The Paradox of Pain

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10691836
AutoresAdam Bradley (0000-0002-7901-7563, Auburn University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen71
Número4
Fecha de publicación2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqaa084
OpenAlexW3124936504
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas34

Bodily pain strikes many philosophers as deeply paradoxical. The issue is that pains seem to bear both physical characteristics, such as a location in the body, and mental characteristics, such being mind-dependent. In this paper I clarify and address this alleged paradox of pain. I begin by showing how a further assumption, Objectivism, the thesis that what one feels in one’s body when one is in pain is something mind-independent, is necessary for the generation of the paradox. Consequently, the paradox can be avoided if one rejects this idea. However, doing so raises its own difficulties, for it is not obvious how anything can possess all of the features we typically associate with bodily pain. To address this puzzle and finally put the paradox of pain to rest, I develop the Embodied View, a novel metaphysical account on which pains are constitutively mind-dependent features of parts of a subject’s body

Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Mind–body problem · Objectivism · Philosophy of mind · Physical body · Rest (music) · Subject (documents) · Computer Science · Medicine · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Pain Management and Placebo Effect · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology