Accompanying and doing justice

Abstract

"We cannot look at it", some prints of Francisco de Goya show violence and horror in war. In literature, E. Wiesel, J. Semprun, and P. Levi recalled the darkest side of contemporary history, exhibitting the value of fiction as a sort of indirect knowledge of history. The article pays special attention to the role of literature in moral and political philosophy: (a) literature offers an indirect path to understand harm, and to get close to history (to the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War). The thesis here is that fictional and philosophical discourses follow different rules, having different aims. However, a special kind of experience would be understood thanks to cognitive use of narrative texts; (b) "I have seen it", the pictures of Goya might help to approach extreme violence. Indirect knowledge from literature would render history more intelligible, thereby doing justice to the victims of crimes against mankind.