Annotated bibliography
Alexandrova, A. “When Analytic Narratives Explain.” The Journal of Philosophy of History 3 no. 1 (2009): 1–24.
This paper is provoked by the rise of a particular kind of game theoretical analysis within the social sciences and history, that of ‘Analytic Narratives’ (ANs). It therefore discusses features of a kind of case ripe for exploration in the Narrative Science project. The author argues that one cannot expect ANs to explain the phenomena that they correspond to, rather their primary usefulness is in the construction of hypotheses that will more or less successfully explain the phenomena. This is particularly interesting from the perspective of Narrative Science, because it reminds us that we may not need to try and find narrative working in isolation of other features of analysis, experiment, explanation, etc. but narrative may instead be a contributing factor in a larger whole. However, the paper also leaves open certain questions that our project would otherwise want to prioritise. The author only addresses the model component of ANs, rather than the model and its narrative. Every AN is composed of a model and its associated narrative, which together contribute to hypotheses of an overall explanation. This author chooses to bracket out the functions of narrative, and instead considers only the ways in which a model may or may not contribute to an explanation of a phenomena. Rather than being a problem for the paper, this provides one obvious line of future research that the Narrative Science project can highlight and encourage. - Author DB
LINK TO PAPER
LINK TO PAPER
Ankeny, R. “Using Cases to Establish Novel Diagnoses.” In How Well Do Facts Travel?, edited by W.P. Howlett and M.S. Morgan, 167–272. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
In this paper Ankeny provides an account of the creation and use of case histories in medicine, one that enriches our understanding of their epistemic content and functions. Though often viewed with suspicion due to their describing singular or small sets of patients, the medical case plays a key role in the creation of new diagnoses and the process of matching new patients with existing diagnoses. These starting points are very sympathetic to the Narrative Science agenda, and indeed it seems clear that Ankeny’s account could be expanded in this direction. As Ankeny writes:
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“In other words, the publication of a case is in some sense a proposal or promise that the particular will be able to be made generic through a process of systematizing the original facts, smoothing out their particularity and refining the original case until it is applicable beyond an individual patient”.
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This whole process, and the ordering and systematizing that goes into turning cases into diagnoses, can be fruitfully interpreted as a narrative practice. - Author DB
LINK TO PAPER
Beer, G. Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and 19th-Century Fiction. Cambridge University Press, 1983.
What has been the influence of scientific literature on literature more broadly, and when has artistic expression influenced the sciences? Even if we do not often find direct connections, that a historical period may be investigated by considering forms of writing or common languages and metaphors in many domains across the sciences, arts, and humanities, searching for their differences and similarities, is a highly productive and rewarding way to pursue the history and philosophy of science. Gillian Beer’s work launched a multitude of studies at the intersection of history of science and literary studies, helping scholars revise their understanding of each independent of, and in connection with, the other. Not only does Beer’s work provide some of the inspiration for Narrative Science, it also provides a case study that we may wish to return to but with our own priorities. For instance, rather than looking at the broader impact of Darwin on literature, we might want to assess the underpinning of evolutionary accounts more specifically, to explore in depth when, where, and how Darwin was producing narrative knowledge—partly through his incorporation of metaphors and myths also circulating in literary spaces, but also through his processes of ordering, or in interaction with models, diagrams, and other forms of analysis. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
LINK TO BOOK
Cheyne, Allan, and Donato Tarulli. "Paradigmatic Psychology in Narrative Perspective: Adventure, Ordeal, and Bildung." Narrative Inquiry 8, no. 1 (1998): 1–25.
Cheyne and Tarulli situate their analysis as a contribution to late-twentieth-century reconsiderations of the long tradition in Western thought that configures narrative and science as opposite terms in a binary set of ways of knowing. Their purpose is to trouble or undo this opposition by demonstrating ways that “paradigmatic” forms of writing and theorizing in contemporary psychology “instantiate” various classic narrative structures. In opposing “the paradigmatic” to “the narrative,” Cheyne and Tarulli draw on Jerome Bruner’s description of these as incommensurable modes of thought. This view holds both terms essentially fixed, as indicated by Cheyne and Tarulli’s reference to “the narrative” or “the paradigmatic” in the singular, and frames them in familiar terms: the paradigmatic (or scientific) privileges logic, transparent denotation, and closure, while narrative is characterised by particularity, polyphony, contingency, and believability.
