Book for review: i "Philosophy of Care - New Approaches to Vulnerability, Otherness and Therapy"

Among the questions that research might answer regards Hodges' model I have in mind:

• At what age can Hodges' model be introduced in the general curriculum?
• Is there consistency in how people view/interpret and apply Hodges' model?
• How simple is it (or complex)?
• Is it a meta-model?
• How can Hodges' model relate to the spiritual?

My B.A.(Joint Hons) is in Philosophy and Computer Science, so the 'Philosophy of Nursing' is a preoccupation. In January 2022 I discovered:

J. Braga & M. Santiago de Carvalho (Eds.), Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy. Springer.

I requested a copy but ever distracted did not register any further action beyond acknowledgement and being forwarded. Discovering I'd missed this, I picked it up again. I must admit two years ago I was expecting a book with 'care' in the nursing, medicine, health context. Revisiting the 'blurb' I saw that this is not the full picture. Last year and this however drawn to conferences that combine the environment and religion this book really did fit the bill. Requesting a 'review copy' so late in the publishing cycle presents a challenge. 

Hodges' model provides a long-tail, surely a defining property of a lifelong learning resource? This plus a history of cataract surgery brought a print copy and many thanks to Daniela Rohrmann and team. I've now reached Part V, chapter 19 and 'medical care'.

The book's physical quality (printed hardcopy) is up to Springer's usual high quality standard. The fact that much of the contents have, I believe, been translated appears to show at times, in one chapter especially, with missing, or additional words. Perhaps this also reflects proof reading, an important part of production I would have thought (and still best not left to AI)? The font and print size is very readable and the format and design - architecture - of headings and layout are inviting and engage the reader. There are Any problems with grammar, flow were readily overcome. 

In meeting this text I oscillated in expectation - philosopher of care, as in the clinical context; and then the spiritual, pastoral. Which is it? The emphasis is on the latter with the final part focussed more on medicine. The book has extended my appreciation of 'care' in the wider sense, it is rewarding and well-worth reading.

"Finally, the fifth part – Care and Therapy – examines issues relevant to medical

care. This volume would be remiss if it did not take therapeutic care into account.

Practical and theoretical knowledge mutually influence each other. This highly specialized

domain imparts a significant amount of the status that care is given in our

daily lives. Thus, in this last part, the previous themes of otherness and ipseity converge

systematically. Through the theoretical emphasis that is placed on the issue of

suffering – whether it concerns physical illnesses or those of the psychological and

psychiatric realm – the authors of these chapters show us the urgency of thinking

about therapeutic care practices in the light of a theory of intersubjectivity, where

the disease itself and its cure are understood within the communication processes

and not only as exclusively technical-scientific processes." p.vii. (Introduction).

Don't worry I'm not going through each chapter, but Chapter 1 is a fascinating read, the title 'Care: A New Arrival in the History of Philosophy?' https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-75478-5_1 presented an immediate challenge. For me, love, compassion, philosophy - as the love of wisdom, knowledge, what it is be, think, exist, the human condition and more all imply 'care' including care of thought and argument. I'm probably begging the question and I realise the Peirron's purpose is more specific, nuanced. I'm reassured though as care is defined by three criteria:

"(a) care is contextual and anti-essentialist... The characterization of care requires a great deal of attention to the precise details of each situation (Tronto, 2012: 35)."

"(b) care is relational and accepts that human beings , other beings, and the environment are interdependent  (Tronto, 2012: 32)."

"(c) In human societies which would like to assume the equal value of all human life, care needs to be democratic and inclusive  (Tronto, 2012: 36)." p.6.

I must read Tronto - who work has elevated vulnerability as flagship concept of her politics of care (Tronto, 2009) (p.8); 'dialectical' too (p.10). The book is full of many leads, the writing scholarly and authoritative.

With some studies in education and philosophy the pragmatic school of thought quickly surfaces. I see Hodges' model as a pragmatic solution. In addition to the 'pragmatics of care', Peirron opens the door even further in respect of 'care':

"Giving through care involves much more than what is described in the interactional framework of exchanges characteristic of homo economicus (economical animal) paradigm. Giving is not exchanging because care involves so much more than just the provision of a service. Care, as understood as a politically relevant anthropological position, is thus very different from a Hobbes-inspired anthropology which supposes a social epistemology based on a an atomistic approach to individuals. It provides a fundamental interpretation of our social intelligence by thinking it, starting from a relational anthropology within which the concept of vulnerability plays, as we will see, a strategic role. A pathetics of care rethinks the balance between reason and feeling, argument and emotion in the spirit of the tradition of Scottish philosophy, in order to allow a "different voice" to be heard in the analysis, the description, and the support of the human world." p.7. 

