Intentionalism and Pain

The pain case can appear to undermine the radically intentionalist view that the phenomenal character of any experience is entirely constituted by its representational content. That appearance is illusory, I argue. After categorising versions of pain intentionalism along two dimensions, I argue that an “objectivist” and “non-mentalist” version is the most promising, provided it can withstand two objections: concerning what we say when in pain, and the distinctiveness of the pain case. I rebut these objections, in a way that’s available to both opponents and adherents of the view that experiential content is entirely conceptual. In doing so I illuminate peculiarities of somatosensory perception that should interest even those who take a different view of pain experiences. Take a perceptual experience, such as a visual experience of a red cube.1 There is “something it is like” for a subject to undergo the experience; the experience has phenomenal character. It also has representational content; being its subject involves representing something as being the case, e.g. that there is a red cube in front of oneself. Now, the traditional view holds (postponing a qualification) that some aspect of the phenomenal character of an experience is constitutively independent of any content it has; by contrast, “radical intentionalists” hold that an experience’s phenomenal character is wholly constituted by its content. This intentionalist revolution, applied to perceptual experiences, is currently taking hold—for good reason. But it’s often thought that a comprehensive intentionalism, applied to experience in general, is blocked by the bodily sensations. I disagree. Consider “pain experiences”—experiences in virtue of which subjects are in pain. These have phenomenal character, yet many philosophers think not only that they resist radically intentionalist treatment, but that they’re “representationally blank”. As Richard Rorty puts it, “pains are not intentional—they do not represent, they are not about anything” (1980, p. 22). Many agree: Block, McGinn, O’Shaughnessy, Searle, and perhaps Davidson and Peacocke.2 1 For discussing and commenting on this and related material, I am grateful to Carol Bain, George Bain, Bill Brewer, Bill Child, John Hyman, Neil Manson, the Philosophical Quarterly referees, and audiences at the Universities of Bristol, St Andrews, Stirling, and York. 2 Block (1995, p. 234), McGinn (1982, p. 8), O’Shaughnessy (1980, i, pp. 169-70), Searle (1992, p. 2), Davidson (1970, p. 211), Peacocke (1983, p. 5; but see 1984).