The Phenomenology of Pain

Authors

Saulius Geniusas

Files

Series

Series in Continental Thought

Description

The Phenomenology of Pain is the first book-length investigation of its topic to appear in English. Groundbreaking, systematic, and illuminating, it opens a dialogue between phenomenology and such disciplines as cognitive science and cultural anthropology to argue that science alone cannot clarify the nature of pain experience without incorporating a phenomenological approach. Building on this premise, Saulius Geniusas develops a novel conception of pain grounded in phenomenological principles: pain is an aversive bodily feeling with a distinct experiential quality, which can only be given in original first-hand experience, either as a feeling-sensation or as an emotion.

Geniusas crystallizes the fundamental methodological principles that underlie phenomenological research. On the basis of those principles, he offers a phenomenological clarification of the fundamental structures of pain experience and contests the common conflation of phenomenology with introspectionism. Geniusas analyzes numerous pain dissociation syndromes, brings into focus the de-personalizing and re-personalizing nature of chronic pain experience, and demonstrates what role somatization and psychologization play in pain experience. In the process, he advances Husserlian phenomenology in a direction that is not explicitly worked out in Husserl’s own writings.

Award(s): Hermes Award, International Institute of Hermeneutics, Edward Goodwin Ballard Prize in Phenomenology

Copyright Statement

The Phenomenology of Pain © 2020 by Ohio University Press is licensed under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language

eng

ISBN

9780821446942

Publication Date

1-28-2020

Publisher

Ohio University Press

City

Athens

Keywords

eidetics, intentionality, stratified experience, sensation, feeling, philosophy, pain, phenomonology

Disciplines

Pain Management | Philosophy | Somatic Psychology

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Geniusas, Saulius, "The Phenomenology of Pain" (2020). Ohio University Press Open Access Books. 73.
https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/73