Whelton Beverly J B
Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, WV, USA.
Nurs Philos. 2017 Oct;18(4). doi: 10.1111/nup.12175. Epub 2017 May 19.
Preparing to lecture on Aristotle's contribution to Nursing at the International Philosophy of Nursing Conference August 22, 2016, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, I came upon the recently published article by my IPONS colleague, Allmark (2016), "Aristotle for Nursing." Allmark (2016) provides a comprehensive and understandable overview of Aristotle's philosophical system including the substantial nature of being and the four causes of change. Nurses using Aristotle to support practice and theoretical research will benefit from a careful reading of Allmark to enrich their use of the realist understanding of knowledge of nature (epistemology) and the matter-form causal relationships within natural being (ontology and teleology). Allmark carefully displays the distinction between good health and flourishing; a distinction sometimes hard to grasp. Nurses are concerned with the end of health, but cannot achieve for others, the fullness of living which is flourishing. We will limit ourselves to expanding three areas that seem important, first, that nursing is much more than a productive science or craft, second, that Aristotle does provide an important note on the persistence of the soul, and, third, while Aristotle does not address the possibility of a personal creative highest being as Allmark says, his references to the divine are worth considering.
2016年8月22日，在加拿大魁北克省魁北克市举行的国际护理哲学会议上，我准备就亚里士多德对护理的贡献进行演讲。这时我偶然读到了我的国际护理哲学学会（IPONS）同事奥尔马克（2016年）最近发表的文章《亚里士多德与护理》。奥尔马克（2016年）对亚里士多德的哲学体系进行了全面且通俗易懂的概述，包括存在的本质以及变化的四种原因。运用亚里士多德的思想来支持实践和理论研究的护士们，仔细研读奥尔马克的文章将有所裨益，这能丰富他们对自然知识的实在论理解（认识论）以及自然存在中质料与形式的因果关系（本体论和目的论）的运用。奥尔马克仔细阐述了健康与繁荣之间的区别，这一区别有时难以理解。护士关注健康的目的，但无法为他人实现繁荣所代表的充实生活。我们将着重拓展三个看似重要的领域，其一，护理远不止是一门实用科学或技艺；其二，亚里士多德确实对灵魂的存续给出了重要见解；其三，虽然如奥尔马克所说，亚里士多德并未探讨人格化的创造性最高存在的可能性，但他对神性的论述值得思考。
