Is pain representational?

Abstract

Representationalism in philosophy of perception has become more or less the dominant view. There are various versions of it not all of which are motivated by the same set of concerns. In this paper, I will focus on what has come to be known as strong representationalism. This view has reductive and non-reductive versions, which are usually paired with realist and irrealist versions respectively. Here, first, I will develop a simple, largely empirical, argument against realist reductive version. Later, rather more briefly, I will extend the argument to cover irrealist representationalism.

Keywords

• strong representationalism
• transparency
• pain experience
• edenic properties
• proprietary concepts