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  1. Independence and Connections of Pain and Suffering.S. Benjamin Fink - 2011 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (9-10):46-66.
    Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are pain experiences necessarily or only contingently unpleasant? Here, I sketch how to answer such questions concerning intra-phenomenal metaphysics using the example of pain and unpleasantness. Arguments for a symmetrical metaphysical independence of phenomenal pain and unpleasant affect are presented, rejecting a composite view like the IASP definition and dimensional views. The motivating intuition of these views is explained by common binding mechanisms in consciousness and characterized (...)
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  2. Pain: A Natural State without a Nature? Dealing with the Ambiguity of „Pain“ in Science and Ethics.S. Benjamin Fink - 2010 - In Heather McKenzie, John Quintner & Gillian Bendelow (eds.), At the Edge of Being: The Aporia of Pain. Inter-Disciplinary Press.
    Can we find necessary and sufficient conditions for a mental state to be a pain state? That is, does pain have a nature? Or is the term ‘pain’ ambiguous? I argue here that our expression ‘pain’ lacks necessary use conditions if one considers a range of contexts. As use conditions constrain the reference class, I argue that ‘pain’ does not refer to a natural category, but binds together a bunch of loosely resembling phenomena. This leads to problems for scientific and (...)
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  3. The Ambiguity of "Pain".S. Benjamin Fink - 2010 - In Jane Fernandez-Goldborough (ed.), Making Sense of: Pain. Inter-disciplinary Net.
    I argue that the understanding of "pain" as presented in the official medical definition by the IASP is ambiguous and likely a cluster concept.
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