What are narratives good for?. (August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Beatty, John
• Is Part Of: Studies in history and philosophy of science. Volume 58(2016)
• Page Start: 33
• Page End: 40
• Publication Date: 2016-08
• Subjects: Narrative -- Contingency -- Historical sciences -- Replaying life's tape -- Stephen Jay Gould; Biology -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals; Biology -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Medicine -- History -- Periodicals; Medicine -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Bioethics -- Periodicals; Biologie -- Histoire -- Périodiques; Biologie -- Philosophie -- Périodiques; Sciences de la santé -- Histoire -- Périodiques; Sciences de la santé -- Philosophie -- Périodiques; Médecine -- Histoire -- Périodiques; Médecine -- Philosophie -- Périodiques; 570.1
• DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.016
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1369-8486

Abstract

Abstract: Narratives may be easy to come by, but not everything is worth narrating. What merits a narrative? Here, I follow the lead of narratologists and literary theorists, and focus on one particular proposal concerning the elements of a story that make it narrative-worthy. These elements correspond to features of the natural world addressed by the historical sciences, where narratives figure so prominently. What matters is contingency. Narratives are especially good for representing contingency and accounting for contingent outcomes. This will be squared with a common view that narratives leave no room for chance. On the contrary, I will argue, tracing one path through a maze of alternative possibilities, and alluding to those possibilities along the way, is what a narrative does particularly well. Highlights: What makes a narrative worth telling? Turning points. Turning points are contingent per se ; the outcome is contingent upon them. Narratives are often said to be chance-effacing, and there is some truth in this. But chance is also a very productive constituent of narratives worth telling. The role of chance in a narrative is not just to be got rid of.