2021/01/15 by Adam Bradley · 13 citations
Medicine · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Computer science #Embodied cognition #Epistemology #Medicine #Metaphysics #Mind–body problem #Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations #Objectivism #Pain Management and Placebo Effect #Philosophy #Philosophy and Theoretical Science #Philosophy of mind #Physical body #Psychology #Rest (music) #Subject (documents)
paper · doi:10.1093/pq/pqaa084
published in The Philosophical Quarterly 71(4) (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2021/01/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Abstract 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.