ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on whether pains may be usefully referenced using scientific generalisations for explanation and prediction despite lacking mechanistic explanation (as argued in earlier chapters of this work). This is pluralism for pain. Drawing on the complex idiosyncrasy of pain, the chapter argues against pluralism and in favour of eliminating references to pain from pain science, i.e. for a position called scientific eliminativism. By drawing on actual cases from the clinic and considering the IASP definition of pain, it argues that no utility will be lost by eliminating reference to pains for scientific inquiry, as long as references to the non-pain mechanisms, uncovered by inquiries in search of improved pain treatment, are retained. In short, the complex idiosyncrasy of pain undermines useful scientific generalisations about pain. More technically put, the chapter argues that neither pain nor any type of pain is a natural kind.
