1,

D.C. Dennett, "Personaland Sub-personal

Levelsof Explanation"

The physiology of pain is relatively well understood. s7hen a pain is felt, neural
impulses travel from the area in which the pain is felt along an anatomically
distinct neural network for the transmission of pain stimuli. in instances
there is a peripheral reflex arc that triggers withdrawal, but there
-rrry
are also other
as yet unanalysed effects in the central areas of the brain.
It is appropriate for an organism to heed the most pressing demands of
survival, and the imminence of injury or death is as pressing as a demand can
be, so it is altogether to be expected that a strongly entrenched pain network,
essentiallyincluding appropriate responsesof withdrawal, should be inherited.
Moreover, as personal experience reveals, the behavioural reactions to pain
are more difficult to overrule than any other behavioural tendencies. Genuine
pain behaviour is compulsive, involuntary, and only with great 'will power,
or special training can man or beast keep from reactions to pain. \whelher or
not such inherited afferent-efferent networks are a sufficient condition for the
existence of the 'phenomenon of pain', it is safe to say they are a necessary
condition. That is, it would be a very mysterious view that held that the bare
phenomenon of pain could occur on the evolutionary scenebefore there were
organisms that reacted appropriately to stimuli that were harbingers of injury.
Pain could not appear until organisms began avoiding it. The question before
us now is whether pain is something (some thing) in addition to the physical
operations of the pain-nefwork.
An analysis of our ordinary way of speaking about pains shows that no
events or processescould be discovered in the brain that would exhibit the
characteristics of the putative 'mental phenomena' of pain, becausetalk of
pains is essentiallynon-mechanical, and the events and processesof the brain
are essentially mechanical. ril7henwe ask a person why he pulled his hand away
from the stove, and he replies that he did so becauseit hurt, or he felt pain in
his hand, this looks like the beginning of an answer ro a question of behavioural
control, the question being how people know enough to remove their hands
from things that can burn them. The natural 'mental process' answer is that
the person has a 'sensation' which he identifies as pain, and which he is some-
how able to'locate'in his fingertips, and this 'prompts'him to remove his hand.
An elaboration of this answer, however, runs into culs-de-sac at every turning.

17
 D .C . D EN N E TT
The first unanswered question is how a person distinguishesa painfur not loca
sensa-
tion from one that is not painful. It is no J.rr*.. to ,"y thut parrrf.rl or 'locai
sensations
are just those that hurt,_for then the question becomes ho* 'Whateve
a person distin-
guishes sensarionsthat hurt from seniations that do not do a
not. If this question is
seen as asking for a criterion for sensationsthat hurt, a criterion that a p
used by the
person to distinguish these sensations,the question admits another
of no answer, for
one doe.snot distinguish the sensationsth"l hu.t or are painful screams
by apprying
some criterion; one simply distinguishesthem. Their only iistinguirlrirrg The I
.'h".1
acteristic is painfulness, an unanalysable quality that can answel
orriy b. Jefined
circularly. Moreover, a person's ability to distinguish this quality our hal
in sensations
is.ensured; one simply can telr when a sensatiln is painful (excluding nothing
cases
where one's doubt is over whether the word 'pain, is too ,*or,g abhor g
'w_ fo, the occa-
sion). hen trying to explain the discrimination of painr, to build
the quality
of painfulness is no advance over the question; it tetts os"pp."i,o
,rothrng we did not the app
already know. lfhen one is asked how one t.ir, ur, x from choose I
, y'^nd, answers
that r's have an indefinable characteristicwhich one is simply fact tha
ro recognize
but not describe, all one is saying is: I can tell _ that's all. ' "b'l. of no er
The mechanical question, how is it done? is blocked. It ness as
. is blocked not
becausethe reply is that one is in the dark about how one distinguishes from or
painful
sensationsfrom others, but becausethe reply is that ,ro pains' i
answer
be appropriate in this context. pains or painful sensations
11ould are .rhings,
-e.liarrical afrer it-
discriminated by people, ro.t, fo_rexample, by brains (although Who
brains might
discriminate other things related to pains), and the q,r.rtiorr1r, prompo
lo* do you
(the person) distinguish pains from otheruerrrations?
The question admits of scoped
no answer because the person does not do anything in happen
order to distinguish
pains; he just distinguishesthem. Distinguishing pains"is further
not a personal aiuity,
and hence no answer of the form, firsi I do A-and then unanal;
I do n, *"k.,
senseat all. But if this is so, the appeal to a quality of "rrf decide r
these discriminated
sensationsis gratuitous. A quality, to do any work in a theorg explani
must be iden-
tified, but this means it must either be described or osterrded. and the
Description
presupposes analysis, and in this instance anarysis presupposes and evt
personal
activity; where discrimination occurs without personal activit-g a very I
,ro description
o.f a.discriminated quality is possibre.Then, ifihe quality i, abando
,o'u. ia.rrtified at
all, it must be_ostended,bui ostensioo of il
[.',.n","i.a"ffi
#ilst,i;g?,t#l#Ir;ffii;Wr::.1'ilH,il','d"lX'j menal
bean r
analysablepersonii'a-ctivil|, like discriminatinggood applesfrom human
bad by
checkingfor colour and crispness,we can distiigiish tt. qu"titi., procesl
from the
discriminatingof them, but in the caseof distinguishingsensations hun. R
as painful,
the act of discriminationitselfis the only clueto-thelollization (in tests, o
spaceand
t]me) of the presumedquality.Insistingthar, aboveand beyond talk ah
oo, to
distinguishsensatior-r,yWn$*Vther. i, tire quality of painfulness, "birity virtue r
is rhus
lnsIstrng^on n u,ntnjgjligJ9leexrra something. Abai
"
rne nrst cur-de-sac'then,is that a person'spower to discriminate painful pains a
sensations is a brutefact subjectto no further questionsand answers.The next onl1'so
questionconcernsthe locationof thesepains,and meetsthe same idendf
fate.\(e do