It is not, however, in terms of this framework that the two psychologists pursue their analysis. Rather, the first part of their article is a heavily structuralist analysis of observational and experimental reports in terms of formal categories of person, place, and time, as described by Bakhtin. Observational reports in psychology share key features with the Bakhtinian formulation of the travel romance, argue Cheyne and Tarulli: in the scientific observer’s stance as an outsider, who configures his/her subject of observation as “token to a type” (p.7); in the way time serves to order sequences of events; in setting observations in uniform places (e.g. a typical laboratory, workplace, etc.). Similarly, experimental reports can be likened to the novel (or romance) of the ordeal: an hypothesis is an implied hero, whose qualities are fixed from the outset and who undergoes the ordeal of testing; time again is primarily a marker of sequence; and the ordeal occurs on “consecrated ground” in the form of a replicable laboratory setting.
The key argument made by this first part of the article is that science and narrative should not be held as opposites, because certain forms of scientific writing (twentieth-century psychological reports) resemble particular literary forms (travel and ordeal romances) in their underlying structural features. Indeed, Cheyne and Tarulli go so far as to imply (though they do not insist) that scientific psychological writing is simply another development or “instantiation” of pre-existing narrative forms. When it comes to the question of how narrative works to shape or advance scientific activity, Cheyne and Tarulli invoke some already well-known discrepancies between experimental reports and scientific practice. But what does it mean for psychological science that the conventional report genre should resemble a novel of ordeal, rather than some other narrative form, or no narrative form at all? The article does not pursue this question, and implicitly discounts the notion that the writings of psychological science could fail to instantiate some kind of narrative.
The second part of the article turns from examining scientific writing to considering scientific theories—specifically, those of the child’s psychological development—and how they have evolved in time. Here, Cheyne and Tarulli contend that the development of child psychology parallels the historical evolution of the Bildungsroman—the novel of formation, or personal discovery—as a literary form. Again, Bakhtin’s writings provide the model for stages in the development of the Bildungsroman—from the naturalist, to those incorporating greater interaction between an individual and his/her socio-cultural, and historico-cultural contexts. These stages can be matched with Piaget’s theories, those of Vygotsky and Leontev, and through to the work of Foucault, in Cheyne and Tarulli’s view. To include Foucault, or even Bateson, within the scope of “paradigmatic psychology” is surprising at best; it fits, however, into a shift in the analysis in this second part of the paper. From examining the structure of particular theories (e.g. Piaget’s), Cheyne and Tarulli move towards actively seeking theories to fit Bakhtin’s stages of the Bildungsroman, characterising Vygotsky’s perspective as one “that resembles most closely [the] Bildungsroman of socialization and enculturation” (pp.17–18). The question of how trends in narrative literature might influence or interact with developments in scientific theorizing is an important one, in the way it extends analysis of narrative science to a more abstract level; unfortunately, Cheyne and Tarulli tend rather to beg the question, on the one hand, and provide little detail on the epistemic implications of their claims for the “narrative character” of psychological science. Their article is principally interesting and important for the way it demonstrates how some forms of paradigmatic scientific activity resemble narrative forms—and thus that narrative and science should not be held apart as epistemic modes, but instead examined for their interactions.
Author - KMH
LINK TO PAPER
It is not, however, in terms of this framework that the two psychologists pursue their analysis. Rather, the first part of their article is a heavily structuralist analysis of observational and experimental reports in terms of formal categories of person, place, and time, as described by Bakhtin. Observational reports in psychology share key features with the Bakhtinian formulation of the travel romance, argue Cheyne and Tarulli: in the scientific observer’s stance as an outsider, who configures his/her subject of observation as “token to a type” (p.7); in the way time serves to order sequences of events; in setting observations in uniform places (e.g. a typical laboratory, workplace, etc.). Similarly, experimental reports can be likened to the novel (or romance) of the ordeal: an hypothesis is an implied hero, whose qualities are fixed from the outset and who undergoes the ordeal of testing; time again is primarily a marker of sequence; and the ordeal occurs on “consecrated ground” in the form of a replicable laboratory setting.
