Pain - Here today, gone tomorrow.

In both Latin and Greek etymology, “pain” originally meant punishment. The Greek poine indicates a punishment or penalty, while the Latin poena means punishment, hardship and suffering. Another Greek word, algos, indicates physical pain. The Greek suffix –algia is derived from the noun for physical pain, and the verb, algein, “to feel pain.” The verb algein also historically means “to care about.” [1]

Plato’s works contain many different references to pain; however, Gorgias contains the most direct examples. Plato refers to pain in terms of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. One specific reference to pain in Plato’s Gorgias is when he states, “to feel pleasure is not to fare well, no is to feel pain to fare badly,” (497, p. 68). This quote illustrates the historic duality of this term. It is obviously talking about algos and algein in the sense of feeling pain, but also in caring about something. We care about what we are pursuing, and Plato speaks of pain in reference to pursuing true arts. In his view, the pain is part of the necessary pursuit of virtue. It should not be eliminated by false arts, such as cookery. Enduring pain was considered virtuous to Plato, and it could be considered a way to achieve truth in a physical and soulful sense.

Plato sees pain in a very different light than most people today. While we still believe that hard work and sacrifice are important values, when it comes to pain, most of our effort is spent trying to eliminate it. This is because our current definition of pain is, “hurt or distress due to physical injury or illness, etc.”[2] Many words today that relate to pain relief stem from the very same Greek words. For example, analgesic is a mixture of Greek algos (“pain”) and the prefix an-, which means “without.” Today, we view pain much more in the sense of punishment and suffering than in the terms of something we care about. Historically, pain’s dual meaning of suffering and caring has changed to a focus of pain alleviation. Plato believed that the evil and the painful were not the same, however today we view them as congruent. When something is painful, we immediately take steps to change it. Would Plato view some of our methods as cookery? One must wonder what he would think of prescriptions, therapy and alternative medicine.

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pain

2. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=pain&searchmode=none

3. Plato, Gorgias