Spirituality and reductionism: three replies

Several authors have commented on my reductionist account of spirituality in nursing, describing it variously as naïve, disrespectful, demeaning, paternalistic, arrogant, reifying, indicative of a closed mind, akin to positivism, a procrustean bed, a perpetuation of fraud, a matter of faith, an atte...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Paley, John (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2010
In: Nursing philosophy
Year: 2010, Volume: 11, Issue: 3, Pages: 178-190
Further subjects:B Ethics
B Spirituality
B Psychology
B Ideology
B Faith
B Reductionism
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Several authors have commented on my reductionist account of spirituality in nursing, describing it variously as naïve, disrespectful, demeaning, paternalistic, arrogant, reifying, indicative of a closed mind, akin to positivism, a procrustean bed, a perpetuation of fraud, a matter of faith, an attempt to secure ideological power, and a perspective that puritanically forbids interesting philosophical topics. In responding to this list of felonies and misdemeanours, I try to justify my excesses by arguing that the critics have not really understood what reductionism involves; that rejecting reductionism is not the same as providing arguments against it; that the ethical dilemmas allegedly associated with reductionist views are endemic to health care; that ‘reifying’ is what believers in the spiritual realm do; and that the closed minds belong to those who dismiss reductionist science without having studied its achievements.
ISSN:1466-769X
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing philosophy
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-769X.2010.00439.x