The key argument made by this first part of the article is that science and narrative should not be held as opposites, because certain forms of scientific writing (twentieth-century psychological reports) resemble particular literary forms (travel and ordeal romances) in their underlying structural features. Indeed, Cheyne and Tarulli go so far as to imply (though they do not insist) that scientific psychological writing is simply another development or “instantiation” of pre-existing narrative forms. When it comes to the question of how narrative works to shape or advance scientific activity, Cheyne and Tarulli invoke some already well-known discrepancies between experimental reports and scientific practice. But what does it mean for psychological science that the conventional report genre should resemble a novel of ordeal, rather than some other narrative form, or no narrative form at all? The article does not pursue this question, and implicitly discounts the notion that the writings of psychological science could fail to instantiate some kind of narrative.
The second part of the article turns from examining scientific writing to considering scientific theories—specifically, those of the child’s psychological development—and how they have evolved in time. Here, Cheyne and Tarulli contend that the development of child psychology parallels the historical evolution of the Bildungsroman—the novel of formation, or personal discovery—as a literary form. Again, Bakhtin’s writings provide the model for stages in the development of the Bildungsroman—from the naturalist, to those incorporating greater interaction between an individual and his/her socio-cultural, and historico-cultural contexts. These stages can be matched with Piaget’s theories, those of Vygotsky and Leontev, and through to the work of Foucault, in Cheyne and Tarulli’s view. To include Foucault, or even Bateson, within the scope of “paradigmatic psychology” is surprising at best; it fits, however, into a shift in the analysis in this second part of the paper. From examining the structure of particular theories (e.g. Piaget’s), Cheyne and Tarulli move towards actively seeking theories to fit Bakhtin’s stages of the Bildungsroman, characterising Vygotsky’s perspective as one “that resembles most closely [the] Bildungsroman of socialization and enculturation” (pp.17–18). The question of how trends in narrative literature might influence or interact with developments in scientific theorizing is an important one, in the way it extends analysis of narrative science to a more abstract level; unfortunately, Cheyne and Tarulli tend rather to beg the question, on the one hand, and provide little detail on the epistemic implications of their claims for the “narrative character” of psychological science. Their article is principally interesting and important for the way it demonstrates how some forms of paradigmatic scientific activity resemble narrative forms—and thus that narrative and science should not be held apart as epistemic modes, but instead examined for their interactions.
Author - KMH
LINK TO PAPER
DANTO, A.C. “HISTORICAL EXPLANATION: THE ROLE OF NARRATIVES.” IN ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, 233–56. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1965.
At the intersection of the philosophy of history and literary theory, Danto looms large. Within an overall scheme that turns narrative into sequence, with the familiar beginning, middle, and end, particular discussion has surrounded his notion of the narrative sentence, which is now often referred to as the ‘Danto sentence’. These are sentences that possess a particular set of qualities, their presence in a text often serving as a diagnostic that narrative is present. The most important criteria for a Danto sentence, is that the statement contain reference to at least two entities (objects, places, persons, etc.), which have been separated in time, and that the sentence is about the first of the two to have occurred temporally. By ‘about’ Danto means the entity for whom the information revealed is the most significant. The earliest articulation of Danto’s argument in this regard can be found in “Narrative Sentences”, History and Theory, Vol. 2 (1962), pp. 146–179. There Danto provides an example of a narrative sentence in action:
“An example, for an historian writing about the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1914, might be: "And so, at Sarajevo, the first shot of the First World War was fired." Such a statement, although about an event at one time, refers forward, not just to something envisaged by the historical agents concerned, but to the actual subsequent course of events. It is a judgment which could be regarded as typically historical, since it introduces a kind of retrospective intelligibility into the account of what happened. And it clearly does this by connecting facts or events at different times.”
This emphasis on the connection between facts is one that Narrative Science is dedicated to exploring throughout the sciences, not just within literature and historical writing. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
“An example, for an historian writing about the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1914, might be: "And so, at Sarajevo, the first shot of the First World War was fired." Such a statement, although about an event at one time, refers forward, not just to something envisaged by the historical agents concerned, but to the actual subsequent course of events. It is a judgment which could be regarded as typically historical, since it introduces a kind of retrospective intelligibility into the account of what happened. And it clearly does this by connecting facts or events at different times.”
