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Overview
Watson writes for the Caritas Conscious Nurse™ or the Caritas Conscious Scholar/Practitioner/Educator on the journey toward the deeper caring-healing dimensions of life. Unitary Caring Science offers a personal-professional path of authenticity, bringing universals of Love, Energy, Spirit, Infinity of Purpose, and Meaning back into nurses lives and their life’s work. Unitary Caring Science serves as a continuing, evolving message to the next generation of nurse scholars and healing-health practitioners committed to a praxis informed by mature disciplinary consciousness.
Individual customers will also receive a secure link to select copyrighted teaching videos and meditations on www.watsoncaringscience.org.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781607327561 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University Press of Colorado |
| Publication date: | 07/16/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 230 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
of Nursing Anschutz Medical Center campus, where she held the nation’s first endowed Chair in Caring Science for sixteen years. She also founded the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado. She is founder and director of the nonprofit organization Watson Caring Science Institute(www.watsoncaringscience.org). Watson is a widely published author and has received many awards, including fourteen honorary doctoral degrees from around the world. Her theory of human caring and model of caring science are used across the globe.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Philosophy of Science
Starting Point/Inverting the Paradigm
* * *
STARTING POINT: the starting point will dictate where you end up.
Inverting the Paradigm
Behind everything physical in the world lies the unseen substance of Spirit ... God is the unseen source and substance of everything that exists.
Daily Word,
January 8, 2017, 21
A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1955, 43
Inverting the Paradigm
• From physical to non-physical — metaphysical; to spiritual — open to infinity
• From treatment and curing to caring-healing
• From caring as a means to an end to an end in and of itself — a highest ethical ideal for society, for a moral community
• From dense, medicalized language to evocative Caritas-Veritas language
• From separatist ontology to unitary-relational ontology
• From particulate to interactive to unitary transformative paradigm thinking
• From 'consciousness' — 'residing-in-the-body physical' — to 'non-local consciousness' to body residing in infinite field of universal consciousness — Cosmic Love
• From 'Epistemology as Ethic' to 'Ethic of Belonging'
• From low-vibration human consciousness actions to higher vibration of an evolved global human heart/consciousness connection
• From fear-based Ego living to Trust — Truth-Love — Beauty living Caritas-Veritas
• From medical-clinicalized views of humanity to reverential respect for one humanity — one world, one heart, one planet earth
• From institutional technical medical cure practices to Unitary Caring Science Praxis.
Science is all a tall story we tell ourselves.
W. H. Auden
Thomas Berry (1988) wrote about how we are searching for a New Story within which we find a sense of life purpose, a guide to education, an understanding of our suffering, and impetus for energized action — what Andrew Harvey (2009) refers to as "sacred activism." It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Old Story of science and medical science, as our starting point for society and life, has become fragmented and nonfunctional. Unitary caring science offers a New Story for science and our existence, if not our survival.
In a conventional medical science mind-set, caring has been seen as a means to an end, a curing end — an end, often at all costs, emotionally, psychologically, medically, spiritually. When we invert the paradigm and reexamine human caring as a serious endeavor, we can acknowledge that, yes, caring contributes to curing. However, by turning the paradigm upside down, we position human caring as an end in and of itself, not just a means to a medical-cure end. Indeed, by inverting the paradigm, we place human caring as the highest ethical ideal we can offer society and humanity.
In the world of science, Willis Harman (1999) proposed another way for us to turn the scientific paradigm upside down. For example, he noted that in the conventional world of Western science we have what he called "the downward causation" model of science, whereby if we invert it we can consider an upward causation model of science. That is, rather than focus on smaller and smaller separate parts, we can consider moving upward to more complex explanatory models that accommodate more information and higher-level abstraction, including spirit and spiritual science, the science of consciousness.
Praxis of unitary caring science makes explicit the underlying values, ethics, as part of the entire single unitary field of human-earth-universe. It moves the Caritas Processes of Praxis to embrace Veritas, the Latin word for truth, beauty, love, goodness, restoring the moral component within the full meaning of Praxis. Caritas and Veritas combine in unitary caring science, returning nursing to its underlying purity and purpose of basic goodness. These underlying values are needed today to offer a New Story of science and actions that can help sustain our humanity and planet earth.
As part of the New Story of unity and human-universe caring, Thomas Berry's (1988) "New Story" is a call to honor and embrace the universe itself as the basic value, the most profound primary sacred community on the planet. Indeed, he proclaimed that "all human activities, all professions, all programs and institutions must henceforth be judged primarily by the extent [to which] they inhabit, ignore or foster a mutually enhancing human-earth relation as one" (Melange 2009).
If we encourage [them] to enter the profession without making any conditions as to the way in which the professions are to be practiced ... shall we be encouraging the very qualities we wish to prevent? War, non-caring, violence ...
