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Why should nurses care if Heidegger was a Nazi? Pragmatics, politics and philosophy in nursing

Why should nurses care if Heidegger was a Nazi? Pragmatics, politics and philosophy in nursing
Why should nurses care if Heidegger was a Nazi? Pragmatics, politics and philosophy in nursing

Nursing and nurses have become reliant on qualitative methods to understand the meaning of nursing care, and many nurse researchers use Heideggerian Interpretivist phenomenology approaches. Often these nurses are unaware of Martin Heidegger's role in the German National Socialist Party of the 1930s and his allegiance to fascist ideology. We ask: can a bad person have good ideas? In line with pragmatic thinkers such as Richard Rorty, we argue that instead of value judgements on people and their ideas, nurses should consider ideas as a product of a historical/social and political time and space. In urging a critical political engagement, we argue for a Husserlian approach. In opposition to Heidegger's interpretivist phenomenology approach, in which the hegemony of the day is integral to the phenomena being studied, we propose that a more expressive, collaborative engagement using Husserlian descriptive phenomenology approach would serve better in encouraging a more critical engagement with how ideas are used by groups of people, how some groups might be advantaged and others disadvantaged. Our conclusion is that the separation of ideas from political and social context is dangerous, and nurses, including nurse researchers, must understand how their research ideas and methods influence and are influenced by political agendas.

Heidegger, Husserl, Nazi, nurses, phenomenology, philosophy
1320-7881
Randall, Duncan C.
21b02c15-4d2c-4491-b4ae-e8008c1a093e
Richardson, Andrew
ef8c4629-4710-4f06-b8d3-e6efcb23840e
Randall, Duncan C.
21b02c15-4d2c-4491-b4ae-e8008c1a093e
Richardson, Andrew
ef8c4629-4710-4f06-b8d3-e6efcb23840e

Randall, Duncan C. and Richardson, Andrew (2021) Why should nurses care if Heidegger was a Nazi? Pragmatics, politics and philosophy in nursing. Nursing Inquiry, 28 (3), [e12409]. (doi:10.1111/nin.12409).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Nursing and nurses have become reliant on qualitative methods to understand the meaning of nursing care, and many nurse researchers use Heideggerian Interpretivist phenomenology approaches. Often these nurses are unaware of Martin Heidegger's role in the German National Socialist Party of the 1930s and his allegiance to fascist ideology. We ask: can a bad person have good ideas? In line with pragmatic thinkers such as Richard Rorty, we argue that instead of value judgements on people and their ideas, nurses should consider ideas as a product of a historical/social and political time and space. In urging a critical political engagement, we argue for a Husserlian approach. In opposition to Heidegger's interpretivist phenomenology approach, in which the hegemony of the day is integral to the phenomena being studied, we propose that a more expressive, collaborative engagement using Husserlian descriptive phenomenology approach would serve better in encouraging a more critical engagement with how ideas are used by groups of people, how some groups might be advantaged and others disadvantaged. Our conclusion is that the separation of ideas from political and social context is dangerous, and nurses, including nurse researchers, must understand how their research ideas and methods influence and are influenced by political agendas.

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Accepted/In Press date: 13 February 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 May 2021
Published date: July 2021
Keywords: Heidegger, Husserl, Nazi, nurses, phenomenology, philosophy

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 452129
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/452129
ISSN: 1320-7881
PURE UUID: c48e5ae9-17ae-45f5-87c5-ac589d415642
ORCID for Duncan C. Randall: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8356-7373
ORCID for Andrew Richardson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1805-7393

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Date deposited: 25 Nov 2021 17:02
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:00

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Author: Duncan C. Randall ORCID iD

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