This emphasis on the connection between facts is one that Narrative Science is dedicated to exploring throughout the sciences, not just within literature and historical writing. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
FORRESTER, J. “THE PSYCHOANALYTIC CASE.” IN SCIENCE WITHOUT LAWS: MODEL SYSTEMS, CASES, EXEMPLARY NARRATIVES, EDITED BY A. CREAGER, M. NORTON WISE, AND E. LUNBECK, 189–211. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007.
Forrester’s research provides the most in-depth analysis of the historical emergence and epistemological functions of case-based sciences in the late nineteenth century, with a particular focus on psychoanalysis. This short chapter provides an introduction to themes and research that have been published more comprehensively as Thinking in Cases (2017). Here Forrester is particularly focused on the ways that case histories in psychoanalysis not only communicate facts about patients, and the relationship between the patient and medical practitioner, but also cultivate the proper psychoanalytical posture of the reader, and their understanding of psychoanalysis in practice. The particular narrative of the case therefore plays a number of different roles simultaneously. Forrester also demonstrates that throughout the history of psychoanalysis, the emphasis on singular cases was always under threat from those seeking to systematize, or even ‘scientize’, research practices. How and why narrative science flourishes, or comes under threat, provides part of the backdrop to our project’s overall investigation. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
LINK TO BOOK
FRIGG, R. “FICTION AND SCIENTIFIC REPRESENTATION.” IN BEYOND MIMESIS AND CONVENTION, EDITED BY R. FRIGG AND M.C. HUNTER, 97–138. SPRINGER, 2010.
Aside from establishing an innovative account of what models are and how they work in science, this paper also provides an excellent example of how working through analogies between literary and scientific things can yield important insights into the philosophy of science. As Frigg writes:
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“drawing an analogy between scientific modelling and literary fiction is not idle musing; it is the driving force behind an approach to scientific modelling that aims to provide an understanding of a central aspect of scientific practice.”
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The specific fictional account that Frigg takes from philosophy of literature and inserts into his analysis of scientific modelling is that of ‘pretence theory’, as developed by Kendall Walton. First setting aside the term ‘model’ as having far too many meanings, the paper moves on to consider the anatomy of a ‘model-system’ and the features of theorising and data gathering that might feed into it. The primary features of a model-system are then likened to those of fictional characters and places in literature, which in both cases do not have to exist in the world in order to facilitate analysis and understanding. Three kinds of fictional statement in particular are attended to—intrafictional, metafictional, and transfictional—all in aid of Frigg’s new fictional theory of scientific representation. As a paper that not only exemplifies what can be gained by looking at philosophies of science and literature together, but also forges links between narrative, imagination, modelling, and representation, it is most valuable to Narrative Science. One introductory section also builds a comprehensive list of earlier efforts to understand scientific models in light of fiction. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
GALLIE, W.B. “THE HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING.” HISTORY AND THEORY 3 (1963): 149–202.
In this article the philosopher Walter Gallie establishes some of the fundamental ideas that would go on to be published in his highly influential Philosophy and the Historical Understanding (1964). Here we focus on the first section of the article ‘What is a story?’ because it gives us plenty to unpack for the purposes of Narrative Science.
First, Gallie’s chosen concepts for probing what makes a story, and how a story works, invite incorporation into exploration of scientific narratives. ‘Followability’, ‘interest’, and ‘conclusions’, these are all standards, or conventions, or structures, that we also expect scientific work to conform to. Take followability. This is defined as both a feature of the text, but also a capacity within a reader. So a text can be more or less followable, but in part this is a measure of a reader’s ability to stay with the account as it unfolds and then be able to respond to and deal with surprising twists and turns that their training or daily practices had not readied them for. Followability, as a feature of a text and also as a practice, this matter for scientific readers just as much as the literary.
Gallie also emphasises the importance of ordering for the purposes of telling a convincing story, and how later events need to be shown to have some extent depended on the earlier events, meaning that the earlier events were building a network of possibilities. Such an argument about the contingency of later events in relation to the past feels familiar to a line of argument developed by John Beatty in his contribution to the ‘Narrative in Science’ special issue, which focussed on evolutionary history. Beatty “Narrative possibility and narrative explanation,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017): 31–41.
