384 RüdigerKunow
philosophers in classical antiquity and the pharmaceutical industry
today) but its acceptance as part of the "equilibrium of human life"
(Sc hmerz22) is, as Gadamer suggests, the only appropriate way, not
only in dealing with pain, but also a way to make it useful for living
one's life: "As I see it, our dealing with pain cannot really consist in
forgetting it as soon as possible. We should rather try, by devoting
ourselves to what encompasses us, to make possible a bearable life"
(Schmerz34; my trans.). In my reading, Gadamer's emphasis on
"devotion" and "commission" with its strong religious overtones marks
the special position held by pain in the constitution of human
subjecthood. In this perspective, pain is s a form of minor
transcendence.
Withregardtothepossibletranscendenceinvolvedhere,pain,within
the compass of Gadamer's thinking, brings into playa hermeneutics of
understanding. For analytic philosophy, on the other hand, it is an
occasion for invoking a hermeneutics of suspicion^81 (if such an
assumption were not in fact neglecting analytic philosophy's general
anti-hermeneutic stance). In analytic philosophy, then, the sentence "I
am in pain" is generally understood along the axis of true/false
statements.Thus, for somebody to say thatheorsheis "'having pain'is
aninstanceofcertainty"fortheperson"in"pain,whereasforanoutsider
this same statement must necessarily remain an instance of "having
doubt."Puttingitthiswayissummarizingquitesuccinctlythequandary
posed by analytic philosophy's particular approach to the pain of
representation. Wittgenstein's reflections on this issue (especially in
Philosophical Investigations, posthum. publ. 1953) have (as the Scarry
quote shows) in the past century proven to be particularly influential.
They mark an important step in the ongoing debate about pain
representation because they foreground the problems, if not the aporias,
caused by dealing with the pain of others—problems with obvious
resonances for cultural critique. For this reason, they will be discussed
hereatgreaterlength.
person'sresponsibilitytokeephis/herbodyfreefrompain.Seethesectionabove
onenhancement.
(^81) Ofcourse,thetermhasitsoriginsinatotallydifferentcontext,asmyrepeated
references throughout this book have shown. The most obvious reference is of
courseSedgwick'sTouchingFeeling.