Philosophy offers a means of unpacking and grappling with important questions and issues relevant to nursing practice, research, scholarship, and education. By engaging in these discussions, this Handbook provides a gateway to new understandings of nursing.

The Handbook, which is split loosely into seven sections, begins with a foundational chapter exploring philosophy’s relationship to and with nursing and nursing theory. Subsequent sections thereafter examine a wide range of philosophic issues relevant to nursing knowledge and activity.

• Philosophy and nursing, philosophy and science, nursing theory
• Nursing’s ethical dimension is described
• Philosophic questions concerning patient care are investigated
• Socio-contextual and political concerns relevant to nursing are unpacked
• Contributors tackle difficult questions confronting nursing
• Difficulties around speech, courage, and race/otherness are discussed
• Philosophic questions pertaining to scholarship, research, and technology are addressed

International in scope, this volume provides a vital reference for all those interested in thinking about nursing, whether students, practitioners, researchers, or educators.