However, Gallie also at times tries to make a strict distinction between what is happening in literature and in science. This is clearest when it comes to the notion of a ‘conclusion’ which for storytelling, so he argues, is achieved in a starkly contrary way to conclusions in the sciences:
First, Gallie’s chosen concepts for probing what makes a story, and how a story works, invite incorporation into exploration of scientific narratives. ‘Followability’, ‘interest’, and ‘conclusions’, these are all standards, or conventions, or structures, that we also expect scientific work to conform to. Take followability. This is defined as both a feature of the text, but also a capacity within a reader. So a text can be more or less followable, but in part this is a measure of a reader’s ability to stay with the account as it unfolds and then be able to respond to and deal with surprising twists and turns that their training or daily practices had not readied them for. Followability, as a feature of a text and also as a practice, this matter for scientific readers just as much as the literary.
Gallie also emphasises the importance of ordering for the purposes of telling a convincing story, and how later events need to be shown to have some extent depended on the earlier events, meaning that the earlier events were building a network of possibilities. Such an argument about the contingency of later events in relation to the past feels familiar to a line of argument developed by John Beatty in his contribution to the ‘Narrative in Science’ special issue, which focussed on evolutionary history. Beatty “Narrative possibility and narrative explanation,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017): 31–41.
However, Gallie also at times tries to make a strict distinction between what is happening in literature and in science. This is clearest when it comes to the notion of a ‘conclusion’ which for storytelling, so he argues, is achieved in a starkly contrary way to conclusions in the sciences:
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“The conclusion of any worthwhile story is not something that can be deduced or predicted, nor even something that can be seen at a later stage to have been theoretically or ideally predictable on the basis of what had been revealed at some earlier stage.”
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On the face of it, this might seem very far removed from the purpose of a scientific conclusion, and indeed, Gallie was holding up scientific conclusions as a contrast class in order to create this definition. Nevertheless, we might want to consider whether scientific conclusions also share these characteristics. After all, plenty of experiments are performed without the aim of confirming a prediction. And even those that are pursued for the purpose of prediction confirmation often throw up results that are interesting and valuable in their own right, regardless of their relation to any set of predictions. Might it not be that literary narratives and scientific narratives simply sit on a continuum/spectrum when it comes to preferred style of conclusion? Perhaps it is a matter of convention or preferred narrative styles. The point here is not to answer definitively, but to point to the way such questions proliferate when we take a Narrative Science approach to these arguments. - Author DB
LINK TO PAPER
GOODMAN, N. WAYS OF WORLDMAKING. HACKETT, 1978.
Nelson Goodman here builds on his earlier research in the philosophy of art, logic, and semiotics, to give an overall account of how the world or worlds we understand ourselves to be perceiving and engaging with, come to take the shape that they do, how our understandings of the world are structured or altered through the making of new representations, and as the title says, how worlds are made. Needless to say, this is a dense project, and even a short list of some of the key terms Goodman defines is enough to scare many people off: depictions; versions; visions; exemplifications; denoting; style; expression. Again, as with many of the philosophers surveyed here, Goodman makes a sharp distinction between what goes on in the sciences and everything else, on the grounds that descriptive verbal statements (as are the mainstay of the sciences) can have their truth or falsity assessed, whereas every non-scientific world making enterprise can only be said to be more-or-less right or wrong. But from the perspective of Narrative Science, any questions one might want to introduce about truth or falsity can be subordinated to the question of whether Goodman’s scheme, or at least some of his concepts, can help to better understand the signs, symbols, statements, and world versions that get put together in the sciences. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
LINK TO BOOK
GOULD, S.J. WONDERFUL LIFE: THE BURGESS SHALE AND THE NATURE OF HISTORY. W.W. NORTON, 1989.
A particular touchstone for historians and philosophers of biology, but addressing questions and presenting problems that matter for any historical enterprise, Gould’s Wonderful Life continues to motivate new research. It is here that he first published his argument-cum-thought experiment on ‘replaying life’s tape’, which asked the reader to consider the extent to which contingency influenced evolution and the forms of life that could come to emerge:
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“I call this experiment “replaying life’s tape.” You press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past—say, to the seas of the Burgess Shale. Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original. If each replay resembles life’s actual pathway, then we must conclude that what really happened pretty much had to occur. But suppose that the experimental versions all yield sensible results strikingly different from the actual history of life?”
