Chapter one
The Philosophy of Science
Starting Point/Inverting the Paradigm*
STARTING POINT: the starting point will dictate where you end up.
Inverting the Paradigm
Inverting the Paradigm
ā¢ From physical to non-physicalāmetaphysical; to spiritualāopen to infinity
ā¢ From treatment and curing to caring-healing
ā¢ From caring as a means to an end to an end in and of itselfāa highest ethical ideal for society, for a moral community
ā¢ From dense, medicalized language to evocative Caritas-Veritas language
ā¢ From separatist ontology to unitary-relational ontology
ā¢ From particulate to interactive to unitary transformative paradigm thinking
ā¢ From āconsciousnessāāāresiding-in-the-body physicalāāto ānon-local consciousnessā to body residing in infinite field of universal consciousnessāCosmic Love
ā¢ From āEpistemology as Ethicā to āEthic of Belongingā
ā¢ From low-vibration human consciousness actions to higher vibration of an evolved global human heart/consciousness connection
ā¢ From fear-based Ego living to TrustāTruth-LoveāBeauty living Caritas-Veritas
ā¢ From medical-clinicalized views of humanity to reverential respect for one humanityāone world, one heart, one planet earth
ā¢ 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 actionāwhat Andrew Harvey (2009) refers to as āsacred activism.ā 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 endāan 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 āthe downward causationā 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 Berryās (1988) āNew Storyā 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 āall 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 oneā (Melange 2009).
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 āyou cannot get there . . . it is like trying to make ice by boiling waterā (Laing 1965, 24).
Disciplinary Definitions as Starting Point
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 nursingās 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 notion...
