Este artículo estudia las variaciones del “percibir afectivo” (Fühlen) del dolor, al que denominamos “dolorsentimiento” por ofrecernos la “cara valorativa” del “dolor-sensación”. En él consideramos el percibir afectivo del dolor como un acto cognoscitivo, de modo que sus variaciones constituyen estrictos “engaños (Täuschungen) afectivos”, que, a nivel formal, podrían ir desde el sufrir por exceso hasta la indiferencia o el disfrute. Pero el artículo defiende que, en realidad, los únicos engaños que se producen de hecho son engaños por exceso, en (...) los que el dolor se sufre más de lo debido (engaños ligados al hedonismo). Y el disfrute del dolor o la indiferencia, que se dan respectivamente en el masoquismo y en las leucotomías prefrontales, se sitúan ya en el ámbito de las “respuestas afectivas” al dolor, que en el artículo se distinguen con claridad del nivel previo del percibir afectivo. A su vez, las variaciones del percibir afectivo se diferencian de las variaciones del “umbral del dolor-sensación”, estudiadas desde la psicofísica. (shrink)

Philosophers think of pain less and less as a paradigmatic instance of mentality, for which they seek a general account, and increasingly as a rich and fruitful topic in its own right. Pain raises specific questions: about mentality and consciousness certainly, but also about embodiment, affect, motivation, and value, to name but a few. The growth of philosophical interest in pain has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of pain science, which burgeoned in the 1960s. This is no accident: developments in (...) pain science have prompted philosophers to take account of empirical data, and to revisit their assumptions about pain. Pain, in short, demands interdisciplinary investigation, hence while this entry focuses on the philosophy of pain, it makes liberal reference to empirical literature along the way. This entry’s focus is on physical pains, that is pains that are felt in bodily locations, not emotional suffering more broadly, such as grief or disappointment. The entry also does not address pain’s place in ethical theories; its focus is rather on issues that arise within philosophy of mind. Even so, part of what makes pain such an interesting and important topic is that the questions it raises span boundaries, and normative questions concerning pain’s badness, on the one hand, and its value, on the other, are never far away. (shrink)

Pain, crucially, is unpleasant and motivational. It can be awful; and it drives us to action, e.g. to take our weight off a sprained ankle. But what is the relationship between pain and those two features? And in virtue of what does pain have them? Addressing these questions, Colin Klein and Richard J. Hall have recently developed the idea that pains are, at least partly, experiential commands—to stop placing your weight on your ankle, for example. In this paper, I reject (...) their accounts. Against Klein, I use dissociation cases to argue that possession of ‘imperative content’ cannot wholly constitute pain. Against them both, I further claim that possession of such content cannot even constitute pain’s unpleasant, motivational aspect. For, even if it were possible to specify the relevant imperative content—which is far from clear—the idea of a command cannot bear the explanatory weight Klein and Hall place on it. (shrink)