Spirituality and reductionism: Three replies

Citation

Paley J (2010) Spirituality and reductionism: Three replies. Commentary on: Leget C. (2008) Spirituality and nursing: why be reductionist? A response to John Paley. Nursing Philosophy, 9, 277–278. Betts C.E. & Smith-Betts A.F.J. (2009) Scientism and the medicalization of existential distress: a reply to John Paley. Nursing Philosophy, 10, 137–141. Nolan S. (2009) In defence of the indefensible: an alternative to John Paley’s reductionist, atheistic, psychological alternative to spirituality. Nursing Philosophy, 10, 203–213.. Nursing Philosophy, 11 (3), pp. 178-190. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-769X.2010.00439.x

Abstract
Several authors have commented on my reductionist account of spirituality in nursing, describing it variously as naïve, disrespectful, demeaning, paternalistic, arrogant, reifying, indicative of a closed mind, akin to positivism, a procrustean bed, a perpetuation of fraud, a matter of faith, an attempt to secure ideological power, and a perspective that puritanically forbids interesting philosophical topics. In responding to this list of felonies and misdemeanours, I try to justify my excesses by arguing that the critics have not really understood what reductionism involves; that rejecting reductionism is not the same as providing arguments against it; that the ethical dilemmas allegedly associated with reductionist views are endemic to health care; that ‘reifying’ is what believers in the spiritual realm do; and that the closed minds belong to those who dismiss reductionist science without having studied its achievements.

Keywords
spirituality; reductionism; psychology; ideology; ethics; faith

Journal
Nursing Philosophy: Volume 11, Issue 3