Bergson conceives of man knowing through a dilatation of his imagination
getting inside of, into _le durée_, into the rhythm and mobility of the
other. Living the rhythm of the other he believes results in an
absolute, intuitive, inexpressible, unique knowledge of the other. He
says:
"... an absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all
the rest has to go with analysis."
"... from intuition one can pass on to analysis, but not from
analysis to intuition."
"... fixed concepts can be extracted by our thought from the
mobile reality; but there is not means whatever of
reconstituting with the fixity of concepts the mobility of the
real."[14]
The known, clinical nursing practice, gave meaning to the above for me.
Over the years in nursing conferences I had been told my grasp of
nursing situations was intuitive. Most times this was offered rather
disparagingly although the nursing outcomes were most times successful.
Along with having {72} the attribute of intuition assigned to me
persons often asked, "Why are you so fascinated with other persons'
situations?" Together these relate to Dewey's view of intuition. He
views intuition as a mulling over of conditions and a mental synthesis
that results in true judgments since the controlling standards are
intelligent selection, estimation, and problem solution.[15] In nursing
practice research knowing the other and how he experiences and views his
world is viewed as the problem.
Knowing intuitively, as described by Bergson, is comparable to Buber's
considerations of man's necessary mode of becoming through "I-Thou"
relation. The criteria Buber describes as characteristic for "I-Thou"
relation are subscribed to in my approach to nursing practice and in
this human or phenomenological nursology approach.[16] Buber held as
prerequisite for intuitive type knowing of the other, or imagining the
real of his potential for being, a knower, and "I," capable of distance
from the other, able to see the other as a unique other, one who turns
to the other, makes his being present to the other, and allows the other
presence. The knowing, "I," in this case the nurse, responds to the
other's uniqueness, does not superimpose, maintains a capacity for
surprise and question, and is with the other, as opposed to "seeming to
be." This kind of relating cannot be superimposed on a nurse clinician
or researcher. It must be personally responsibly chosen and invested in.
The approach then of the second phase of this method and of the
transactional phase of nursing when nurses are in the arena with others
is the same. This method proposes that to study nursing from outside the
arena for purposes of objectivity bursts asunder the very nature of
nursing practice. The studier is a part of that which is being studied.
Observations interpreted from outside the situation could be classified
only as projections.