WP1 examines the constitutive conditions of occupying an ethical stance at all, conjoined with a historical and systematic investigation of methodologies of philosophy of suffering. The methodological discussion extends to special topics relevant to the other WPs, including the definitions of concepts such as meliorism and (anti)theodicy.
WP1 draws special attention to antitheodicist meliorism, showing how antitheodicy functions as a normative constraint for meliorist responses to suffering. This research builds upon transcendental antitheodicy, an approach to the problem of suffering defended by Pihlström in his earlier work, to be further in MePh. “Transcendental” is here understood in a Kantian sense, referring to an investigation of the necessary conditions for the possibility of something that we find an actual element of our practices (e.g., cognition, meaning, or – in this case – an ethical stance to the world). The transcendental antitheodicist argues that only antitheodicy can adequately recognize the victims of suffering and their perspective on the meaninglessness of their suffering, suggesting that such recognition is constitutive of ethical sincerity, necessary for even finding something a matter of moral concern. This argument does not simply charge meaning-making theodicies of “first-order” moral failures but defends antitheodicy as a condition for the possibility of our practices of ethical argumentation.
Developing a transcendental critique of theodicies and their underlying optimism is also a pragmatist move, as pragmatism urges us to examine the meanings of concepts and theories in terms of the conceivable practical effects of their objects. The more broadly pragmatist strategy of MePhiS is manifested in our rejection of any sharp distinction between theoretical and practical/existential problems of suffering and theodicy: the issue is “practical” from the start. The integration of meliorism and antitheodicy are thus conjoined with a critical metaphilosophical investigation of the methodology of the pragmatist and transcendental argumentation developed in dialogue with historical, literary, and “real-life” anthropological inquiries; here WP1 works closely together with the other WPs. Theoretical and methodological renewal are, accordingly, inseparably entangled.
In close connection with (and practically integrated as part of) WP1, Pihlström also leads his Research Council of Finland research project, Secular Theodicies – a Pragmatist Critique. The members of this project are also affiliated with MePhiS.