving
explanations

Spiritual / religious
influences
Historically, many of the dominant
religious institutions made
judgements about the origin and
essence of healing and described
those who would hold positions as
legitimate healers.

 Nevertheless, nursing in some form

has existed in every culture, and has
been influenced by spiritual beliefs,
religious practices, and related
cultural values.

Gender influences
In every culture, women have been
healers
As a result of the perception that
women are more humane and more
caring by nature, they have been
viewed as naturally endowed with
nursing talents.

 Every woman has, at one time or

another of her life, charge of the
personal health of somebody,
whether child or invalid- every
woman is a nurse.
~Nightingale

ANCIENT / PRESOCRATIC (7th

century B.C)
Greek thinkers, called themselves
wise men but of humility.
PYTHAGORAS One of the Greek thinkers, wanted to
call himself a person who just love
wisdom or a philosopher.
From then on, the Greek used the word
philosophy for love of wisdom and
philosopher as a lover of knowledge.

 In the ancient times the position of

healer was practiced by those thought
to have special spiritual gifts.
When the reigning deity had a feminine,
bisexual or androgynous nature, women
were leaders in the healing arts.
As the world became a harsher place,
and the Gods assumed a masculine
nature, womens role as independent,
primary healer was taken away

The Early Christian Era

Early Christian nurses were
frequently women of high social
status and often became
independent practitioners.
When religious belief moved toward
a single male God, womens healing
role changed from that of sacred
healer to subservient caregiver.

MIDIEVAL / MIDDLE AGES

Christian scholars and Arab philosophers were the first
to create a direct link of Philosophy to Theology, one of
its main inspirations in the Christian faith which became
a stimulus to reason.
During this time, monastcism and other religious groups
offered the only opportunities for women to pursue
careers in nursing.
Much of hospital nursing was carried out by repentant
women and widows called sisters and by male nurses
called brothers.
Deaconesses, matrons, and secular nursing orders were
among the organized groups that had religious
foundations and offered nusing services.

 Much of hospital nursing was carried

out by repentant women and widows
called sisters and by male nurses
called brothers.
Deaconesses, matrons, and secular
nursing orders were among the
organized groups that had religious
foundations and offered nusing
services.

 Women who entered nursing orders

donated their property and wealth to
the Church and donated thier lives to
service-believing that charity was
synonymous with love
The term empirical relates to
knowledge gained through the
process of observation and
experience.

 Consequently, people were more

likely to seek healing through
religious intervention since the
position of the Church was that only
God and the devil had the power to
either cause illness or promote
healing

 The crusades, which begin in 1096

and lasted nearly 200 years, brought
many changes in health and
population.
In response to the compelling need,
military nursing orders were formed.
These orders draw large numbers of
men into the field of nursing.

 During the Middle Ages, the status of

women also declined. In many ways this
was directly related to church doctrine.
St. Thomas Aquinas, known as the
Angelic Doctor wrote that one should
only make use of a necessary object,
woman, who is needed to persevere the
species or to provide food or drink
woman was created to be mans helper,
but her unique role is in conception
since for all other purposes men would
be better assisted by other men.

 St. Jerome remarked that

women is the
gate of devil, the path of
wickedness, the
sting of the serpent, in the
worlda perilous
object

 It was a popular religious view that

women were essentially evil by
nature. The pain of childbirth was
believed to be punishment for Eves
transgression, and served the
purpose of reminding women of their
original sinful nature.

 Although the medical profession was

officially sanctioned by the church,
and male physicians were beginning
to be trained in the university
setting, there was scant scientific
knowledge. They used bloodletting,
astrology, alchemy, and incantations

 Peasant women were often the only

healers for people who had no doctors
and suffered bitterly from poverty and
disease
These folk healers had extensive
knowledge about cures that had been
handled down for generations via oral
tradition.
These women developed an extensive
understanding of bones and muscles,
herbs, drugs, and midwifery

 This atmosphere set the stage for

Church-sanctioned crimes against
women in the form of the witch
hunts.
Any women who treated an illness,
even if she aplied a soothing salve to
the diseased skin of her child, was
likely to be acused of witchcraft.

 If the treatment failes, she was

sough to have cursed the patient. If
the treatment succeeded, she was
believed to be in consort with the
devil
Although women were permitted to
practice midwifery, these women
were in danger of being accused of
witchcraft if anything went wrong
with either mother or baby

MODERN (16th- 18 century

A.D)
During this period, Ren Descartes
was known as the Father of Modern
Philosophy, to his philosophy of
rationalism and empiricism
RATIONALISM- is a philosophical doctrine that
specifically uses resoning and proof
in explaining reality

EMPIRICISM:
- regards experience as the only
source of knowledge,for it was
during this time that the
abundance of knowledge in science
became a challenge for all
philosophers to prove their
discoveries and breakthrough to
the aid of the aforementioned
doctrines

Renaissance and the

Reformation
The sixteenth century heralded the
beginning of two great movements: the
renaissance and the reformation.
The renaissance produced an intellectual
rebirth that began the scientific era
The reformation was a religious movement
precipitated by the widespread abuses that
had become a part of Church life and
doctrinal disagreement among religious
leaders.

 The scientific community made

advanced in mathematics and the
sciences.
Ren Descartes is credited with
proposing a theory that quickly
altered philosophic beliefs about the
separation of mind and body.

 He proposed that the universe is a

physical thing, and that everything in
the universe is like a machine, which
can be analyzed and understood.
Based on Descartes work cartesian
philosophy began to replace religious
beliefs related to the physical and
spiritual beliefs of humankind.
As a direct result, a separation was
created between the acts of caring and
curing in the healing arts.

 The reformation produced a split in

the church.
A struggle between Catholic and
Protestant groups spread across
Europe, as a result, Catholicism lost
its power in many countries.
Laws and customs in Protestant
countries discouraged the humane
care of the downtrodden and the
weak

CONTEMPORARY (20th
century)
The existence of a great variety of
doctrines of philosophy strenghtened
its grasp in seeking the truth.
Among these are the doctrines of:
Karl Marx- Marxism
Immanuel Kant- Kantianism
Jean Paul Sartre- Existentialism

The modern era

Florence Nightingale became a model for all
nurses. She was a nurse, statistician,
sanitarian, social reformer, and scholar.
she was politically astute, intelligent, and
single-minded.
Although she was opposed to using church
affiliation as a criterion for admision to
nursing programs, her religious beliefs were
evident in her dealings with students, whom
she admonished to work, work, work, because
if there is no cross, there is no crown

 Another of nursings great modern

leaders is Lavinia Lloid Dock
She was concerned with the many
problems plaguing nursing, warning
that male dominance in the health
field was the major problem
confronting the nursing profession