The pathetic view of care requires a language, methods, aesthetics that can manage 'the singularity of an enduring life history' (p.10). This equates for me with the health career in Hodges' model.

As usual below I've mapped some concepts to the domains of Hodges' model. I will add to this post too.

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES                   

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

contextual anti-essentialist relational situated	context human being, other being  and environment - interdependent
context interdependence care in human societies  equality within human societies	context situated human societies are democratic and inclusive

See also:
body & soul - Book: Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy

Book review - "Human Landscapes: Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology"

'After Ethnos', a previous book review was an enjoyable challenge. As a nurse, you are, to a certain extent several disciplines all rolled into one, sociologist, psychologist, diplomat, anthropologist ... but After Ethnos and now Dreon's 'Human Landscapes' bring their own demands.

If it was experiment that attracted me to Tobias Rees's book, Dreon's title works on two levels.

Hodges' model anticipates different 'landscapes'. The model also provides a lesson in pragmatism (another post) with pragmatism identified as a method to research Hodges' model.

On health care education programmes, how often do we write of human nature, cognition, or cognitive processes, qualitative and quantitative, subjective and objective? How quickly do we present ourselves, and the readers of assignments with dichotomies, dualities, and polarities?

Just 40 pages in they are here in expected and welcome abundance. I clearly have some reading to do [ that's why it's a review! :-) ] and from reading, much to critique in my differentiation between phenomena and as concepts presented here on W2tQ.

"... the conceptual framework for my approach to human nature is represented by cultural naturalism— that is, a nonreductive form of naturalism that assumes culture to be continuous with nature, rooted in the very organic and environmental conditions of human life, and yet irreducible to the mere association of preexisting resources." p.23

Human landscapes

"Nonetheless, even if we wish to focus on a theoretical analysis of the concept, the idea of human nature seems to display a tangle of problems, punctuated by distinctions that could be useful when treated as functional and connected to specific contexts, but which are actually turned into dogmatic oppositions. One first form of dualism concerns the opposition between the innate and the acquired, between the allegedly innate equipment existing on the genetic or neural level and the properties and ways of behaving this is assumed to give rise to. To give but one example, based on Chomsky’s influential hypothesis, the idea of a neural program for producing grammar encoded in our genes has been assumed to be an efficient (and sometimes sufficient) cause for specific linguistic practices. From this point of view, nurture, culture, and institutions seem to be something completely different from nature, since they supervene on an already fixed material substratum as an adjunct." pp.17-18.

"Taking this or that snapshot of a human could be a useful intellectual expedient in specific circumstances, but “[b]iologically all growth is modification and all organs have to be treated and understood as developments out of something else and as pointing forward to still something else” (Dewey 1985b, 32–33)." pp.19-20.

"I believe that the conceptual opposition between subjective and objective qualities is like a net with too wide a mesh, unable to catch the complexity of our interactions with the world. The problem, I would argue, is that this opposition often involves the idea that qualitative experience is a private, purely first-person experience, consequently posing problems of public access." pp.33-34.

"The section 2 will focus on the Pragmatists’ conception of experience as something broader and richer than cognition—because, in turn, cognition is understood as a specific phase within experience, responding to the needs and problems emerging from qualitative experience and ultimately returning to it. In this approach, perception through the senses and pure sense data are reframed within the context of inquiry, as features that are pointed out, discriminated, and isolated from a more holistic field of experience according to an
idea, namely, the anticipation of the possible consequences of an action or a certain assumption." pp.37-38.

Not sure why, but at one point, reading prompted consideration of: 'lived experience' and the role of peer support workers?

Starting the book, Dreon is (naturally) laying out the scope and structure of the book. Not just a preface but first chapter, and it looks like - the second. As I get more accustomed to Dreon's style (I'm a nurse remember) there are valuable lessons in laying out arguments, with more reward to follow I trust. I have a sense of a wall, not an impenetrable one, but one that is well argued - the blocks shifting into place - even if I cannot grasp their true significance to specialists in this field.

More to follow.

Dreon R. (2022) Human landscapes. Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology. Suny Press, Albany.

Many thanks to Roberta and Suny Press for my copy (confession to follow).

"Ecoliteracy and the trouble with reading" by Code JM.

