Casser, L. (2024) Pain without inference. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. ISSN 0031-8205
Abstract
A foundational assumption of contemporary cognitive science is that perceptual processing involves inferential transitions between representational states. However, it remains controversial whether accounts of this kind extend to modalities whose perceptual status is a matter of debate. In particular, it remains controversial whether we should attribute inferential mechanisms to the sensory processing underpinning (human) pain experiences. This paper argues that, contrary to recent proposals in the philosophy and science of pain, pain processing is not mediated by inferential transitions. To this end, I show that standard motivations for inferentialism—including appeal to underdetermination, illusion, cue combination, cognitive penetration, perceptual constancy, and invariance—do not carry over to pain. Instead, I suggest that pain's sensory processing may be better characterised as an idiosyncratic form of transduction, distinguishing it both from paradigmatic perceptual modalities and canonical transducers.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Philosophy and Phenonmenological Research Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Philosophy; Philosophy and Religious Studies; History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields; Pain Research; Chronic Pain |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Dec 2024 16:32 |
Last Modified: | 13 Dec 2024 16:32 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/phpr.13134 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:220611 |
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