Disembodied Pain and the Limits of Armchair Philosophy

Go on… pinch yourself.

Not too hard, but hard enough to make it hurt — a little.

Philosopher Brie Gertler proposed a new thought experiment that asks us to do just that. And then ask — Could that pain you feel exist without your body?

I suspect you may have a strong intuition as to whether such a scenario is possible or not.

This article is part 3 of our series on the thought experiments in the philosophy of mind. Thought experiments like Gertler’s Disembodied Mind and David Chalmers’ P-Zombies (discussed in Part 2) rely on the conceivability argument.

Such arguments assume that if we can conceive of something, it is possible. They start with a claim that something is conceivable (e.g., p-zombies are conceivable, or disembodied pain is conceivable) and then move to the second claim — that what is conceivable is possible.

We’ve discussed the controversy and potential problems with this approach in Parts 1 and 2, so we won’t rehash those issues here. Instead, we’ll use Gertler’s Disembodied Pain argument to examine the proper use and potential consequences of misusing such arguments.

The Disembodied Pain argument is ideal for this task because, in the paper that outlines the thought experiment, Gertler provides a test for evaluating when conceivability arguments are appropriate in philosophical discussion.

For our series on thought experiments, this article is a bookend to our discussion on conceivability arguments, but it also marks a shift in our exploration of perception. Recently, we’ve been discussing the potential importance of having a body for perception. Last week, we discussed visual perception. Gertler’s thought experiment has us consider a different type of perception — pain — and whether it might be conceivable to experience pain without a body.

Conceivability arguments are, of course, not the only type of argument found in thought experiments in the philosophy of mind. So, the next article in the thought experiment series will explore a different type of argument — the knowledge argument.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

This week, we’re asking: When (if ever) can we legitimately use the conceivability argument?

To find out, let’s ask three questions:

* What is the Disembodied Pain thought experiment?

* What standard does Gertler set for the use of conceivability arguments? and

* Do any conceivability arguments meet this standard?

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