Page 283 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

C ar it as cu rr icu lu m a n d t ea c h i n g-l ea r n i n g
This leads to the issue of what kind of curriculum can sustain
such a Caritas aspiration and inspiration.

In a world like ours . . . individual authenticity lies in what we can
find that is worth living for. And the only thing worth living for is
Love. . . . The love that can make us breathe again, love a great and
beautiful cause, a wonderful vision. A great love for one another,
or for the future.
Ben Okri (1997:57)
A Caring Science/Caritas orientation to nursing education intersects
with arts and humanities and related fields of study, beyond the conven-
tional clinicalized and medicalized views of human and health-healing.
For Nightingale, “[N]ursing involved a sense of presence higher than
the human, a ‘divine intelligence that creates, sustains, and organizes
the universe—and our awareness of an inner connection with this
higher reality’ ” (Macrae 1995, quoted in Watson 2005:63). Her views,
along with Levinas and his philosophy, invite us to “face our human-
ity” and our connectedness with the greater, infinite dimensions of
our life and work.
In embarking upon a model of Caring Science/Caritas for nursing
education, we create open space to allow evolved human conscious-
ness to enter our phenomena, opening to notions of Caritas/Love and
Infinity of the human spirit (Levinas 1969; Watson 2005; Watson and
Smith 2002).
In Levinas’s view, the life source is Infinite Cosmic Love as the
Originary Primordial Love, the basis of existence of all living things.
For Levinas, “[T]his is not meant to be anti-intellectual” (1969:109) but
rather to lead to the very development of intellect.
Thus, this line of thinking makes a case for an underlying meta-
physical-philosophical-ethical foundation for nursing rather than
reverting to classical assumptions of science and knowledge and the
technologies of teaching and learning. This view also reflects an evo-
lutionary perspective for the nursing profession and the nature of
knowledge itself.

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