Pain Philosophy: Recent Debates and Future Challenges

In the last decades, pain has moved more and more into the foreground of philosophical discussion. Still, there exists substantial disagreement concerning the exact nature of pain. The paper provides an overview concerning central topics in recent pain philosophy, indicating remaining challenges and outlining promising directions for future research. Starting point is the assumption that broadly constructed pain episodes are composed of at least four paradigmatic components: (a) physiological disturbance, (b) phenomenal experience (sensory + affective), (c) action tendency, and (d) alteration in a broader mental network. On that basis, the paper first addresses the challenge to fathom which of these components provides the necessary and sufficient condition for an episode being a pain episode. This involves discussions on the folk concept of pain as well as the closer examination of dissociative cases in which some components are apparently absent. Second, the paper addresses the challenge to define how the relevant components relate to each other, for example, how closely the phenomenal experience of pain is bound to the presence of a particular physiological disturbance or action tendency. This debate takes place mainly in the context of strong intentionalist theories—indicative, evaluative, and imperative. Third, the paper argues for the future development of a research program that centrally resolves around the challenges that chronic pain poses. This focus may open stronger interdisciplinary connections to clinical research and practice and advance considerations on topics that have so far received insufficient attention in pain philosophy (e.g., pain-related suffering).