18
 q'Iu'-.f,-,b ,jat{{
" IE R S O N AL A N D SU B-P E R S ON A LLE V E LS " 6 aJ* fi ;,& a
not locate our pains with the aid of any independently describabte4qt'ilfifiTd*.'
or 'local signs' provided us by the sensations; we just can locate them' l-\ /.
Whatever the brain rnay be 'doing' when one locates a pain, the person doesf?weo< / rub*t.
not do anything in the process of locating his pains, for there is no zuch process
that a person could engage in. One could engage in the process of locating V",/**
another person's pains, by asking him questions, poking around until he ,@.;
screamsand so forth, but not in the process of locating one's own pains4l ..
The third question left unanswered has akeady been shown to have no*|'o"
answer. Vhat is there about painfulness that prompts us to avoid it, withdraw -%
our hand, attempt to eliminate it? The question is dead because there ista'*' r+'4
'We
nothing about painfalness at all; it is an unanalysable quality. simply do t'! ;ra'.'
y''ua,,
abhor pain, but not in virtue of anything (but its painfulness).If, in our attempt
to build an explanatory bridge between sensation and action here' we invoke
the appreciation of an unanalysable quality of painfulness' we are forced to
'We can either take it as a contingent
choose between two non-explanations.
{act that painfulness is something we dislike, but a contingent fact that admits
of no explanation since painfulness is unanalysable; or we can take painful-
ness as necessarily abhorrent - something which by definition we withdraw
from or avoid - in which casethere is no room for explanation since 'we avoid
pains' is then analytic, and cannot take the 'because' of causal explanation
after it.
'When
we have said that a person has a sensation of pain, locates it and is
prompted to react in a certain way, we have said all there is to say within the
scope of this vocabulary. We can demand further explanation of how a person
happens to withdraw his hand from the hot stove' but we cannot demand
further explanations of terms of 'mental processes'.Since the introduction of
unanalysablemental qualities leadsto a premature end to explanation, we may
decide that such introduction is wrong, and look for alternative modes of
explanation. If we do this we must abandon the explanatory level of people
and their sensations and activities and turn to the sub-personal level of brains
and events in the nervous system. But when we abandon the personal level in
'When
a very real sensewe abandon the subject matter of pains as well. we
abandon mental processtalk for physical process talk we cannot say that the
mental process analysis of pain is wrong, for our alternative analysis cannot
be an analysis of pain at all, but rather of sornething else - the motions of
human bodies or the organization of the nervous system. Indeed, the mental
process analysis of pain is correct. Pains are feelings, felt by people, and they
hurt. People can discriminate their pains and they do this not by applying any
tests, or in virtue of any describable qualities in their sensations.Yet we do
talk about the qualities of sensationsand we act, react and make decisions in
virtue of these qualities we find in our sensations'
Abandoning the personal level of explanation is just that: abandoning the
pains and not bringing them along to identify with some physical event' The
only sort of explanation in which 'pain' belongs is non-mechanistic; hence no
identification of pains or painful sensationswith brain pfocessesmakes sense,

