Includes bibliographical references and index.

Prehistory of the problem -- Opening the relevance gap -- Toward a philosophy of nursing science -- Practice values and the disciplinary knowledge base -- Models of value-laden science -- Standpoint epistemology and nursing knowledge -- The nursing standpoint -- Logical positivism and mid-century philosophy of science -- Echoes in nursing -- Rejecting the received view --

Postnursing theory inquiry -- The structure of theory -- Models, mechanisms, and middle-range theory -- Consequences of contextualism -- Conceptual models and the fate of grand theory -- The rise of qualitative research -- What is a paradigm? -- Methodological separatism and reconciliation -- Redrawing the map.