Nurses towards End-of-Life Situations: Sympathy vs. Empathy

Background: Nurses providing end-of-life care play an important role in providing support to both the patient and his/her family during one of their most difficult time. Patients in this stage do not only require physical care but emotional support as well. Aside from being a care provider, nurses should be able to utilize their knowledge in therapeutic communication in order for the patients and his/her family members to verbalize their feelings and concerns. Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify whether nurses project sympathy or empathy while providing end-of-life care. It also aims to determine their lived experiences while proving care at this stage. Methodology: This study utilized the mixed convergent parallel design wherein both the quantitative research and qualitative research were employed. Result and Discussion: A factor analysis was conducted on 12 items with maximum likelihood extraction method and oblique (Promax) rotation method. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = 0.792 (“meritorious” according to Kaiser (1974)). Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (χ2 (66) = 1007.294, p α = 0.881, sympathy α = 0.804, and cognitive empathy α = 0.728). Correlations among the factors were r = 0.315 for affective empathy and sympathy, r = 0.295 for sympathy and cognitive empathy, and r = 0.356 for affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Emergent key themes and subthemes are based on participants’ responses. The key themes are heart-touching moments of nurses in providing end-of-life care, challenges encountered by nurses in providing end-of-life care and adaptive strategies used by nurses to the challenges they face in providing end-of-life care. Conclusion: Most nurses during end-of-life care express affective empathy, followed by sympathy and lastly cognitive empathy. Nurses are encouraged to show and practice affective and cognitive empathy rather than using sympathy in caring patient and dealing with family member in the end-of-life situations. Despite the challenges that nurses faced, they are able to provide quality care by utilizing several adaptive strategies such as listening and understanding, showing empathy, providing holistic care, being spiritual and being aware of the role as caregiver.

When Veils are Lifted, Shift Perspectives: George Eliot’s and Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s Remedy for the Lack of Sympathy

This essay will investigate the differences between the ways George Eliot’s protagonist,Latimer,and Cajal’s protagonist,Juan Fernández,handle the extraordinary visions they are given.In“The Lifted Veil”by George Eliot,Latimer acquires a gift of clairvoyance,which enables him to see others’thoughts.Similarly,in“The Corrected Pessimist,”a novella in Cajal’s story collection—Vacation Stories,Juan acquires microscopic eyes,which enable him to lift the veil of reality and in turn that of the human mind.While Juan learns to zoom in on the beauty of the human mind and to use his appreciation of its beauty to understand its flaws,Latimer excessively zooms in on the dark side of the human mind and fails to sympathize with others.In comparing the different ways in which Latimer and Juan employ their microscopic visions,this essay aims to prove that Eliot and Cajal,though through contrasting ways,both highlight how important is shifting perspectives to cultivate one’s sympathy.

Woman, Sacrifice, and the Limits of Sympathy

In both Lu Xun＇s ＂The New Year＇s Sacrifice＂ （1924） and Shirley Jackson＇s ＂The Lottery＂ （1948）, a woman is made a sacrificial victim by her village community, one symbolically and one literally. Using the two stories as my cross-cultural examples, I ponder the connection between the failure of sympathy and patriarchal sacrificial logic, and ask what literature can do to help create the condition of possibility for moral agency.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Abolitionist Movement

Uncle Tom's Cabin,the book has crowned to be the first American novel ever to sell over a million copies.Now its impact is generally thought have been incalculable:its antislavery message.This article briefly analyzes the impact of the Uncle Tom's Cabin on the abolitionist movement from the perspective of the author's creative purposes,her reflection of values at that time,and her creative tactics to cause attention.

David Hume＇s Notion of Personal Identity： Implications for Identity Construction and Affective Communal Living in Africana Societies

The notion of personal identity is a topic that is widely discussed in all philosophical traditions-western, African, Asian, and Caribbean. The thread that runs through the different conceptions of personal identity is that the notion is linked with self-consciousness, whether in the metaphysical, epistemological, religious, or social contexts. In this paper, I shall focus attention on Hume＇s conception of personal identity drawing from it, and certain implications for affective communal life in Africana societies. It is a common knowledge among philosophers that Hume denies the ontological and independent existence of the self. For Hume, the self is a bundle of perception. However, in another section of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume examines the development of what could be considered as self, placing it in a broad social context in which mirroring fellow minds have a critical role. What is significant in Hume＇s conception of personal identity is that the self is the locus of multifarious experiences and the social context in which it is placed enables us to relate the self to affective and relational construction of identity. It is then argued that this conception of identity can be used to stress the need for affection, love, compassion, sympathy, and empathy among persons, which in turn can promote societal transformation in Africana societies.

The Incarnated Narrator as a Character in Middlemarch

Sympathy is one of the essential themes that George Eliot discusses in her novels. She uses various effective narrative strategies for the emergence of that theme. This paper, based on a close reading on the passage from Middlemarch, explores one of them——the incarnation of the narrator as a character. In Middlemarch, the narrator, as a character, both shows sympathy to the characters and asks for sympathy from the readers. To show his sympathy to the characters, he provides his comprehensive analysis of the characters and authorizes his characters to present their opinions. To ask for the sympathy, he directly addresses to the readers, uses free indirect speech in the narration, and expresses his own emotions. By the strategy of incarnation of the narrator as a character, Eliot clearly presents the readers her purpose of writing.

