Pain

Abstract

Is feeling pain in a bodily location, say, in one's elbow, a form of perception or something that essentially involves introspection? Am I perceiving something in my elbow when I feel pain there? Or am I engaged in some form of introspection about my awareness of something there? In popular culture or even among scientists, the term ‘perception' is often used in a very broad sense to designate any kind of ongoing epistemic access to (or, some form of awareness of) something (anything) in real time. Used in this sense, the common practice of using expressions like ‘pain perception' or ‘perception of pain' (popular among pain scientists) 1 may be unobjectionable. Indeed, the term ‘perception' in this broad sense may also be used to characterize introspection itself. Whatever ultimately the nature of introspection turns out to be, it is by definition a form of direct first-person access (subjective, from inside) to one's own mental states, processes, events, or to their mental features. In this minimal sense, it is something that may already be covered by the broad sense of ‘perception' just mentioned. But there is a narrower sense of ‘perception' with which ‘introspection' is to be contrasted. In the narrower sense, perception is ongoing epistemic access to something that is other than one's own mental states or features. This is the familiar epistemic activity that occupies most of our ordinary waking lives when we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch something in or outside of our bodies. In this sense, perception is access to something extra-mental in the sense of being beyond our own mental states. This is typically access to worldly objects (including our own bodies), their physical properties, states or conditions. When I see a lemon in front of me, touch it, smell it, taste it, I am perceiving the lemon and its physical features, its color, shape, sounds it makes when I take a bite or tap on it, its texture, odor, taste, etc. In other words, in perception I am getting information about the physical objects in the environment surrounding me and my body, and this information is typically made available to me for recognition, identification, categorization, etc. — or more generally, for cognizing and further mental processing or motor action. In all this, and what is essential for the narrow sense of ‘perception,' the mental activity is world-directed. In introspection, it is internally (mind) directed. This is not to deny that perception in the narrow sense and introspection can co-occur — or perhaps even always cooccur. Indeed, when I perceive the lemon in front of me, I may also be simultaneously attending to the way I sense or experience it. This is epistemic access to the peculiar way in which the