The issue of life: Aristotle in nursing perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of life and its relevance to nursing, through Aristotle's philosophy and an Aristotelian interpretation of Nightingale's Notes on Nursing. Life as process and becoming has ontological status in Aristotle's philosophy and this dynamism is particularly relevant for nursing. The paper presents aspects of Aristotle's philosophy of life: his account of life as inherent powers of the individual, his analysis of change and time, and his understanding of sickness and health as qualitative states of living beings. It is shown how the Greek medical-philosophical tradition, continued by Galenic medicine and hygiene into modern time, influenced Nightingale's nursing. Individuals' life-maintaining metabolic relations to their surroundings are investigated through Aristotle and modern philosophy of biology and through Nightingale's nursing emphasis on the patient's relation to her or his immediate surroundings. It is argued that Nightingale's concern is really the processes of individual life, which in sickness necessitate temporally continuous nursing observation. Humans' radical dependency on their surroundings is actualized as interpersonal interdependency. The paper argues that the end of nursing care, the telos for which sake it is practised, is inherent in the individual course of the patients' life. When life processes are affected by sickness, infirmity, medical interventions or mental suffering, individuals need competent help to live - and to live as well as possible. It is suggested that the special responsibility of nursing is to facilitate, relieve and protect individual life continuously during such times.

Methodology Proposal for the Management of Nursing Competencies towards a Strategic Training. A Theoretical Analysis

“…As mentioned throughout this essay, many authors insist on the significance and positive value that nursing competencies development have on the health system and for the citizens (patients or not) [60]. However, a disparity and variability on the development policy and its actual application by the management have been observed [61]. For this reason, it is crucial to make an effort to research this field.…”

An internal morality of nursing: what it can and cannot do

“…Health, healing or the protection of life are commonly referred to as nursing's ends (Whelton, 2002a, 2002b; McCabe, 2007; Elstad & Torjunl, 2009). But it is here that a weak point in general arises for the idea of an internal morality of nursing that is similar for Pellegrino's internal morality of medicine.…”

The relevance of Xenophon’s Anabasis and Plato’s Meno to nursing

“…And among the texts that do deal with the classics, attention is focused on some writers more than others, with Aristotle standing out against Plato and Xenophon, to mention only the Greeks. By way of example, in the twenty years of Nursing Philosophy (one of the magazines most clearly specialized in this material), only two texts have been published whose titles mention Plato (O'Byrne & Holmes, 2007; Zucker & Borg, 2005), which is striking when compared to the eight articles that include Aristotle in their title (Allmark, 2017, 2019; Elstad & Torjuul, 2009; Scott, 2006; Whelton, 2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2017), and there is not a single one dedicated to Xenophon (who does not even get a mention in the magazine's content).…”