An Analysis of the Dual Sides of Shylock's Character

The Merchant of Venice is one of the most outstanding comedies of Shakespeare. The story happened in Venice in 16th century. Shylock is a typical character in this play. Shylock was looked down upon and humiliated by Christians as a Jew. Shylock, who found everyone in that society was against him, felt him isolated by Christians in Venice. But it is true that as a usurer, shylock was greedy and miserly, he lost kindness and reason; Shylock was oppressed and humiliated as a Jew. This paper focuses on the dual sides of Shylock's character. On one hand he is miserly, unfeeling, vicious and sly; on the other hand, he is oppressed and humiliated.

Empathetic Personification of William Thornhill in The Secret River

Through a detailed text examination,this paper contends that albeit Kate Grenville'sThe Secret River is dedicated to interrogate white actions in the colonial past and expects to contribute to the process of reconciliation in Australia, it engages sympathy of readers through the empathetic personification of the protagonist William Thornhill,who is subtly positioned as a victim forced into morally dubious actions by extraordinary circumstances. The wrongdoing of the white settlers is normalized in a western conception of possessive logic,the plight of the Aborigines authentically diluted and minimized. This paper thus concludes that The Secret River is another white attempt to legitimize dispossession of the Indigenous and a failure of engagement in the national reconciliation process. This paper further points out that repressing the true history will never set Australia free; acknowledging collective guilt is the only way forward.

Hawthorne’s Humanism in The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by the American romantic writer Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 19th century.It is not only the American romantic fiction masterpiece,but also known as the American psychological analysis novel set article.And this paper aims at deploring Hawthorne’s humanism by analyzing the paradox of good and evil among the three main characters,Hester,Dimmesdale,and Chillingworth,which reveals in his praise for human dignity,his sympathy for the pressed,and his yearning for a more understanding society.

Hume’s Concept of Universality: a Perspective of “Usefulness”

There are many arguments about Hume in the history of philosophy,especially after Kant criticized Hume,Kant believed that there is no concept of“universality”in Hume’s ethics.By analyzing Hume’s text,this article points out that Hume also pursues“universality”,and his“universality”is a universality in the sense of usefulness.Not only does his ethics have the concept of universality,but Hume also pursues universality in the field of nature science.This is helpful for the academic community to re-recognize Hume and further promote the study of Hume.

A Stylistic Appreciation of the Solitary Reaper

The Solitary Reaper is one of the representative works of William Wordsworth.The poem is simple in language but unique in style,so it is very meaningful to appreciate the stylistic style of the Solitary Reaper.Although previous studies have dabbled in this poem,the appreciation of its style is negligible.This paper conducts a more comprehensive stylistic analysis of the poem from such five levels as the graphological level,the phonological level,the lexical level,the syntactic level and the semantic level,thus highlighting the lonely image of the reaper,making readers better understand the style,and showing Wordsworth's love for nature as well as sympathy for the labouring people.

论“Einfühlung”与“Sympathie”——基于词源学、思想史和翻译史的考察

现象学对他人与主体间性问题的讨论、分析的心灵哲学对他心问题的讨论、伦理学对同感与道德问题的讨论、政治哲学对启蒙情感主义的讨论,不约而同地使对同感(Einfühlung)问题的研究进入了一个热潮。然而不少论者在说理的过程中往往不加区分地将同感(移情)和同情(Sympathie)混淆起来使用,既没有准确刻画同感的本质,也没有对同情概念的复杂含义做深入分析,以致造成了很多误解。通过从词源学、思想史和翻译史的角度对“Einfühlung”与“Sympathie”这两个概念的考察,我们发现后者是一个比前者更古老的概念,前者从出于后者,它分享了后者的其中一种含义(自然哲学意义上的同情),正是这种含义构成了我们今天所谓的同感(移情或共情)。在现代思想语境中,前者逐渐替代了后者,成了心理学、社会心理学、现象学、实践医学、认知神经科学和公共话语中的核心概念。而后者的另一种含义(道德哲学意义上的同情),则在伦理学中得到了固化,从而成了道德哲学或道德心理学的一个专属概念。

From a Loyalist to a betrayer—— Bull’s-eye in Oliver Twist

As Charles Dickens has been recognized as the greatest critical writer in the 19th century in British.People often notice that most of its works reflect strongly social criticism,and few people discovers his thoughts of romanticism and idealism,his speaking highly of the humanity,kindness,and benevolence,as well as his looking forward to a more harmonious society and better lives for people.In fact,he has created many characteristics of rightfullness and justice to this effect.What’s the most interesting is that he creats an animal imaginery—a dog,which changes from his evil master’s accomplice to his batrayer--to express the his desire of arousing sympathy and goodness in the imbalanced society for the sake of the poor and the weak.

On Hume＇s Naturalistic Account of Love

In my paper, I analyse Hume＇s philosophy of love with the general philosophical idea of a continual flux in the background. My main source is his Treatise of Human Nature published in 1739 where Hume develops in full length his purely naturalistic moral theory. First, I recall some basic features of Hume＇s general concept of a passion. Afterwards, I characterize his concept of love in context of his ＂principle＂ of sympathy in order to connect finally Hume＇s ideas to a basic distinction within traditional philosophy of love between love of benevolence and love of desire.