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Nursing Epistemology: Traditions, Insights, Questions
Author(s) -
Schultz Phyllis R.,
Meleis Afaf I.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
image: the journal of nursing scholarship
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1547-5069
pISSN - 0743-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1547-5069.1988.tb00080.x
Subject(s) - descriptive knowledge , epistemology , psychology , sociology , knowledge management , philosophy , computer science
Epistemology is the study of what human beings know, how they come to know what they think they know and what the criteria are for evaluating knowledge claims. Nursing epistemology is the study of knowledge shared among the members of the discipline, the patterns of knowing and knowledge that develops from them, and the criteria for accepting knowledge claims. Three types of knowledge specific to nursing as a discipline are described here: clinical knowledge, conceptual knowledge and empirical knowledge. Different criteria for evaluating each type are suggested.