NURSING SYNTAX REVISITED - A CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHIES SAID TO INFLUENCE NURSING THEORIES

Lodged within the syntax of a discipline are the value systems and res earch constraints that influence theory development and research strat egies. Humanism and postmodern philosophy have challenged natural scie nce philosophical influences on nursing's syntax. This paper examines the construction of nursing's syntax from empiricist, hermeneuticist, feminist, and critical social theory views. In this critique, two requ irements are placed on the world views: (1) they must accommodate theo retical (realist) terms important to nursing; and (2) they should prov ide explanatory power for these terms within nursing's disciplinary su bstance. Arguments are continued for a ''within-the discipline'' struc ture, a substantive and syntactical structure for the discipline of nu rsing that recognizes the centrality of biobehavioral processes in the practice of nursing [Gortner, IMAGE: J. Nurs. Scholarship 22, 101-105 (1990)].