Page 285 - 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
Caring Science and Caritas Consciousness help reframe and reclaim
our values and the deep longings that can be integrated into our sci-
ence, epistemology, and education and teaching-learning practices.
Reflecting back on Parker Palmer’s thesis about the mythology of
epistemology—the acknowledgment that epistemology is ethic—he
posed counterpoints to the dominant myth that fit within the Caring
Science/Caritas framework (Palmer 2004:8–9):
• Every way of knowing becomes a way of living; thus, epistemol-
ogy becomes ethic.
• Epistemology as ethic is a set of values to live by, a way to con-
duct our lives.
• Behind this reframed ethic is a way of knowing that is Personal.
• Truth is personal, radically personal, not abstract, at arm’s
length, propositional, “out there.”
• Knowledge and knowing are communal; movement toward
truth is a communal movement, with conflicts, dialogue,
debates, dialectical movement toward consensus; truth emerges
between and among us.
• Knowledge and knowing are about mutuality and reciprocity;
truth seeks us rather than us seeking truth (Einstein talked about
“listening to the universe speak”; there is a reciprocal dance
between the knower and the knowing).
• Knowledge and knowing are transformational in that knowledge
and seeking knowing, being challenged to seek truth, change
one’s life, causing one to live life more fully and deeply.
• Knowing, teaching, learning, and caring transform my know-
ing, teaching, and learning if they are guided by the images and
norms posed here.

As Palmer reminds us (2004:9), the reason intellectual revolutions
occur is related to the fact that we are increasingly uncovering these
issues as myths—only as myths and not as actual truths of the world
of nature, of science, of knowledge, of knowing, teaching, learn-
ing. These myths disempower people by making them think they are
attempts to manipulate and control them, to make a claim on their
lives. The current intellectual revolutions in caring-healing-health

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