Shall we swear that the professions in the future shall be practiced so that they lead to a different song and a different conclusion?
Virginia Woolf 1938, 59
Unitary caring science invites us into an expanding universe and worldview that, if embraced, leads to a different song and contributes to a New Story for humanity and human caring. This New Story, coming from nursing and unitary thinking, is really an Old Story; it has been building across humanity for millions of years. In nursing, it has been building from Florence Nightingale onward but has been dwelling, often silently, behind the scenes of the dominant, outer world of material/physical/objective/hard Western science.
Unitary caring science as positioned here builds upon my original 1979 text, which began with a discussion of nursing as the Philosophy and Science of Caring; that discussion continued to evolve through other books, up to the 2nd edition in 2008 and beyond. (See appendix B for an overview of all other books, including those that are forthcoming).
This new work has evolved to a new level: Unitary Caring Science: The Philosophy and Praxis of Nursing. This book goes to another level of depth regarding a philosophy to inform and unify both science and practice/praxis. First is a clarification of the starting point of definitions, values, and worldview, allowing caring science to become more clearly seen as unitary caring science. This includes embracing metaphysics as well as embodied physical, empirical, concrete practice. It leads to a philosophically, ethically, and ontologically discipline-specific, informed unitary science paradigm to guide reverential sacred praxis for caring-healing and health.
If you seek to understand humans as a whole spiritual being, fully connected and evolving toward the Source with an infinite field of universal consciousness and Cosmic Love, and your starting point is the static physicality of Western metaphysics, R. D. Laing reminded us that "you cannot get there ... it is like trying to make ice by boiling water" (Laing 1965, 24).
DISCIPLINARY DEFINITIONS AS STARTING POINT
Many of the problems of philosophy are of such broad relevance to human concerns, and so complex in their ramifications, that they are, in one form or another, perennially present. Though in the course of time, they yield in part to philosophical inquiry, they may need to be rethought by each age in the light of ... deepened ethical and [spiritual] experiences [and values] (emphasis added).
Elizabeth Beardsley and Monroe Beardsley 1974, ix
Values Axiology
Axiology, or the study of values, serves as an important starting point for Unitary Caring Science, in that axiology is the philosophical study of value. By asking value questions of a human unitary science, which differs from conventional views of Western science, unitary caring science invites new questions about value as a starting point.
What is of worth? Examples include truth, beauty, aesthetics, dignity, honesty, integrity, love, caring, belonging, and humanity-planet-universe. Axiology is associated with the ethics of science and moral imperatives, those ultimate intrinsic values essential for preserving humanity and human caring. By introducing axiology as the starting point for science, we get to ask new questions of science as to where the moral values of caring, compassion, love, truth, beauty, unity of wholeness, and so on fit into a philosophy of science and, specifically, nursing as unitary caring science. We get to make explicit the issue of worth and address issues of what values are of worth. Without a moral foundation to guide praxis of the discipline and to guide science, human caring can be threatened and humanity can be totalized and objectified, in danger of cruelty and non-caring scientific and clinical practices. This work introduces Veritas to convey nursing's morality and value commitment to timeless, enduring values that intersect with Caritas, which unites caring and love.
Exploration of axiology as the philosophical study of moral ideals, worth, commitment, ethics, and timeless values is a necessary foundation for unitary caring science. Any philosophy of science for nursing praxis depends upon notions of moral values, worth, and moral imperatives to sustain human caring, wholeness, dignity, and integrity of the human-universe–health-healing process.
Philosophy
A general orientation to philosophy is that it is an intense, reflective study of phenomena of interest regarding knowledge, systems of thought, and notions of being. In general, both philosophy and science are engaged in a search for truth. For example, Veritas, the Latin word for truth, is consistent with a search for knowing as part of philosophy's search for truth. The broad concept of Veritas Aequitas conveys a search for truth and justice. It is a motto that stands for personal honor and truth in actions and justice, regardless of the circumstance. At least three major branches of philosophy are relevant to unitary caring science and caring-healing practices/praxis: metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. These in turn, consciously or unconsciously, guide our worldview of the human-cosmos existence of "being/belonging" with respect to unitary caring science praxis and transformative principles for guided policy actions/sacred activism.
Cosmology
Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that addresses the nature of the universe (Watson, Smith, and Cowley 2018 in press). It addresses questions about the universe that are beyond the scope of science, yet it is subsumed under the branch of metaphysics that is beyond physics. Cosmology per se is beyond the focus of the philosophy of science addressed here, although cosmology is increasingly becoming a focus of concern regarding the universe itself and how it serves as the larger sacred context. Our collective story of the universe is allowing for either the infinite evolution of humanity or a totalizing of a human-planet universe.
