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Summary

Chapter 6 examines a different kind of bodily anomaly which informed some of the early modern period’s most influential thinking on cognition and nociception – phantom limb syndrome. This curious phenomenon is clearly described in texts by Ambroise Paré. It comes to the fore, however, in the work of René Descartes, who found in this bodily anomaly a fascinating test case for his theory of ‘non-resemblance’ in the senses. As I explore, the nature of phantom limbs seemed to Descartes to confirm his idea that pain sensations occurred in the mind rather than in the body, thus reaffirming his notion of the body as object. In this capacity, phantom limbs occur in other contemporary texts, including in the first known autobiographical description of phantom limb syndrome. Looking closely at Descartes’ published works and correspondence, however, we can see how the strangeness of phantom limbs challenged this philosopher to re-examine his own thinking about perception and the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness.

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Chapter 6 - Phantom Limbs and the Hard Problem

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Chapter 6 - Phantom Limbs and the Hard Problem

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