RT Article
T1 Spirituality and reductionism: three replies
JF Nursing philosophy
VO 11
IS 3
SP 178
OP 190
A1 Paley, John
LA English
YR 2010
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1925921166
AB 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.
K1 Ethics
K1 Faith
K1 Ideology
K1 Psychology
K1 Reductionism
K1 Spirituality
DO 10.1111/j.1466-769X.2010.00439.x