From:
Jonathan M. Code (2019) Ecoliteracy and the trouble with reading: ecoliteracy considered in terms of Goethe’s ‘delicate empiricism’ and the potential for reading in the book of nature, Environmental Education Research, DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2018.1558438

"Literacy in the context of health literacy—another type of literacy given distinct status in recent times—is defined as the ability to use information about health in a meaningful way (Velardo 2015)". ...

 individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

... "To be health literate is to have access and understanding of the knowledge, motivational factors, and competencies for appraising and applying health information so that decisions and judgements can be made about healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion in everyday life (Sorensen et al. 2012)".

"Perhaps one of the greatest oversights in terms of most ecological, scientific accounts of ecoliteracy is that science has yet to adequately address the mystery of life (a point raised by many authors and succinctly argued by Schumacher (2011)[1977] already several decades ago). This oversight has led to the tendency to approach ‘the book of nature’ in materialistic and mechanistic terms whereas the challenge that emerges through critical considerations raised by Kuhlewind and others is that it is a living book that we—as readers—can potentially participate in if we develop ways of knowing adequate (Schumacher 2011[1977]) to the task".

Wither "The Book of Nature" / "The Book of Science"?

Jonathan gave a presentation at Threshold Concepts Conference in Dundee which I attended. This reminded me of how I have been wanting to re-read Bortoft and related texts, especially Schumacher.

Somewhere in Between: c/o Wellcome Collection

individual
& INBETWEEN

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic & INBETWEEN ---------------------- mechanistic & INBETWEEN

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group
& INBETWEEN 

thoughts feelings wellbeing	Somewhere in Between
society collaboration scientists & artists art as: genetic engineering; HIV medicine;  free diving; mirror-touch synaesthenia.

My source: Moulton, N. (2018) We are all scientists now, FT Weekend, Life&Arts, 3-4 March. p.4.

c/o [hifa] WHO Webinar: Compassion - mapped to Hodges' model

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

sympathy, empathy, compassion mental states, feelings, emotions communication (verbal - non-verbal) experience, sorrow, suffering personal ethics, learning reflection, self-compassion psychometric instruments mentor, role model listening, non-judgemental student idealism  meditation, contemplation (drug concordance) Poor psycho-	Research Teaching methods and methodologies measure compassion Technical competence diagnostic accuracy studies - literature (drug compliance) QUANTITY health & compassion as a 'science'
social support  QUALITY culture peer support - sharing reflexive, desire to help rapport, PRACTICE based research Research on empathy > compassion role models teamwork	better outcomes, public demand (for more compassionate) health workers - high workload mission statements Health Institutions Regulatory organizations Medical councils harassment - poor team functioning compassionate leadership

See also and c/o HIFA:
c/o [hifa] WHO Webinar: Compassion – the heart of quality people-centred health services

Book: Cure - A journey into the science of mind over body

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

CURE: Book cover

Fink's Taxonomy: Significant learning

By L. Dee Fink, University of Oklahoma

...

Learning goals: Significant learning

For half a century, teachers at all levels of instruction have used Bloom’s taxonomy to generate learning goals beyond “understand and remember” kinds of learning.

This taxonomy has been extremely helpful, but it does not encompass all the kinds of learning that society and educators today believe is important. So I propose a new taxonomy, one that identifies six different ways in which learning can be significant for students:

1. Foundational Knowledge: students should understand and remember the basic content of the course (e.g., terms, concepts, principles). 
2. Application: students should use the content and engage in effective and appropriate kinds of thinking. 
3. Integration: students should integrate different disciplines, major ideas, and realms of life. 
4. Human Dimension: students should identify the personal and social implications of this knowledge. 
5. Caring: students should develop new feelings, interests, and values in relation to the subject. 
6. Learning How to Learn: students should keep on learning about the subject after the course is over.

...

Source article

<>

Fink's taxonomy will be very useful to help frame my studies and create an online platform for Hodges' model.

Information? Let me introduce you to Empathy! (New Scientist #3073)

This week's New Scientist asks the question: "What is Information?". Its neighbouring article is on empathy. I've bought a copy to add to my small library on 'information' (and its analogue?).

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ---------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

"I feel your pain."  pp.32-35.	New Scientist: What Is Information? pp.28-31.

Battersby, S. (2016) The unseen agent. New Scientist, 230: 3073, 14 May, pp.28-31.

Young, E. (2016) I feel your pain. New Scientist, 230: 3073, 14 May, pp.32-35.

Sensory Deprivation

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ---------------------------------------  mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

	Sensory Deprivation Skull chair by Atelier Van Lieshout, 2007

My source:
Heathcote, E. (2016) What is good design? A look at the many definitions of quality, FT Weekend, House&Home, 16-17 January. p.1 and 13.

Photo:
http://www.curbly.com/users/diy-maven/posts/5174-sensory-deprivation-skull