Editors: E. Carol Polifroni, RN, PhD, CNE, NEA-BC, ANEF & Marylouise Welch, RN, PhD
Year First Published – 1999
Major Concepts
Nursing and Philosophy of Science: Connections and Disconnections
Truth: An Exploration
Explanation in Science
Free Will or Determinism
Phenomenology an Hermeneutics
Critical Theory and Feminist Critique
Science and Gender
Postmodernism and Nursing Science
Brief Description
A widely used and classic text that remains as a significant resource for the underlying philosophic groundings on which nursing knowledge is developed. The chapters include a number of reprints of philosophic works that have had a major influence on the development of nursing knowledge, along with nursing commentary, but the main content of the book is contributed by nurse scholars whose philosophic and theoretical writings have shaped the course of the discipline. Each section of the book is introduced by the book Editors to lend a unifying theme that emphasizes the nature of the knowledge of the discipline.
Book Editions
Polifroni, E. C., & Welch, M. (1999). Perspectives on Philosophy of Science in Nursing: An Historical and Contemporary Anthology. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
About the Editors
E. Carol Polifroni
An educator, researcher and clinician…Carol has more than four decades of experience in nursing. Her expertise is in culture of health, quality, finance, critical care nursing and philosophy of science as well as administration.
Marylouise Welch
Professor Emerita in the Division of Nursing at Saint Joseph University, Hartford, CT. Dr. Welch earned her BS degree from the University of Pennsylvania, her master’s in nursing and doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Connecticut. Her major interest is the relationship between nursing theory, research on trauma survival and philosophy of science.