This paper develops an instrumentalistic argumentagainst an eliminativist approach to using the folkconcept of pain in clinical medicine and draws someimplications for biomedical theories of pain. Thepaper argues that the folk concept of pain plays afundamental role in several aspects of clinicalmedicine, including the diagnosis and treatment ofdiseases and symptoms, relieving human suffering, andthe doctor-patient relationship. Since clinicians mustbe able to apply biomedical theories of pain inmedical practice, these theories should not stray toofar from pain's clinical realities. Biomedicaltheories of pain (...) should at least incorporate an analogof the folk concept of pain, even if this concept isrevised in light of scientific advances. (shrink)

This paper investigates the status of the purported explanatory gap between pain phenomena and natural science, when the “gap” is thought to exist due to the special properties of experience designated by “qualia” or “the pain quale” in the case of pain experiences. The paper questions the existence of such a property in the case of pain by: (1) looking at the history of the conception of pain; (2) raising questions from empirical research and theory in the psychology of pain; (...) (3) considering evidence from the neurophysiological systems of pain; (4) investigating the possible biological role or roles of pain; and (5) considering methodological questions of the comparable status of the results of the sciences of pain in contrast to certain intuitions underpinning “the explanatory gap” in the case of pain. Skepticism concerning the crucial underlying intuitions seems justified by these considerations. (shrink)