The Phenomenology of Pain. Saulius Geniusas

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СКАЧАТЬ this happens, no further variation is needed. Yet how can one ever be assured that the process of imaginative variation is no longer necessary and that one has, presumably, attained insight into the essence of the phenomenon? In this regard, the distinction Husserl draws between open and motivated possibility is highly helpful.¹⁵ No matter how carefully one might follow the eidetic method, there always seems to be an open possibility that one might be misidentifying the presumably essential characteristics of the phenomenon. It seems that the method of eidetic variation, especially when practiced in the insular way as described above, is just not capable of closing off such an open possibility and thereby reassuring us that we are avoiding possible pitfalls. What is more, when this method is practiced in private seclusion, the general insights attained come into conflict with the results achieved in scientific research. With regard to Husserl’s (1977, 75) eidetic claim that colors and sounds cannot change into each other, Shaun Gallagher writes:

      Simply because he cannot imagine this possibility, however, doesn’t mean that it is actually impossible. Here we can see the importance of intersubjective verification, since in fact, one can find people who experience synaesthesia, and for whom colors and sounds do change into each other. Empirical research on synesthesia [sic] can also indicate the range of possibilities and can demonstrate that the regional (ontological) boundary between colors and sounds can be more malleable than might be ordinarily expected. (2012, 51)

      Do conflicts of this kind between phenomenological claims and the results of empirical research compel us to abandon eidetic variation as an unreliable method that cannot secure the reliability of its own pronouncements? Such a conclusion would be detrimental for phenomenology, for, as I have argued earlier, if phenomenology relies only on the methods of the epoché and the reduction, then it is not in the position to make any reliable claims that could obtain intersubjective verification. Yet such a conclusion would be both hasty and illegitimate. Conflicts that emerge between phenomenologically oriented claims and the results achieved in other sciences compel us to abandon a certain interpretation of eidetic variation, namely, the interpretation that presumes this method places a demand on the researcher to engage in phenomenological reflections while taking safe distance from all other intellectual discussions. The recognition that the method of eidetic variation does not warrant the reliability of phenomenological insights into the essence of the phenomena requires that we find a way to open a dialogue between phenomenology and other sciences. Methodologically, we can achieve this goal by showing that there is a fully legitimate way in which imaginative variations could be supplemented with factual variations, namely, those variations that draw on the accomplishments in other fields of research. Such factual variations can derive from highly diverse sources, such as the natural, social, and human sciences, literature and poetry, fine arts and cinema, or even (auto) biographies. Insofar as phenomenology is open to such supplementation, one has all the reasons needed to call it dialogical phenomenology.

      We are in need of such a phenomenological approach that would stay faithful to the fundamental methodological principles (the epoché, the reduction, and eidetic variation) while at the same time being open to the developments in other fields. What I identify here as dialogical phenomenology is a philosophical approach that meets both conditions. Yet how feasible is such an approach? How can phenomenology accept the results from other disciplines? Would this not require one to give up one’s commitment to the methods of the epoché and the reduction? It might seem that dialogical phenomenology is a contradictio in adjecto. It appears to compromise phenomenology’s purity, since it forces one to accept the results from other fields that were obtained on the grounds of the natural attitude. Since the phenomenological method requires one to put in brackets the natural attitude, including the presuppositions that underlie and the results that follow from the natural, social, and human sciences, either one can strictly adhere to the fundamental phenomenological principles, or one can build on the basis of the results obtained in the sciences of the natural attitude. It seems that these are the two approaches between which one must choose.

      Admittedly, phenomenology cannot, and should not, accept the insights derived from these highly diverse sources as straightforward validities. However, one has a full right to incorporate these insights into the phenomenological field by transforming them into possibilities, which in their own turn would enable the researcher to expand the horizons of eidetic variation. Insofar as one accepts the results from diverse sciences as possibilities, one does not treat them as matters of fact or as reliable conclusions that follow from sound arguments. If accepted as mere possibilities, scientific discoveries can enlarge the horizon of those imaginative possibilities, which the phenomenologist must take into account while employing the method of eidetic variation. In this sense, and in this sense alone, dialogical phenomenology’s openness to the results that stem from other fields of research does not compromise its methodological orientation.

      The fact that scientific findings can be accepted in phenomenology only as possibilities means that factual variations should not be conceived of as an independent method alongside the method of eidetic variation. Rather, the coupling of these procedures enables one to give up a certain conception of the method of eidetic variation as illegitimate; it enables one to reject the view that eidetic variation closes off all possibilities of opening a dialogue between phenomenology and other sciences and that therefore, presumably, a phenomenologist must be an intellectual hermit, whose research must unfold in methodological and thematic solitude. By supplementing imaginative variations with factual variations, one liberates phenomenology from its insularity and opens the way to pursue a dialogue between phenomenology and other sciences.¹⁶

      The coupling of imaginative variations with factual variations is especially needed when one turns to such complex phenomena as pain. Especially then the need arises for dialogical phenomenology, which would be open to descriptions and analyses we come across in other fields of research. Consider in this regard Dan Zahavi’s following observation about thought experiments:

      It might, occasionally, be better to abandon fiction altogether and instead pay more attention to the startling facts found in the actual world. . . . If we are looking for phenomena that can shake our ingrained assumptions and force us to refine, revise, or even abandon our habitual way of thinking, all we have to do is to turn to psychopathology, along with neurology, developmental psychology, and ethnology; all of these disciplines present us with rich sources of challenging material. (2005, 141–42)

      Many other disciplines besides the ones mentioned here can also oblige us to revise our cognitive habits. To repeat, revisions of this kind can also be triggered by the resources provided in fine arts, literature, poetry, cinema, or any kind of (auto)biographies. In principle, any instituted framework can provide the resources to supplement imaginative variations with factual variations and thereby enable us to obtain more reliable access to the essence of the phenomenon. In general, the more complex the phenomenon, the less reliable the merely personal imaginative variation and the greater the need to enrich it with factual variations. To follow up on Zahavi’s analysis, “If we wish to test our assumptions about the unity of mind, the privacy of mental states, the nature of agency, or the role of emotions, far more may be learned from a close examination of pathological phenomena such as depersonalization, thought insertion, multiple personality disorder, cases of apraxia, or states of anhedonia than from thought experiments involving swapped brains or teletransporters” (2005, 142). As we will see in chapter 3, a lot is to be learned about the essence of pain from pain dissociation syndromes, such as congenital insensitivity to pain, threat hypersymbolia, or asymbolia for pain. By incorporating such themes into phenomenologically oriented pain research, we can supplement the analysis built on personally motivated imaginative variations with phenomenological reflections that rely on factual variations.

      To repeat, we should not think of factual variation as a separate method that is set alongside the method of eidetic variation. Rather, it is an addendum, or qualification, that enables one to liberate oneself from a certain—to my mind, illegitimate—conception of eidetic variation. By supplementing imaginative variation with factual variation, we are СКАЧАТЬ