The Phenomenology of Pain - Saulius Geniusas Series in Continental Thought

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offer an analysis of the sixth one, while in chapter 5 we will complete the analysis by turning to the seventh question. At the end of chapter 5, we will have justified the phenomenological conception of pain proposed here.

      Few other questions are as germane to the phenomenology of pain as the question concerning the intentional structure of pain experience. Should pain be qualified as an intentional feeling, namely, as a “consciousness of something,” or should it be characterized as a nonintentional feeling-sensation, a mere “experiential content,” or a pure “affective state,” which does not intend anything? This is the oldest question in the phenomenology of pain. We come across this question in a controversy between two of Edmund Husserl’s teachers: Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf.1 While Brentano was committed to the view that pain is an intentional feeling, Stumpf argued that pain is a nonintentional sensation, which he called a “feeling-sensation” (Gefühlsempfindung). As Stumpf (1924) was subsequently to observe, although in virtually all other regards he considered himself Brentano’s follower, the question concerning the intentional status of such feelings as pain marked an uncompromising disagreement between him and Brentano.

      This unresolved controversy had far-reaching repercussions for the subsequent development of the phenomenological analyses of pain. Three sets of illustrations should suffice as a clear confirmation that the oldest question in the phenomenology of pain never reached a clear resolution. First, consider Max Scheler’s reflections on pain. In his Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, Scheler (1973, esp. 328–44) sides with Stumpf when he argues that pain is a nonintentional feeling state. However, in his later works, most notably in “The Meaning of Suffering,” Scheler (1992) conceptualizes pain as a particular form of suffering, conceived of as an intentional experience. In “The Meaning of Suffering,” Scheler takes over the Brentanian point of view and interprets pain through the prism of intentionality. Second, consider Frederik J. J. Buytendijk’s (1962) and Michel Henry’s (1973) reflections on pain. Much like the later Scheler, Buytendijk also follows Brentano when he argues that pain cannot be conceived of as a nonintentional feeling-sensation, which, allegedly, affects only the body-self. According to Buytendijk, to clarify pain’s personal significance, one must address the meaning that pain has for the sufferer. To do so, one must address pain in various intentional frameworks that bind the sufferer to his or her body, to others, and to the sociocultural world at large. By contrast, Michel Henry radicalizes Stumpf’s position and argues that pain is the paradigm of worldless self-affection, conceived of as a purely immanent feeling that living beings have of the concrete modes of their lives. No other experience exemplifies auto-affection as purely as the experience of pain.2 Third, consider Elaine Scarry’s (1985) and Abraham Olivier’s (2007) studies of pain. On the one hand, Scarry provides one of the strongest defenses of Stumpf’s view. As she puts it in her classical study, The Body in Pain, “Desire is desire of x, fear is fear of y, hunger is hunger for z; but pain is not ‘of’ or ‘for’ anything—it is itself alone” (Scarry 1985, 161–62). On the other hand, in direct contrast to Scarry, Olivier presents us with a concept of pain as a “disturbed bodily perception bound to hurt, affliction or agony” (2007, 198). Conceiving of pain as a form of perception, Olivier defends the Brentanian line and argues that pain is an intentional experience.

      Thus, in the phenomenological literature on pain, the question concerning the intentional status of pain experience remains to this day unresolved. One might be tempted to interpret this seemingly endless controversy as a failure on the part of phenomenology to determine one of the central issues that lie at the heart of the phenomenologically informed pain research. Yet one can also interpret it as a clue that the question concerning the intentional status of pain simply cannot be answered unequivocally.

      Such, indeed, is the view that I wish to present in this chapter: there are good reasons why the question concerning the intentional status of pain could not reach a clear resolution. I will defend two interrelated claims. First, pain is a sensory feeling. The qualification of pain as sensory relies upon Stumpf’s determination of pain as a feeling-sensation. Yet pain is also a feeling, which means that pain also entails emotive dimensions. In this regard, the qualification of pain as a feeling already relies on Brentano’s claim that pain is an intentional emotion. However, the conception of pain as a sensory feeling only sharpens the question: How can pain be both a nonintentional feeling-sensation (Gefühlsempfindung) and an intentional feeling? To resolve this apparent contradiction, it will be necessary to supplement the first claim with a second one, which will suggest that pain is a stratified experience. This claim means that the experience of pain is composed of two fundamental strata: while its founding stratum is nonintentional, the founded stratum is marked by intentionality. I will maintain that such a stratified conception of pain provides the necessary basis to reconcile Stumpf’s and Brentano’s standpoints.

      What phenomenological evidence underlies the claim that pain is a nonintentional feeling-sensation? I do not raise this question as a preamble to an exegetical study. Rather than limiting myself to Stumpf’s analysis, I will strive to present the view that pain is a nonintentional experience as a live option. Arguably, there are at least seven reasons to interpret this position as a living possibility.

      First, as the proponents of the Stumpfian standpoint have always maintained, just try to offer a phenomenological description of pain experience, and you will see that pain has no referential content. Elaine Scarry formulates this point especially forcefully. She does not doubt that most of our feelings are intentional. Thus, “love is love of x, fear is fear of y, ambivalence is ambivalence about z” (Scarry 1985, 5). Yet, according to Scarry, no matter how extensive the list of intentional feelings might be, physical pain interrupts it. While intentional feelings are feelings for somebody or something, physical pain is “not of or for anything” (1985, 5). Physical pain takes no referential content; rather, it “resists objectification in language” (1985, 5).

      Is it true that physical pain is not “for or about anything”? Brentano and his followers disagree with this characterization and argue that the standpoint of Stumpf’s followers is built upon a fabricated phenomenological description. They argue that pain is an intentional feeling, whose correlate is one’s physical body. Thus, if I have abdominal pain, the intentional correlate of my feeling-intention is an area in my stomach; if I have a migraine, the intentional correlate of my pain is an area in my head. Pain has the structure of perceptual consciousness: just as seeing is seeing of x, and hearing is hearing of y, so having pain is related to z. One could say that the intentional correlates of physical pain are surface or nonsurface bodily areas (see Janzen 2013, 864).

      However, according to Stumpf’s followers, the structure of pain experience is by no means identical with the structure of perceptual consciousness. Here we come across the second reason that supports their position. In the case of perception, consciousness is first and foremost absorbed in the intentional object and only secondarily conscious of its own experiential contents. In the case of pain, the situation is reversed: one is first and foremost absorbed in one’s experience and only secondarily conscious of one’s body, conceived of as the object of pain experience. This absorption in experience itself, rather than in the objects of experience, intimates that in the case of pain, we are faced not with intentional consciousness, but with a feeling-sensation.

      Stumpf’s followers do not deny that pain can be interpreted as a way of being aware of an object, namely, of one’s own body. However, they assert that this interpretation is an accomplishment of reflective consciousness. They claim that prior to reflection, pain is experienced neither as an intentional feeling nor as an object of this feeling, but as a nonintentional experiential content. At this basic experiential level, pains do not appear, they are just lived through.

      Third, one could point out that there is an essential structural difference between intentional consciousness and pain experience. Intentional consciousness is marked by the distinction between the intentional act and the object of this act.

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