1,9
 D .C . D EN N E TT

and the physical, mechanistic explanation can proceed with no worries about dttertr
the absence in the explanation of any talk about the discrimination of lcal ct
unanalysablequalities. \7hat is the physical explanation to be? something like caregni
this. when a person or animal is said to experience a pain there is afferent 6e prq
input which produces efferent output resulting in certain characteristic modes conrari
of behaviour centring on avoidance or withdrawal, and genuine pain behav- phenm
iour is distinguished from feigned pain behaviour in virtue of the strength of tion it i
the afferent-efferent connections - their capacity to overrule or block out-other impuho
brain processeswhich would produce othir motions. That is, the compulsion around
of genuine pain behaviour is given a cerebral foundation. Now would this th"y *d
account of pain behaviour suffice as an account of. real pain behaviour, or rc ruler
is there something more that must be going on when a p.tror, is really in is nonr
pain? It might be supposed that one could be suddenly and overwhelmingly tions" I
compelled to remove one's finger from a hot stove without the additional there n
'phenomenon' of pain occurring. But although simple withdrawal may be the neurd i
basic-or central responseto such stimulation, in man and higher animals it is abourO
not the only one. could any sensebe made of the supposition that a person are ff
might hit his thumb with a hammer and be suddeniy and overwhelmingly one trr
compelled to drop the hammer, suck the thumb, dance about, shriek, rrlk in I
cry' etc.' and yet still not be experiencing pain? That is, one would -oi.r,
not
be acting in this case, as on a stage; otr. be compelled. one would be
physically incapable of responding to polite -o.rid applause with a smiling bow.
Positing some horrible (but otherwise indescribable) quality or phenomenon 1 Ctr
to accompany such a compelled performance is entirely gratuitous.l 98il
In one respect the distinction between the personal and sub-personal levels elf
-
of explanation is not at all new. The philosoply of mind initiated by Ryle and ilril
'sfittgenstein
is in large measure an analysis of the concepts we use at the LI
personal level, and the lesson to be learned from Ryle's attacks on .para-
mec_hanical hypotheses' and s(ittgenstein's often startring insistence that
explanations come to an end rather earlier than we had thought is that the
personal and sub-personal levels must not be confused. The lesson has occa-
sionally been misconstrued, however, as the lesson that the personal level of
explanation is the only level of explanation when the subject matter is human
minds and actions. In an important but narrow sense this is true, for as we
see in the case of pain, to abandon the personal level is to stop talking about
pain. In another important senseit is false, and it is this that is often missed.
The recognition that there are two levels of explanation gives birth to the " ,lr

burden of relating them, and this is a task that is not outside the philosophert
province. It cannot be the case rhat there is no relation betwein paini and
neural impulses or between beliefs and neural states, so setting the mechan-
ical or physical questions off-limits to the philosopher will not keep the
question of what these relations are from arising. The position that paini and
beliefs are in one category or domain of inquiry while neural events and states
are in another cannot be used to isolate the philosophical from the mechan-
ical questions, for, as we have seen, different categories are no better than

20
 .P ER SON AL
A N D S U B -PE R S ON A LLE V E LS "
different cartesian substancesunle,ssthey are construed
as different ontolog_
ical categories, which is to say: the terms are construed
to be in different
'ategories and only one category of terms is referential. The only way to foster
the proper separation between the two levels of .rpl".r"tiorr,-io-prevent
the
contamination of the physical story with .rna.r"lysaLrequalities
or .emergent
phenomena', is to put the fusion barrier between them.
ilirre' this interpreta-
tion it is in one sensetrue that there is no relation between
f"i^ neural
impulses, becausethere are no pains; 'pain' does not
refer. rr.".. ""a i, no way
around this. If there is_to be any relation between pains
and neural impulses,
they will have to be related by either identity or non-identity,
and if we want
to rule out both these relations we shall have to decide
thui orr. of the terms
is non-referential. Taking this step does nor answer all the
philosophical ques_
tions, however, for once we have decided that .pain,-talf,
i, ,roi_r"r.r.rrti"l
there remains the question of how each bit of the'tark
i: rehted to
neural impulses or talk about neural impulses. This "b;;,;;
and il;;ili quesrions
about other phenomena need detaired even after it rr'"gr; that there
"nrrir.r,
are different sorts of explanation, different levels and ."r.gori"o-ihere is no
one general answer to these questions, for there
different sorts of
talk in the language of the mind, and many different "r. prr."o-.""
-"rri in tt e b.ain.

Notes
cf. L. wittgenstein:"'And yet you againand againreachthe
conclusionthat the
sensationitself is a nothing." Not at all. lt is not a something,
but not a nothing
eitherlrhe concrusion wasonrythat a nothingwourdservejusi as weil as a
some_
thing about which nothingcourd be said.'piitosophticartivestigafions,
trans. G.
E. M. Anscombe,Oxford,1953, i 304.

3tP4U{ c* dt*' tn.^ Lt'-

i"Vfoce. fr.S$'y4 e

21