Suffering and Reason

The Value of Suffering Project is pleased to issue a call for registration for an interdisciplinary conference on Suffering and Reason.

The workshop will be held from 4-6 July, 2014 in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

What is suffering’s place in our rational lives? Contrary to the traditional idea of suffering as an impediment to reason, we will investigate the idea that, in fact, suffering has an important role to play in supporting and assisting rational activity. We think it crucially provides reasons for action and belief, but we also aim to explore a further, neglected possibility: that suffering might respond to reason.

In complex ways, our emotions respond to beliefs and other cognitive states. And empirical evidence shows that even physical suffering—its intensity and unpleasantness—can be thus influenced. So too, evidence of the neural overlap of emotions with pain is burgeoning and emotions can be appropriate and inappropriate to the circumstances; so might it even be that suffering is sometimes rational or irrational?

What, in sum, is suffering’s place in our rational lives?

The day will be organized around the research of the following presenters:

Marilyn McCord Adams (Philosophy, UNC Chapel Hill)

“Paradoxes of pain for rational agency”

Fabrizio Benedetti (Neuroscience, University of Turin)

“Placebo/nocebo responses in the brain and the top-down modulation of pain and suffering”

Michael Brady (Philosophy, University of Glasgow)

“Reasons to suffer”

Giorgio Coricelli (Neuroscience, University of Lyon)

“The rationality of ‘painful emotions’”

Jennifer Corns (Philosophy, University of Glasgow)

“Is suffering ever reason-responsive?”

Matthew Fulkerson (Philosophy, University of California, San Diego)

“The agony of reason: the unsteady bond between suffering and rationality”

Stephane Lemaire (Philosophy, University of Rennes)

“How does pain relate to value?”

Donna Lloyd (Pyschology, University of Leeds)

“Exploring the link between pain suffering, communication and the brain”

Manolo Martinez (Philosophy, Autonomous University of Barcelona)

“Pains and reasons”

Kevin Reuter (Philosophy, University of Bochum)

“Challenging the paradox of pain”

Adina Rusu (Psychology, University of Bochum)

“Neurocognitive pain research: current perspectives and future developments”

Discussants at large include: David Bain, Luca Barlassina, Tim Bayne, Ben Bramble, Fiona Macpherson, and Paul Noordhof.

The workshop is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and is part of the larger project: The Value of Suffering: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Nature, Meaning, and Role of Affective Experiences.

The Value of Suffering Project is an international, interdisciplinary research project headed by principal investigators David Bain and Michael Brady whose aim is to foster multidisciplinary exploration of the roles that affective experiences—suffering in particular—play in our lives.

For more information, please visit our website: http://www.valueofsuffering.co.uk/

Registration is £15 for student and £30 for staff, and includes tea and coffee.

To register or for further inquiries please email Jennifer Corns:[email protected]