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The strength and depth of Gould’s commitment to contingency evidenced here is one that continues to provoke new responses, and deeper exploration of how the tape of life experiment works, and what else it might be teaching us. (See David Sepkoski “Replaying Life’s Tape: Simulations, metaphors, and historicity in Stephen Jay Gould’s view of life,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 58 (2016): 73–81, for an investigation of the origins and significance of the tape argument).
Beyond this particular example, much of Gould’s work is particularly friendly to the Narrative Science thesis, in part thanks to his dedication to the historical sciences, but beyond this, thanks to his integration of scientific, philosophical, historical and aesthetic forms of argumentation and knowledge-making. While Narrative Science is not the only kind of project to appreciate the latter, it is certainly well placed to develop it. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
GRIESEMER, J. “PERIODIZATION AND MODELS IN HISTORICAL BIOLOGY.” MEMOIRS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 20 (1996): 19–30.
One paper in a series that analyse the historical sciences, what they are, why they are distinctive, and how they work, Griesemer here makes a defense of their deeply theoretical nature. He does so by looking at the role of periodization in setting the terms of biological and evolutionary model making, demonstrating that periodizations are far from arbitrary or incidental with regard to the kinds of modelling or theory building that they allow. Moreover, inasmuch as practitioners might try out a range of different periodizations to find which best accounts for the phenomena, they can also be appreciated and evaluated as more or less robust.
In creating the terms for biological model- and mechanism-making then, Griesemer goes on to argue that these elements are incorporated into historical narratives of biological evolution and development. Taken together, periodization and narrative-making are shown to be deeply theoretical, helping to define the historical sciences:
In creating the terms for biological model- and mechanism-making then, Griesemer goes on to argue that these elements are incorporated into historical narratives of biological evolution and development. Taken together, periodization and narrative-making are shown to be deeply theoretical, helping to define the historical sciences:
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“What is distinctive about historical science is that its periodization models coordinate narrative and mechanistic accounts and that historical scientists accept the narrative component as a contribution to understanding.”
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In revisiting Griesemer’s account, we might want to further interrogate the relationship between mechanisms and narratives. Are we, for instance, using different words to describe elements of what is otherwise one thing? - Author DB
LINK TO PAPER
LINK TO PAPER
HAWTHORN, G. PLAUSIBLE WORLDS: POSSIBILITY AND UNDERSTANDING IN HISTORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1991.
What are our methods for building historical and sociological accounts of contexts as they change over time or as we find them, and how do we assess their coherence and reliability? To get at these kinds of questions Hawthorn delves into counterfactual histories, argues for their usefulness, and goes on to present examples of counterfactual history making. The kinds of apparatus that counterfactual historians bring to bear on their cases reveal features and functions of narrative more broadly, all of which the Narrative Science project can pick up and adopt in investigations of science. How often, for instance, do scientists hold together many potential interpretations of a phenomena as plausible at any given time, and what guides their choice when they come to consider one to be more reliable than the rest? Are the same criteria used to assess plausible historical narratives also used in the sciences, or do scientists use different criteria, or are the criteria transformed in some way when moving to scientific contexts? These kinds of question can lead us to expand the range of ways in which we expect to find narrative knowledge present in science. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
LINK TO BOOK
HERMAN, D. BASIC ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE. WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2009.
Herman’s recent book serves as an excellent starting point for understanding narrative on the terms of literary theory and narratology. We are interested in the extent to which the features and functions of narrative, as identified and developed by those interested in literature, art, aesthetics, etc., can be fruitfully applied to scientific work and practices.
LINK TO BOOK
LINK TO BOOK
HEMPEL, G.C. ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION. FREE PRESS, 1965.
If one were looking for a Narrative Science sceptic, one need look no further than Carl Gustav Hempel. His account of historical and scientific explanation denied that narratives have the capacity to explain, on the grounds that a narrative only serves as a provisional ‘explanation sketch’, for a scientific placeholder for a proper explanation in non-narrative deductive-nomological statements. Moreover, his suggestion that narratives instead offer ‘understanding’, i.e. a way to grasp a complex situation about which we have only partial knowledge, was designed to create a sharper distinction between scientific and historical forms of enquiry. Both features of this philosophical position are brought into question by our thesis, though the former idea–that science only proceeds by improving and expanding the reach of deductive-nomological statements–has been dismissed for some time.
