ABSTRACT
We often use the language of pain to point to other forms of suffering than the ones associated with the body. This chapter deals with the phenomenology of bodily pain. In standard philosophical classifications of feelings, bodily pain is not considered an emotion, since it does not contain any beliefs or judgments about the world in the way that emotions do. The chapter discusses the concept of pain as inner perception and the neurophysiological theories of pain. These theories about pain—such as the gate control theory and the neuromatrix theory—stress that the brain plays a formative part in the pain experience. With the help of tools glued to the lived body in more permanent manners than hammers, a person may expand his/her sensory field and feel the contours of things in the world in a direct manner. The chapter also discusses the concept of suffering and the issue of feeling the pain of others.
