Epistemological pluralism is a recognized feature of nursing knowledge, which embraces both objective, scientific knowledge and situated knowledge that include subjective experience, values and affect, and is encountered in relationship. While there is a lively literature about describing and validating the need for pluralism in nursing's knowledge base, there has been less discussion of how to work with and across different kinds of knowing that are used in practice. In this paper, I describe Kasulis’ heuristic framework for understanding more clearly (...) what is entailed in different kinds of knowledge, and what some of their advantages and disadvantages might be. The framework was created by Thomas Kasulis, an American scholar of Japanese philosophy who identified broad orientations in Asian and Western philosophies that he characterized as ‘intimacy’ and ‘integrity’, respectively. Kasulis emphasized that his framework is a heuristic, a tool for making distinctions more clearly between different styles of thinking, that can manifest not only between cultural traditions from different parts of the world, but also between subcultures within one of the dominant orientations. He breaks his two orientations down by five distinguishing categories of objectivity, relating, affect, embodiment and transparency. In this paper, each category is described and discussed in relation to aspects of nursing knowledge. Looking at different epistemological viewpoints in this way helps to clarify their differences, and to explain the difficulty of reading across them, when they entail basic assumptions that are not commensurable with each other. Kasulis’ framework offers a new way of reading across viewpoints commonly seen in the epistemological pluralism of nursing. It is a tool that can sharpen critical discernment about what is at stake, what can be gained, and what might get missed while operating in either the intimacy or integrity orientation. (shrink)

The translation of honraisei as “authenticity” has caused scholars to compare Watsuji with Heideggerian and Taylorian accounts of authenticity. In this article, it will be demonstrated that this translation of “authenticity” is misleading insofar as it suggests a sense of subjective individuality as prevalent within Western philosophical thought. However, rather than rejecting a Watsujian account of authenticity, it will be argued that we can salvage this understanding by rethinking honraisei as a distinctly Japanese approach to authenticity and one which is (...) underpinned by the Buddhist concept of emptiness. (shrink)

This essay critically considers the issue of natural kind essentialism. More specifically, the essay critically probes the philosophical use of chemical examples to support realism about natural kinds. My simple contention is that the natural kind debate can be understood in terms of two different cultures of academic production. These two cultures will be conceptualized using Thomas Kasulis’s distinction between intimacy and integrity as cultural orientations. Acknowledging Kasulis’s contention that, “What is foreground in one culture may be background in another”, (...) it may very well be the case that philosophers writing about chemistry place chemical practice in the background, thereby adopting the orientation of integrity. Chemists and philosophers of chemistry, on the other hand, place chemical practice at the foreground of their work, thereby adopting the orientation of intimacy. Because the intimacy orientation is grounded in chemical practice, it is preferable to the integrity orientation. Understanding the natural kinds debate from this perspective highlights the fact that the misuse of chemical examples by certain philosophers is informed by an orientation of detachment from actual chemical practice. This underscores the importance of an intimate understanding of chemical practice when deploying chemical examples in the context of philosophical discussions about ontology and metaphysics. (shrink)

The paper addresses the problem of pursuing ethical business practices purely under the aegis of ‘integrity’, as frequently used to characterise morally desirable traits. Drawing on the work of philosopher Thomas Kasulis, the paper pairs ‘integrity’ with ‘intimacy’ as a critical concept, placing greater attention upon relational properties, helping to understand ethics as existing between individuals, things and the environment. The argument is that by paying careful attention to spatial and temporal dynamics and proximities of exchange, businesses can better maintain (...) and extend practices of integrity. It reminds us that ethics are developmental ; that the cultivation of ethics provides greater depth and ownership and pertains to matters of the body and habits. The paper contributes a way of reading exchanges in the marketplace beyond prescriptive accounts of integrity. Through the lens of both integrity and intimacy, it identifies how we actually ‘live’ or practice greater responsiveness to exchanges. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In Japanese language, the “self” is always incardinated in a specific “relational” aspect that constitutes the subjective existential structure based on this spatial base in contrast with the temporal aspect that is the one that normally has the priority on Western tradition. In this paper I will try to expose this spatiality in the subject in relation with the climate and culture theory that we find on Watsuji Tetsurô´s work Fûdo (風土) (1935) as we can read in the newly (...) translated Spanish version entitled Antropología del paisaje. Climas, culturas y religiones. My study will be focused on the Prologue and First Chapter entitled “Filosofía del Paisaje” (Philosophy of Climate) in order to do an analysis of the spatial dimension recognizing the space as essential element in the constitution of the concept of subject in the philosophy of this Japanese philosopher. -/- Resum: El «jo», a la llengua japonesa, s’ubica sempre en un àmbit «relacional», de manera que trobem que en l’estructura existencial del subjecte l’accent queda posat en l’aspecte espacial i no tant en l’aspecte temporal, prioritzat a la filosofia occidental. En aquesta comunicació intentaré exposar l’aspecte espacial del jo en relació amb la teoria del clima que trobem a l’obra de Watsuji Tetsuro Fûdo ( ) (1935) que, en la seva recent traducció en llengua castellana, s’ha titulat Antropología del paisaje. Climas, culturas y religiones. El meu estudi se centrarà en el pròleg i en el primer capítol, titulat «Filosofía del paisaje», per a fer una anàlisi de la dimensió espacial reconeixent l’espai en tant que element essencial en la constitució del concepte de subjecte en la filosofia de l’autor japonès. (shrink)

The question “What is the nature of experience?” is of perennial philosophical concern. It deals not only with the nature of experience qua experience, but additionally with related questions about the experiencing subject and that which is experienced. In other words, to speak of the philosophical problem of experience, one must also address questions about mind, world, and the various relations that link them together. Both William James and Kitarō Nishida were deeply concerned with these issues. Their shared notion of (...) “pure experience” is the conceptual cornerstone of their attempt to deal with the philosophical problem of experience. This dissertation is an analysis of “pure experience” and its relevance to several issues in contemporary hilosophy of mind. Drawing upon James’s and Nishida’s “pure experience”, I argue both for a sensorimotor-based, “extended” conception of consciousness and a bodily skills-based account of moral psychology. (shrink)