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      As far as the phenomenology of pain is concerned, it is the phenomenological reduction, and not the transcendental reduction, that is indispensable. The three methods that are here identified as fundamental are those of the epoché, the phenomenological reduction, and eidetic variation. This does not mean that the method of the transcendental reduction is not important in phenomenology; it does mean, however, that one can carry out a phenomenologically oriented study without employing the transcendental reduction. The analysis undertaken in this study will primarily, although not exclusively, rely on the phenomenological reduction.⁵

      Let us turn to the third phenomenological method, namely, that of eidetic variation. This method is designed to clarify how one is supposed to move from reflecting on individual instances to grasping essences. According to this method, the kind of example one begins with is irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant if the example derives from actual perception, memory, or phantasy. It is crucial, however, to consider the example as free from all naturalistic explanations: the method of eidetic variation rests on the shoulders of the epoché. Starting with an arbitrary example, one must vary the phenomenon “with a completely free optionalness” (Husserl 1960, 70), while simultaneously retaining the sense of its identity, no matter what kind of phenomenon it might be. This means that one must abstain from the acceptance of the phenomenon’s being and change the object into a pure possibility—one possibility among other possibilities. That is, one must vary different aspects of the phenomenon until one reaches the invariant—conceived of as a determination, or a set of determinations, in the absence of which the phenomenon would no longer be the kind of phenomenon it is. Following such a method, one comes to the realization that, for instance, extension is an invariant feature of a material object, or that temporality is an invariant feature of lived-experience. With the discovery of such invariants, the essences of the phenomena come into view.⁶

      The method of eidetic variation culminates in the seeing of essences. With the help of this method, phenomenology can become a science of essences. Here we come across the reason why Husserlian phenomenology has often been conceived of as a revival of Platonism. This general characterization, so often employed as a tacit critique of phenomenology, is misleading: in phenomenology, essences are not interpreted in metaphysical terms as eidai that belong to an independent realm of true being. They are not paradigmatic things or atoms of true being. By essence, or eidos, we are to understand what the phenomenon is in terms of its necessary predicates. Put otherwise, essential predicates refer to those aspects of the phenomenon that belong to it invariantly. It is important not to overlook that Husserl (1983, §74) draws a distinction between exact essences, which can be exhaustively defined, and morphological essences, whose boundaries are imprecise and which are fundamentally inexact. For Husserl (1983, §§71–75), the kind of exactness possible in mathematics derives from its “ideal concepts” and is unattainable in the descriptive eidetics of the reduced consciousness (see also Bernet, Kern, and Marbach 1993, 86). We can take this to mean that the phenomenology of pain, conceived of as an eidetics of pain experience, need not be conceived of as a discipline that generates exact essences. As we will see, especially when it comes to embodied feelings, the exact lines of demarcation that separate different types of experience from each other are often blurred. As Husserl puts it in Ideas I, “An essence, and thus a purely apprehensible eidos, belongs to the sense of every accidental matter. . . . An individual object is not merely as such an individual, a ‘this, here!,’ a unique instance. . . . It has its own distinctive character, its stock of essential predicables” (1983, 7). The goal of the phenomenology of pain is to extricate these essential predicables from the concrete flow of experience.

      Out of these three methods, the last one is most problematic, and in the history of phenomenology, it has been subjected to diverse criticisms. For instance, consider the phenomenological view that what example one begins with is simply irrelevant. No matter how arbitrary the starting point might be, does the phenomenologist not have to rely on a certain preconceptual understanding of the example’s essence? How, otherwise, is the phenomenologist supposed to know what properties of the object can be subjected to imaginative variation? Should the cup of tea on my desk be my starting example, does the method of eidetic variation not rely upon my more basic understanding of the object’s perceptual properties and practical functions, thus on my prior capacity to distinguish the cup from the saucer and the teaspoon still before I start varying its different properties, such as its color, shape, texture, size, weight, and so on? Consider also Husserl’s own example of the tone used in Phenomenological Psychology (1977, 54ff.). Does one not already need to know what a tone is so as to be able to identify it as the starting point of one’s analysis as well as to be able to distinguish those properties that belong to it from those that don’t? It seems that the method of eidetic variation already presupposes a preconceptual insight into the essence of the phenomenon under scrutiny.

      Nonetheless, even if one concedes that the method of eidetic variation presupposes a more original exposure to the essences of phenomena,⁷ one nonetheless has to agree that with the help of this method, one obtains a much more solid grasp of the essences in question. Insofar as it results in the insight into what is invariable, the method of eidetic variation solidifies our grasp of essences by transforming our vague and merely preconceptual understanding of phenomena into genuine, reliable, and intersubjectively verifiable knowledge of their essential predicates.

      Despite its difficulties, the method of eidetic variation is vital for phenomenology, since in its absence, phenomenology would not be in the position to make any reliable and intersubjectively verifiable claims. What exactly would a phenomenologist be left with if, methodologically, he relied only on the epoché and the phenomenological reduction? Following the methodological guidance of these two methods, one would reach the stream of experience and pure phenomena. Yet what would a phenomenological description of such a stream and such phenomena amount to? One would be left with a pure description of factual experiences and phenomena, yet without any right to claim that the description offered is of any relevance for other experiences or other phenomena. Insofar as one relies upon only the methods of the epoché and the reduction, one can already grasp phenomena in their phenomenological purity, yet one remains restricted to their singularity. Phenomenology is in need of a method that would enable it to transcend what is singular and factual. The method of eidetic variation is designed to take us beyond the Heracleitean flux of experience. The possibility of phenomenology, as a philosophy, rests on the shoulders of insights into essences of phenomena. In phenomenology, the method of eidetic variation is indispensable.

      Let us briefly sum up the three methodological procedures that are necessary for phenomenologically oriented research on pain. First, by following the method of the epoché, the phenomenologist puts in brackets all the scientific discoveries about pain and even the fundamental assumption that underlies these discoveries, namely, the assumption that pain is a natural, that is, a neurophysiological phenomenon. Second, with the performance of the phenomenological reduction, the phenomenologist gains access to pain, conceived of as pure experience. Third, the method of eidetic variation enables phenomenology to engender intersubjectively verifiable claims about the essence of pain experience. For our purposes, this brief presentation of the fundamental methodological principles that must underlie the phenomenology of pain will have to suffice.

THREE ALLEGATIONS: PSYCHOLOGISM, INTROSPECTIONISM, AND SOLIPSISM

      The method of eidetic variation has often been subjected to criticism, which left one with the impression that a safer way to proceed is to dispose of this method altogether. I do not see how such a presumably safe route can enable a phenomenologist to beget intersubjectively verifiable claims. With the epoché, the phenomenologist has cut off the possibility of relying on the accomplishments of the objective sciences; with the reduction, he has returned to the stream of pure experiences. Yet what can assure us that this stream is not a Heracleitean flux, into which one cannot set one’s foot twice? To make clear the dangers that phenomenology faces when one overlooks the eidetic nature of its claims, let us ask three interrelated questions: (1) When phenomenology is employed in such fields as pain research, does it not degenerate into a form of psychologism? (2) Moreover, can it be anything other than introspectionism? (3) Last but not least, is it not a type of solipsism? Addressing these questions will enable us to bolster the

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