1. NARRATIVE EXPLANATION AND ITS MALCONTENTS

Author: CARR, DAVID

Source: History and Theory, Volume 47, Number 1, February 2008 , pp. 19-30(12)

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Abstract:

In this paper I look at narrative as a mode of explanation and at various ways in which the explanatory value of narrative has been criticized. I begin with the roots of narrative explanation in everyday action, experience, and discourse, illustrating it with the help of a simple example. I try to show how narrative explanation is transformed and complicated by circumstances that take us beyond the everyday into such realms as jurisprudence, journalism, and history. I give an account of why narrative explanation normally satisfies us, and how or in what sense it actually explains. Then I consider how narrative is challenged and rejected as a mode of explanation in many scientific and other contexts and why attempts are made to replace it with something else. I try to evaluate the nature and sources of these challenges, and I describe this controversy over narrative against the historical background of its emergence. My paper ends with a pragmatic defense of narrative explanation against these challenges.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2008.00433.x

Affiliations: 1: Emory University

Publication date: 2008-02-01