Concept determination as part of the development of knowledge in caring science

The purpose of this article is to highlight concept determination as part of the development of knowledge in caring science, by describing Eriksson's model of concept determination. Concepts belong to and are developed in science, and it is through concepts that reality is shaped. Concepts and language are closely related, and Gadamer's guiding thought is that language constitutes the middle where I and the world, join together. It is by its very activity of thinking that the meaning is to be heard, and Gadamer emphasizes that the being that can be understood is language and points to a universal ontological structure against the fundamental nature of what is allowing to be understood. The first outlines of the model of concept determination are described as a research design for the development of the care process model. In developing the model of concept determination, the intent has been to fill a void in the international caring science literature, where no model is sufficiently comprehensive to meet the requirement for a model from a humanistic hermeneutic perspective with roots in an explicit ontology and ethos. Eriksson's model of concept determination includes both an ontological and a contextual determination. Concept determination is the main concept in Eriksson's model and includes concept formation and concept analysis. The starting point of concept determination is a hermeneutic epistemology developed in a scientific tradition of caring. The model of concept determination opens itself to versatility in determining concepts and provides a nuanced picture of the concept in question, while the whole-part-whole thinking simultaneously leads to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted caring reality and the current object of knowledge. By constantly returning to the what-questions, the course of events will continue and conceptual determination moves around the substance towards a deeper understanding of the core.