The Phenomenology of Pain. Saulius Geniusas

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      The central ambition of the following study is to break this regrettable silence and to show that phenomenology has an important contribution to make in the framework of pain research in general, and the philosophy of pain in particular. With this in mind, the following investigation will present a philosophical study of pain, which relies upon the phenomenological method. Besides delimiting a phenomenological approach to pain, this study also aims to open a dialogue between the phenomenology of pain and other types of pain research, which we come across in such fields as the analytically oriented philosophy of pain, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, cultural psychopathology, and psychoanalysis. Such a methodological commitment and dialogical orientation carries the demand to situate oneself within the phenomenological tradition, while at the same time being attentive to the developments in other fields of research.

      The fundamental goal of this study is thereby delineated: this study aims to demonstrate why phenomenology is indispensable for pain research. Admittedly, there are different kinds of phenomenology, and the complex relation between them continues to raise doubts about the unity and coherence of the phenomenological movement. In the framework of this study, it is not my goal to provide a detailed analysis of the reasons why, despite far-reaching disagreements, the phenomenological tradition as a whole retains its overarching unity.⁶ My goal, rather, is to focus on one particular phenomenological tradition, namely, the Husserlian tradition, and to demonstrate why it is of great importance for the philosophy of pain. In such a way, I will aim to complement Olivier’s and Grüny’s above-mentioned studies, which rely mainly on the resources of Martin Heidegger’s and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenologies. Unless otherwise stated, in this study the concept of phenomenology will be employed as synonymous with Husserlian phenomenology.

      Some readers might wonder, Would it not be more appropriate to proceed on a different phenomenological basis and rely on more existentially and less epistemologically oriented phenomenological resources? One of my goals is to show that such stereotypical rejections of Husserlian phenomenology are far from convincing. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, Husserlian phenomenology provides a remarkably solid methodological basis for the philosophy of pain. One can single out eight fundamental reasons that make Husserlian phenomenology highly fitting for pain research. Only in Husserlian phenomenology do we encounter the full configuration of these reasons, although, admittedly, some of them can be also found in other philosophical frameworks:

      1. Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience, whose fundamental ambition is to clarify phenomena as configurations of meaning that are constituted in experience. As we will see, the methods employed in phenomenology are highly useful to study the nature of pain, conceived not only as a configuration of meaning but also as lived-experience.

      2. In contrast to other philosophies of experience, phenomenology provides the methodological basis to study the experience of pain by setting aside naturalistic preconceptions, including all the available theoretical accomplishments, which, for the reasons that will have to be clarified in due course, tacitly reconfigure the nature of experience. Here I am referring to the phenomenological methods of the epoché and the reduction, which enable phenomenology to conceptualize pain in the absence of naturalistic bias and manipulation.

      3. Phenomenology primarily relies upon a descriptive method, which is also of great importance for pain research: to this day, the phenomenal nature of pain remains unexplored and it can be surveyed only descriptively.

      4. Phenomenological descriptions are not focused on the idiosyncratic characteristics of personal experience. Rather, by virtue of the method of eidetic variation, phenomenology strives to offer accounts of the essence of pain experience. In this regard, too, phenomenology promises to fill a serious gap in pain research.

      5. Phenomenology has been celebrated for a long time for overcoming the subject/object dichotomy and for disclosing the centrality of the body in thinking, acting, and feeling. In this regard, too, it proves to be remarkably apt for pain research, since pain in its essence is a bodily phenomenon.

      6. Phenomenology provides us with some of the richest—if not the richest—analyses of the temporal nature of experience. In this regard, also, it promises to be of great significance for pain research in that it provides the means needed to clarify the temporal structures of pain experience.

      7. The groundbreaking distinction in phenomenology between the naturalistic and the personalistic attitudes is of fundamental importance, since pain as experience can be grasped only from the personalistic, and not from a naturalistic, standpoint.

      8. Finally, the phenomenological analyses of the life-world are also highly relevant for the philosophy of pain, since these analyses enable us to philosophically conceptualize different ways in which the experience of pain is rooted in cultural worlds.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE FOLLOWING INVESTIGATION

      This study will be concerned with three fundamental tasks: it will aim to (1) clarify the fundamental methodological principles that must underlie phenomenologically oriented pain research; (2) develop a new conception of pain on the basis of such methodological principles; and (3) clarify what contribution the phenomenology of pain can make to philosophical anthropology. It is highly important to carry out all these tasks, and for various reasons. As far as the first task is concerned, let us not overlook that in pain research we come across various studies that call themselves phenomenological, even though the exact meaning of this qualification remains unqualified. Various autobiographies, “pain narratives,” and empirically oriented studies, as well as introspectionist accounts, are passed off as though they are phenomenological studies of pain. So as to counteract this tendency and the deep confusions it gives rise to, one must stress that phenomenology is first and foremost a method, which means that only insofar as one subscribes to the distinctly phenomenological methodology can one qualify one’s study as phenomenological (in the above-mentioned sense).

      In chapter 1, my goal will be to lay out those methodological principles that are indispensable for any study that wishes to identify itself as phenomenological in the Husserlian sense of the term. I will contend that the methods of the epoché, the phenomenological reduction, and eidetic variation are the fundamental and indispensable principles of the phenomenological method. Besides clarifying the meaning of these principles, I will further argue that especially in the framework of pain research, these three fundamental methods call for a further twofold supplementation. First, the method of eidetic variation must be supplemented with a method of factual variation, conceived not so much as an independent method, but rather as an important extension of the method of eidetic variation. Second, static methodology in general must be supplemented with what in Husserlian phenomenology is identified as genetic methodology. Taking such a methodological orientation into account, I will maintain that phenomenology is not concerned with the idiosyncratic nature of any particular experience, and in this regard, it should be distinguished from the anthropologically and sociologically oriented pain research that we come across in the literature. In contrast to all empirical research on pain, phenomenology is concerned with essential structures of experience, that is, those structures without which experience as such could not be qualified as painful.⁷

      Having clarified the fundamental methodological principles of phenomenological research, we will proceed to the second fundamental task. Our guiding question runs as follows: What is pain, when conceived of as experience and when considered from the phenomenological point of view? Building on the basis of phenomenological descriptions, this manuscript will propose the following answer to this fundamental question: pain is an aversive bodily feeling with a distinct experiential quality, which can be given only in original firsthand experience, either as a feeling-sensation or as an emotion.

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