What is Pain? A History the Prothero Lecture (original) (raw)
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On Pain, Its Stratification, and Its Alleged Indefinability
Gestalt Theory, 2017
This paper develops a phenomenological approach of pain, which highlights the main presuppositions that underlie pain research undertaken both in the natural and in the socio-historical sciences. My argument is composed of four steps: 1) only if pain is a stratified experience can it become a legitimate theme in both natural and socio-historical sciences; 2) the phenomenological method is supremely well suited to disclose the different strata of pain experience; 3) the phenomenological account here offered identifies three fundamental levels that make up the texture of pain experience: pain can be conceived as a pre-reflective experience, or as an object of affective reflection, or as an object of cognitive reflection; 4) such a stratified account clarifies how pain can be a subject matter in the natural and socio-historical sciences. Arguably, the natural and socio-historical sciences address pain at different levels of its manifestation. While the natural sciences address pain as an object of cognitive reflection, socio-historical sciences first and foremost deal with pain as a pre-reflective experience and as an object of affective reflection.
Gestalt Theory, 2017
Summary This paper develops a phenomenological approach to the concept of pain, which highlights the main presuppositions that underlie pain research undertaken both in the natural and in the sociohistorical sciences. My argument is composed of four steps: (1) only if pain is a stratified experience can it become a legitimate theme in both natural and sociohistorical sciences; (2) the phenomenological method is supremely well suited to disclose the different strata of pain experience; (3) the phenomenological account offered here identifies three fundamental levels that make up the texture of pain experience: pain can be conceived as a prereflective experience, as an object of affective reflection, or as an object of cognitive reflection; and (4) such a stratified account clarifies how pain can be a subject matter in the natural and sociohistorical sciences. Arguably, the natural and sociohistorical sciences address pain at different levels of its manifestation. While the natural sc...
A tapestry of pain: review of 'A Philosophy of Pain'
The Berlin Review of Books, 2012
Review of A.J. Vetlesen, 'A Philosophy of Pain'. London: Reaktion Books, 2009. Veltesen offers an eclectic study of pain, mixing philosophical and cultural analysis. I divide his chapters roughly into three overlapping parts. These make sense of pain as an isolating experience, a shared aspect of the human condition, and a cultural phenomenon. Part I probes the pain which results from torture, chronic illness, and psychological trauma. Through these, Vetlesen provides a conceptual analysis of how pain changes our normal connections to the world, including to other humans. Part II is a phenomenological description of how pain is experienced. From it, he draws existentialist conclusions about our responsibility and vulnerability in the world. Part III develops a model of how pain circulates within society and how culture transforms this pain. He uses it to interpret two aspects of western culture: its violence and valorisation of choice. The published version of this article is available at: http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/phiccf
The Philosophy of Pain - Introduction
Forthcoming in The Philosophy of Pain, edited by D. Bain, M. Brady, and J. Corns. London: Routledge
Over recent decades, pain has received increasing attention as – with ever greater sophistication and rigour – theorists have tried to answer the deep and difficult questions it poses. What is pain’s nature? What is its point? In what sense is it bad? The papers collected in this volume are a contribution to that effort ...
Transcending the dualisms: towards a sociology of pain
Sociology of Health and Illness, 1995
Theories of pain have traditionally been dominated by biomedicine and concentrate upon its neurophysiological aspects, both in diagnosis and treatment. Hence, scientific medicine reduces the experience of pain to an elaborate broadcasting system of signals, rather than seeing it as moulded and shaped both by the individual and their particular socio-cultural context. Although pain lies at the intersection between biology and culture, naaking it an obvious topic for sociological investigation, scant attention has been paid to understanding beliefs about pain within the study of health and Ulness. A major impediment to a more adequate conceptualisation of pain is due to the manner in which it has been 'medicalised', resulting in the inevitable Cartesian split between body and mind. Consequently, the dominant conceptualisation of pain has focused upon sensation, with the subsequent inference that it is able to be rationally and objectively measured. Yet as well as being a medical 'problem', pain is an everyday experience. Moreover, sociological and phenomenological approaches to pain would add to, and enhance, existing bodies of knowledge and help to reclaim pain from the dominant scientific paradigm. In this paper, it is argued, firstly, that the elevation of sensation over emotion within medico-psychological approaches to pain^can be shown to be limiting and reductionist. Secondly, we attempt to show how insights from the newly-emerging sociological arenas of emotions and embodiment provide a framework which is able to both transcend the divide between mind and body and to develop a phenomenoiogical approach to pain. Finally, in order to bring the meaning of pain into fuller focus, we draw attention to the importance of studying theodices and narratives, as well as the cultural shaping and patterning of beliefs and responses to pain.
Pain, Gender, and Systems of Belief and Practice
Religion Compass, 2011
In the Eurowest pain is discursively framed as something that eludes discourse and therefore is outside language. In this framing, pain, as outside language, is given a social and a historical status understood to be beyond human construction. This article is the first step in a larger project toward destablizing such a conceptualization of pain and begins by engaging feminist theorizing of body and pain. In this paper my effort is to trouble the way we think about the body and pain in the Eurowest and to examine some of the outcomes of such thinking. Thereafter, I propose a conceptualization of the body and pain that might be helpful for examining their discursive formation.