The Awful Tooth

I tell someone that I am in pain. His attitude to me will then be that of belief; disbelief; suspicion; and so on.

Let us assume he says, "It’s not so bad."—Doesn’t that prove that he believes in something behind the outward expression of pain?—His attitude is a proof of his attitude. Imagine not merely the words "I am in pain" but also the answer ‘It’s not so bad" replaced by instinctive noises and gestures.

"What difference could be greater?"—In the case of pain I believe that I can give myself a private exhibition of the difference. But I can give anyone an exhibition of the difference between a broken and an unbroken tooth.—But for the private exhibition you don’t have to give yourself actual pain; it is enough to imagine it—for instance, you screw up your face a bit. And do you know what you are giving yourself this exhibition of is pain and not, for example, a facial expression? And how do you know what you are to give yourself an exhibition of before you do it? This private exhibition is an illusion.—PI § §311-12

Peg writes:

My most firmly held philosophical beliefs go out the window when confronted by the very real pain of a toothache. I believe that I have an abscessed tooth.

The pain is located on the upper left quadrant of my mouth. The pain is not clearly located within one tooth. I cannot with absolute certainty, point to a tooth and exclaim to my dentist, ‘This is the offending one. Get rid of it." If only life were so easy. The pain is somewhat diffuse, though it hasn’t started bouncing back and forth on the two sides of my mouth as it does for some people with an abscessed tooth. But it does radiate up to my sinus cavity, which then quickly turns into a massive migraine. I went to the dentist for this pain, and he did all the usual things to test for extra sensitivity (nothing that I have been accused of in the past). He got out his tiny little hammer and tapped lightly (as Nietzsche recommends on idols but not on teeth) but no clear painful sensation was forthcoming. Then he got out little chips of ice to check temperature sensitivity, asking if I had noticed any additional sensitivity since the pain appeared in full force several days prior. But no, I had no extra sensitivity. "I just have pain!" I exclaimed in frustration, as he told me that I don’t seem to have any of the symptoms typical of an abscessed tooth.

And this is where I turned a philosophical corner back in time, to a realm of certainty and Enlightenment. I became Descartes, in the ultramodern plush, reclining chair with the light, not of reason but of the high intensity bulb in my eyes. I am absolutely certain that I am in pain. The idea is both clear and distinct. I meet the criteria for knowledge, and I know that I am in pain. I can take out my idea of pain, and turn it inside out and upside down. No part of the pain escapes me; I apprehend it with absolute certainty. My Wittgenstein self screams at my private exhibitionism and my slide into philosophical confusion. This debate rages in my aching head, and I give myself over to my latent Cartesian side. It gives me comfort as my dentist tells me that I must ride out this pain, and hope that its location becomes so obvious that he can remove the correct tooth and get at the offending roots. It is my pain. And I know it.

Root canals have a bad reputation. They really don’t hurt; it is the infection that hurts and the nerve sensitivity that goes along with the infection. As of this writing, I still have the big pain, and believe that I have an abscessed tooth. Lest you think I am deluded, I have had two other abscessed teeth with subsequent root canals, and neither of them followed the usual pattern of sudden, obvious, painful clarity. I will be vindicated in my pain, and I shall know it.