Routledge, under the editorship of Jennifer Corns, has produced a thorough and integrated account that shows just how philosophy can contribute to our understanding of pain. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain is divided into nine distinct parts, each outlining an aspect of the discourse. This collection brings expertise from a wide range of sources. It considers the intricacies of understanding what pain is and consequently why it matters to human experience. The Handbook reveals just how philosophy can be an invaluable tool in this discourse, through shedding light on human experience in a way that brings clarity and insight to definitions and how we use them.

Though the title suggests that the texts are primarily concerned with philosophy, the collection also draws on neuroscience and psychology, as well as examples from law and sociology to develop a thoroughly multidisciplinary approach. What is challenging about this topic, suggests the editor, is that ‘each pain results from the convergent activity of multiple mechanisms’ (p. 13). Not only are multiple mechanisms involved, but there is also a ‘remarkable idiosyncrasy of this convergence [which] undermines prediction and explanation across all pains’ (p. 13). This means that giving a definitive account of ‘what’ pain actually is can be difficult.  For instance, in her section on ‘A brief and potted overview’, Valerie Gray Hardcastle suggests that phenomenology, representationalism, eliminativism and folk perceptions all conceive of this mental phenomenon in different ways. 

Yet whilst some chapters engage with phenomenology, epistemology and philosophy of religion (see, for example, Ariel Glucklich’s ‘Sacred pain’), the collection primarily features accounts drawn from the philosophy of mind.  In discussing the ‘undergoing’ of pain, and its distinction and similarity to suffering, it could have been of interest to include further reflections from existential and ontological thinkers to develop elements of the lived subjective experience.  The brief discussions of suffering and pain were particularly rich, as for instance developed in Donald Price’s article ‘Pain as sensations, meanings and emotions’, where he suggests that suffering involves reflecting on the pain-related emotion (pgs. 118-119). 

Section III provided a fascinating exchange between a diverse range of topics, including (I) ‘Pain in ethics’, (II) ‘Pain in medicine’, and (III) ‘Pain in law’. Whereas sometimes sections like this can feel eclectically assembled, the way in which Corns brought each topic together really works. It not only allows reflection on terms that had been clarified in the earlier sections, but it also shows how this clarification can be further developed through multidisciplinary engagement. Reflecting on the role of pain in beginning and end of life accounts, and bringing it alongside a section of pain management shows just how challenging of a phenomenon it is to understand and treat.

This collection presents a broad overview on the discourse on pain, and reveals how philosophy, particularly through analytic accounts, can bring clarity to the ambiguous experience. Clearly introduced and meticulously laid out, the Routledge Handbook provides an essential roadmap to philosophy’s multidisciplinary engagements with pain.

© 2018 Anna Westin

Anna Westin, PhD, Lecturer in Ethics, London School of Theology