Revisiting 'Discipline' in Relation to Caring Science as Sacred Science: Revisiting Discipline of Nursing.

The purpose of this manuscript is to invite a revisiting of the concept of the "discipline" of Nursing, with attention to the spiritual consciousness of "Nurse" within the sacred concept of self-caring and caring-healing consciousness. The notion of including the spiritual, evolving consciousness of "Nurse," in harmony with evolution of Professional Nursing, is congruent with a mature disciplinary matrix of caring science as sacred science. This congruence between Nurse/Nursing contributes to the evolution of Nursing, Holistic Practices and Era III unitary transformative disciplinary thinking.

Epistemology for interdisciplinary research - shifting philosophical paradigms of science.

In science policy, it is generally acknowledged that science-based problem-solving requires interdisciplinary research. For example, policy makers invest in funding programs such as Horizon 2020 that aim to stimulate interdisciplinary research. Yet the epistemological processes that lead to effective interdisciplinary research are poorly understood. This article aims at an epistemology for interdisciplinary research (IDR), in particular, IDR for solving 'real-world' problems. Focus is on the question why researchers experience cognitive and epistemic difficulties in conducting IDR. Based on a study of educational literature it is concluded that higher-education is missing clear ideas on the epistemology of IDR, and as a consequence, on how to teach it. It is conjectured that the lack of philosophical interest in the epistemology of IDR is due to a philosophical paradigm of science (called a physics paradigm of science), which prevents recognizing severe epistemological challenges of IDR, both in the philosophy of science as well as in science education and research. The proposed alternative philosophical paradigm (called an engineering paradigm of science) entails alternative philosophical presuppositions regarding aspects such as the aim of science, the character of knowledge, the epistemic and pragmatic criteria for accepting knowledge, and the role of technological instruments. This alternative philosophical paradigm assume the production of knowledge for epistemic functions as the aim of science, and interprets 'knowledge' (such as theories, models, laws, and concepts) as epistemic tools that must allow for conducting epistemic tasks by epistemic agents, rather than interpreting knowledge as representations that objectively represent aspects of the world independent of the way in which it was constructed. The engineering paradigm of science involves that knowledge is indelibly shaped by how it is constructed. Additionally, the way in which scientific disciplines (or fields) construct knowledge is guided by the specificities of the discipline, which can be analyzed in terms of disciplinary perspectives. This implies that knowledge and the epistemic uses of knowledge cannot be understood without at least some understanding of how the knowledge is constructed. Accordingly, scientific researchers need so-called metacognitive scaffolds to assist in analyzing and reconstructing how 'knowledge' is constructed and how different disciplines do this differently. In an engineering paradigm of science, these metacognitive scaffolds can also be interpreted as epistemic tools, but in this case as tools that guide, enable and constrain analyzing and articulating how knowledge is produced (i.e., explaining epistemological aspects of doing research). In interdisciplinary research, metacognitive scaffolds assist interdisciplinary communication aiming to analyze and articulate how the discipline constructs knowledge.

An engineering paradigm in the biomedical sciences: Knowledge as epistemic tool.

In order to deal with the complexity of biological systems and attempts to generate applicable results, current biomedical sciences are adopting concepts and methods from the engineering sciences. Philosophers of science have interpreted this as the emergence of an engineering paradigm, in particular in systems biology and synthetic biology. This article aims at the articulation of the supposed engineering paradigm by contrast with the physics paradigm that supported the rise of biochemistry and molecular biology. This articulation starts from Kuhn's notion of a disciplinary matrix, which indicates what constitutes a paradigm. It is argued that the core of the physics paradigm is its metaphysical and ontological presuppositions, whereas the core of the engineering paradigm is the epistemic aim of producing useful knowledge for solving problems external to the scientific practice. Therefore, the two paradigms involve distinct notions of knowledge. Whereas the physics paradigm entails a representational notion of knowledge, the engineering paradigm involves the notion of 'knowledge as epistemic tool'.

Pensamiento sistémico y psicología: un cambio de paradigma para la comprensión de realidades complejas / Systemic thinking and psychology: a paradigm shift for the understanding of complex realities

El creciente interés por el modelo de pensamiento sistémico en la última década y de las ciencias de la complejidad o paradigma de la complejidad, cuyo exponente más reconocido en la actualidad es Edgar Morín, tiene un desarrollo histórico de más de 40 años, que se viene nutriendo de varias corrientes del pensamiento filosófico y científico. En este ejercicio de escritura revisaremos la necesidad que emerge en la época actual de revolucionar el pensar científico y para ello se retomarán los aportes de Thomas Kuhn, defensor del desarrollo y cambio de la ciencia, a la luz de la evolución y del análisis epistemológico de los constructos científicos. Se parte de reconocer dicho cambio como necesario y como producto de un desarrollo histórico, que atraviesa las formas de conocer y producir conocimientos de los seres humanos. De igual manera se hace una breve descripción de los aportes de algunos teóricos en la consolidación del marco epistemológico de las ciencias de la complejidad como marco referencial del pensamiento sistémico y de ellos se rescatan los aportes de la Teoría General de Sistemas y la Cibernética de Segundo orden, evidenciando que en la actualidad a las diversas disciplinas de las ciencias sociales y humanas, se les exige el estudio y la comprensión de una importante cantidad de variables de mayores niveles de complejidad, que reclaman a la academia, a los teóricos y profesionales, ampliar sus marcos de comprensión epistemológica hacia metateorías que faciliten la multireferencialidad. Este ejercicio de escritura se configura, entonces, como una invitación para los profesionales de la psicología, a leer y comprender el momento histórico del cual somos participes como grupo disciplinar.

The growing interest in the systemic thinking model in the last decade and the complexity sciences or paradigm of complexity, whose most recognized exponent is Edgar Morín, has a historical development of more than 40 years, which is coming nourishing various currents of philosophical and scientific thought. In this writing exercise we will review the need that emerges in the current era to revolutionize scientific thinking and for this we will return to the contributions of Thomas Kuhn, defender of the development and change of science, in the light of evolution and the epistemological analysis of the scientific constructs. It starts from recognizing this change as necessary and as a product of a historical development, which goes through the ways of knowing and producing knowledge of human beings. Likewise, a brief description of the contributions of some theorists in the consolidation of the epistemological framework of the complexity sciences is made as a referential frame of systemic thinking and from them the contributions of the General Theory of Systems and the Second Cybernetics are rescued. order, evidencing that currently the various disciplines of the social and human sciences are required to study and understand a large number of variables of higher levels of complexity, which demand the academy, the theorists and professionals, expand their frameworks of epistemological understanding towards metateorías that facilitate multireferenciality. This writing exercise is configured, then, as an invitation for professionals in psychology, to read and understand the historical moment of which we are participants as a disciplinary group.