WP4: Suffering and Meliorism in Literature and the Philosophy of Literature

Photo copyright: Susanna Suomela

The literary-philosophical varieties of antitheodicy and the representations of meaningless suffering extend from the Book of Job through centuries of reinterpretations to modern and contemporary philosophy and/of literature. Wittgensteinian and pragmatist philosophers (e.g., D.Z. Phillips and Richard Rorty) employ literary analyses in reflecting on ethical stances to suffering. While classical works such as Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Camus’s novels, and Simone Weil’s writings exemplify philosophical literature on suffering, the scope of literary-philosophical investigations will be extended to authors articulating the melioristic idea of lessening evil and increasing the good through (often barely visible) human effort and examining ways of gradually improving the world through “small good work”, respectful distance, and open-minded pluralism. 

In 1877, the author George Eliot wrote in a letter to the psychologist and philosopher James Sully that she had not heard anybody use the word “meliorist” before her. The notion of meliorism is also attributed to Eliot by Sully in his book on Pessimism (1891 [1877], 399) in which he wrote:

• “One line of reasoning provides us, then, with a practical conception which lies midway between the extremes of optimism and pessimism, and which, to use a term I am indebted to our first living woman-writer and thinker, George Eliot, may be appropriately styled Meliorism. By this I would understand the faith which affirms not merely our power of lessening evil – this nobody questions – but also our ability to increase the amount of positive good. It is, indeed, only the latter idea which can really stimulate and sustain human endeavour.”  

Following this lead, WP4 critically examines diverging concepts of meliorism by exploring writers with links to optimism, pessimism, and/or meliorism, and analysing literature reflecting societal anxieties and human or non-human suffering caused by wars, violence, poverty, marginalisation, the climate crisis, etc. 

One of our key ideas is that the experience of suffering is not only an individual response but also a cultural, interpersonal, and social condition. WP4 studies how culturally shared norms, values, and conventions influence people’s ways of experiencing suffering, and how literature as a mediating force in society can reinforce or subvert these conventions by offering revisions of the dominant representations of suffering. The persisting relevance of tragedy dealing with the limitations of the realms of reason, order, and justice will be addressed. Exploring war literature enables us to ask whether the view of humanity presupposed by pacifism is too optimist, or possibly theodicist, requiring pessimist/meliorist and antitheodicist critique.