Martin Lipscomb, nurse researcher, teacher and writer at the University of Worcester in the UK has been writing critically about nursing’s connection with social theory, politics and philosophy for 15 years.
In 2017, for instance, he argued that there was a distinct lack of good quality social and sociological theory in nursing. All too often, he argued, nurses apply social theories uncritically and ahistorically (Lipscomb, 2017).
He suggested that nurses should be wary importing theory from other disciplines, and that they should work more to develop their own indigenous theories.
Now he’s turned his attention to nurses’ use of philosophy and theory, and his recent paper contains some choice reading, not least the anecdotal conversations with nursing ‘philosophers’;
‘I am talking to a senior nurse researcher. This person's publications consist principally of phenomenological studies the majority of which claim a Heideggerian pedigree (reports are identified as Heideggerian phenomenologies). Given this one might imagine the researcher's work is based on ideas taken from Heidegger/Heideggerian inspired philosophy. Yet in conversation my discussant reveals she has not read Heidegger. She did once start Being and Time (Heidegger, 2010/1953). However, she did not understand it (‘too complicated’), and quickly gave up’ (Lipscomb, 2024).
This idea that nursing scholars are using philosophers and their ideas without really understanding them runs through the entire paper.
And it reminded me of a similar example published by researchers advocating for the very trendy field of enactivism in pain management;
‘The first author attempted to design a phenomenological study, but struggled when it came to making a decision whether to align with descriptive phenomenology (Husserl) or interpretive (hermeneutical) phenomenology (Heidegger and Gadamer)… To better understand phenomenological concepts (e.g., epoché, bracketing, and the reduction) and connect phenomenology as a philosophy to phenomenology as a qualitative research approach, he began reviewing the work of van Manen who is highly cited among qualitative researchers. He began to note contradicting and confusing advice and felt uncomfortable with van Manen’s unnecessarily complicated procedures and strong views as to what phenomenological research should entail’ (Stilwell & Harman, 2021).
Even the idea that you might want to underpin a health research study, or build a new approach to practice, with phenomenology without knowing the work of van Manen sounds highly suspect. How did the authors choose phenomenology as their philosophy in the first place if they didn’t know it or found the concepts expressed by van Manen ‘contradictory and confusing’? What did they base their decision on? (It’s perhaps worth remembering that van Manen’s work has been criticised by phenomenologists for over simplifying phenemenology.)
Perhaps it’s something to do with phenomenology, but I doubt it. Perhaps it speaks more to a real anxiety amongst our colleagues about engaging with ‘hard’ theory. Another legacy, I suppose, of a professional training that is, and always has been, instrumental and highly reductive.
References
Lipscomb, M. (2017). Social and sociological theory: Reimagining nursing’s disciplinary identity. In M. Lipscomb (Ed.), Social theory and nursing (, pp. 61-75). Routledge.
Lipscomb, M. (2024). Can philosophy benefit nurses and/or nursing? Heidegger and Strauss, problems of knowledge and context. Nursing Philosophy, 25(1), . https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12468
Stilwell, P. , & Harman, K. (2021). Phenomenological Research Needs to be Renewed: Time to Integrate Enactivism as a Flexible Resource. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 160940692199529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406921995299
Philosophy, yes it might for newbeginners feel as difficult. But, foremost I think reading philosophical texts challeng us in different ways than reading more «fact” oriented texts. It is as Hubert Dreyfus said in an interview; you have to read philosophy slowly and over and over again to comprehend its meaning….. In this interview he was asked how he having dyslexia could become a philosopher. According to him; the need for slow reading was an advantage
important input on the application of phenomenological theory or, for that matter, any theory in e.g. health research. The thing is; we must bother to read and study philosophical theory