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How not to clarify concepts in nursing
Author(s) -
Paley John
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1996.22618.x
Subject(s) - epistemology , nursing theory , semantics (computer science) , sociology , psychology , computer science , medline , philosophy , law , political science , programming language
Concept analysis and conceptual clarification form an identifiable genre within the nursing literature, with most recent examples drawing on the model proposed by Walker & Avant (1988) This paper argues that the Walker & Avant model is based on untenable assumptions, and that the writings of those who adopt it inevitably contain a serious flaw that vitiates the procedure and renders the results arbitrary In particular, the relationship between concept and theory, a topic to which the philosophy of science has devoted much attention, has been misunderstood by these authors Concepts are not the ‘building blocks’ of theory, but the niches created by theory, and any ‘conceptual clarification’ that anticipates theoretical commitment becomes a vacuous exercise in semantics