Phenomenology has proved to be a popular methodology for nursing research. I argue, however, that phenomenological nursing research could be strengthened by greater attention to its philosophical underpinnings. Many research reports devote more page space to procedure than to the philosophy that purportedly guided it. The philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty is an excellent fit for nursing, alth...

Dillon, M.C. 1997. Merleau-Ponty's Ontology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Einstein, Albert. 1961. Relativity. Translated by Robert W. Lawson. New York: Wings Books. . 1982. Ideas and Opinions. New York: Crown Publishers. Hass, Lawrence. 1999. "Sense and Alterity: Rereading Merleau-Ponty's Reversibility Thesis." In Merleau-Ponty, Interiority and Exteriority, Psychic Life and the Worl...

Louise Westling, University of Oregon Maurice Merleau-Ponty's late work locates humans within a wild or brute being that sustains a synergy among life forms. His Nature lectures explored the philosophical implications of evolutionary biology and animal studies, and with The Visible and the Invisible describe a horizontal kinship between humans and other animals. This work offers a striking alte...

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is best known as a philosopher of science for his detailed investigations of psychology. Perhaps because of this, the significance of his work for a broader philosophical reflection on science has been overlooked. But Merleau-Ponty intended his work as a general investigation of the epistemological and ontological status of meaning and structure. The structures discovered ...