Unitary caring science embraces a cosmology that honors the universe as context, consistent with Berry (1988). That is, the universe is the primary revelation of the Divine, the primary sacred source of existence, allowing the universe to be seen and experienced as joyous, filled with beauty, mysterious, wondrous, celebratory — a basic goodness of being and belonging together. The emerging cosmology is a response to the growing crisis of society and civilization in which the Old Story is no longer adequate for addressing the survival of the planet and humanity.
Metaphysics (SUMMARIZED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES)
• 1a is considered the first branch of philosophy, a division concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.
• 1b ontology defines what it means "to be"; what is an existence worldview — for example, separatist versus unity.
• 1c constitutes abstract philosophical studies, a study of what is outside objective experience, beyond the physical plane.
• 2 metaphysics describes what is beyond physics — the nature and origin of reality itself, the immortal soul, and the existence of a supreme being. Opinions about these metaphysical topics vary widely, since what is being discussed cannot be observed or measured or even truly known to exist. So, most metaphysical questions are still far from having a final answer.
In summary for our purposes here, metaphysics has two basic meanings (Watson, Smith, and Cowley 2018): (1) a branch of philosophy about one's worldview — for example, ontology of being; and (2) a branch of philosophy beyond the physical, inviting nonphysical reality into our worldview and notions of being human. Metaphysics is especially relevant for exploring new explanatory unitary energy models of non-physical healing, beyond the body physical, and incorporating concepts such as non-local consciousness and new meta-paradigm concepts for spiritual healing, prayer, distant healing, and so on, for example.
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality as well as constituting the basic categories of being and categories related to being, according to Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphysics, accessed December 15, 2016). Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist. Ontology as a philosophical enterprise is theoretical; it also has practical applications. Indeed, ontology and the nature of our unitary being inform and guide moral caring-healing practices, that is, praxis, whereby Caritas becomes a manifestation of discipline-specific unitary caring science praxis.
Ethics
What is the right thing to do when one is faced with two equally conflicting, untenable choices? The study of ethics and exploration of ethics in unitary caring science takes us back to axiology. The ethical dilemmas in nursing and medical care are tied to values and morality.
This rhetorical dilemma and quest for values and living values to which one ascribes becomes the basis for ethics and ethical decision-making. The notion of morality and values precedes ethics in that morality calls us to make the most morally correct value decision, for example, "the human should always be honored as an end in and of itself and not as a means to an end." This core value and moral imperative is in contrast to a clinical, professionally detached approach, which reduces the human to the moral status of an object whereby professionals can justify doing something to another person as object that they would not do to a whole person such as themselves. Therein, doing harm is theoretically justified because the decision was guided by a worldview and moral-ethical principles, which justify separation and distancing — a rule-driven, decision-making model. This approach is in contrast to a relational world- view of unity and complexity and connections, which transcend rules and principles, on behalf of human principles and a relational worldview that considers the whole versus the parts.
Ethics, which rely on objective rational decisions alone, often result in suffering and inhumane decisions that affect the lives of everyone involved. Parker Palmer has framed these objective ethical ways of knowing and what counts as evidence as a form of violence — thus, even our ways of knowing and what counts as knowledge have epistemological consequences and conditions. Epistemology, how we know what we know, becomes an ethic that affects our worldview, our human existence, our relationship with self/other/Mother Earth/, our universe (Palmer 2004).
Various theories and rule-driven principle-based models for ethical decision-making are prevalent in fields of biomedical ethics; examples include deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics, or rights-based models. However, these ethical positions are rule-driven and principle-guided, in contrast to unitary caring ethics of connection, relations, context, complexity, personal meaning. For example, instead of asking a simple question such as "in this situation, under these circumstances, do we follow principles, distancing, and rules," perhaps we may need to ask instead, what is the kindest thing we can do (inspired by Sarah Eagger, MD, United Kingdom).
ETHICS OF UNITARY CARING SCIENCE
The counterpoint to conventional science and conventional approaches to bioethics is the worldwide work of Emmanuel Levinas (1969), who positioned the Ethics of Belonging as the starting point for all science, informing the Ontology of Being as one of belonging to Universal Cosmic Love. This Levinian ethic positions belonging against the separatist view, which disconnects humans from the life force energy of Universal Love. This ethic is tied back to axiology and values; what is truly valued and necessary to sustain moral imperatives?
Levinas (1969) noted that while he has been recognized for his ethical, moral, philosophical worldview, what was of most interest to him was the search for the holy. He acknowledged that all humans "belong" to the infinite field of Cosmic Universal Energy as the starting point, before the Ontology of Being.
(Continues…)
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Copyright © 2018 Jean Watson.
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