What does feeling a sharp pain in one's hand have in common with seeing a                  red apple on the table? Some say not much, apart from the fact that they are both                  conscious experiences. To see an object is to perceive an extramental reality--in                  this case, a red apple. To feel a pain, by contrast, is to undergo a conscious                  experience that doesn't necessarily relate the subject to an objective reality.                  Perceptualists, however, dispute this. They say that both experiences are forms of                  perception of an objective reality. Feeling a pain in one's hand, according to this                  view, is perceiving an objective (physical) condition of one's hand. Who is closer                  to truth?Because of such metaphysical issues, the subjectivity of pains combined                  with their clinical urgency raises methodological problems for pain scientists. How                  can a subjective phenomenon be studied objectively? What is the role of the                  first-person method (e.g., introspection) in science? Some suggest that the                  subjectivity of pains (and of conscious experiences in general) is due to their                  metaphysical irreducibility to purely physical processes in the nervous system. Can                  this be true?The study of pain and its puzzles offers opportunities for                  understanding such larger issues as the place of consciousness in the natural order                  and the methodology of psychological research. In this book, leading philosophers                  and scientists offer a wide range of views on how to conceptualize and study pain.                  The essays include discussions of perceptual and representationalist accounts of                  pain; the affective-motivational dimension of pain; whether animals feel pain, and                  how this question can be investigated; how social pain relates to physical pain;                  whether first-person methods of gathering data can be integrated with standard                  third-person methods; and other methodological and theoretical issues in the science                  and philosophy of pain.

Pain: New Essays on Its Nature and the Methodology of Its Study (Bradford Books) PDF

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