For a recent and in-depth historical account of the emergence of the Hempelian view, see FonsDewulf. “A Genealogy of Scientific Explanation: The Emergence of the Deductive-Nomological Model at the Intersection of German Historical and Scientific Philosophy.” PhD thesis, University of Gent, 2018. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
For a recent and in-depth historical account of the emergence of the Hempelian view, see FonsDewulf. “A Genealogy of Scientific Explanation: The Emergence of the Deductive-Nomological Model at the Intersection of German Historical and Scientific Philosophy.” PhD thesis, University of Gent, 2018. - Author DB
LINK TO BOOK
HURWITZ, B. “URBAN OBSERVATION AND SENTIMENT IN JAMES PARKINSON’S ESSAY ON THE SHAKING PALSY.” LITERATURE AND MEDICINE 32, NO. 1 (2014): 74–104.
One area of science in which the importance of narrative has already been recognised as significant is in the field of medicine. This historical account of James Parkinson’s definition of the ‘shaking palsy’ (what we today refer to as Parkinson’s disease), examines the ways in which Parkinson built his argument for this new form of palsy. This involved firstly noticing a particular patient whose symptoms were interesting in themselves, and then going on to find further examples that seemed associated. But as Hurwitz writes:
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“it is not only observational continuity that underpins Parkinson’s achievement. Also important is his ability to select and situate salient features of his daily practice emerging out of conversation, questioning, and prolonged follow-up, and to embody these narratively in a text that bears witness to complex and evolving clinical appearances developing slowly over time.”
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Looking at such examples from the history of medicine, and the way in which individual patient case histories can be arranged into a composite overarching narrative, suggests we might look for analogical practices and forms of reasoning in areas outside of medicine. Moreover, rediscovering the medical text as a form of literature—now a burgeoning theme of research in narrative medicine/the medical humanities—prompts us to reconsider medical practitioners as authors, how agency of patient and doctor is mediated through them, and how narrative devices change ontologies and epistemologies. - Author DB
LINK TO PAPER
MINK, L. “HISTORY AND FICTION AS MODES OF COMPREHENSION.” NEW LITERARY HISTORY 1, NO. 3 (1970): 541–58.
“It is from history and fiction that we learn how to tell and to understand complex stories, and how it is that stories answer questions.”
This is the final sentence of Louis Mink’s article, placed here at the start of our annotation to help demonstrate (mimetically) a core element of his conceptualisation of comprehension, namely that there is a key difference between knowing by retrospection and by anticipation. With this sentence in mind, and knowing it to be the paper’s final conclusion, you can now more clearly experience the distinction that the author has in mind when reading through this work.
Mink’s philosophy of history and historical understanding has already provided considerable inspiration to historians and philosophers of science seeking to develop the Narrative Science thesis. (For example, see Beatty “Narrative possibility and narrative explanation,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017): 31–41; Norton Wise, “On the narrative form of simulations,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017) 74–85.) In this article we are first treated to a historical overview of the emergence of a tradition of ‘the logic of narration’ as a subject of investigation in the philosophy of history, one that he argues is clearly separate from potentially overlapping or similar efforts in aesthetics or narratology. To some degree Mink sees the growth of a philosophy of science in the mid-twentieth century as something exemplary, and which ought also to be underway for the philosophy of history. In particular, he is dissatisfied with the suggestion that a philosophy of science might effectively stand in for a philosophy of reliable knowledge, one applicable to history as much as science or any other subject. Instead Mink encourages us to appreciate history as potentially possessing organisational structures for knowledge distinct from the sciences, ones that are obviously no less defensible, valuable, or effective.
In service of this argument he makes a case for three distinct modes of comprehension: the theoretical; the categoreal; and the configurational. The last is taken to define the mode of comprehension exemplified by historical practice. But do we need to apply these distinctions to different fields of research, or do they perhaps operate throughout all research and creative enterprises, simply to a greater or lesser degree at different points in the production process? - Author DB
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This is the final sentence of Louis Mink’s article, placed here at the start of our annotation to help demonstrate (mimetically) a core element of his conceptualisation of comprehension, namely that there is a key difference between knowing by retrospection and by anticipation. With this sentence in mind, and knowing it to be the paper’s final conclusion, you can now more clearly experience the distinction that the author has in mind when reading through this work.
Mink’s philosophy of history and historical understanding has already provided considerable inspiration to historians and philosophers of science seeking to develop the Narrative Science thesis. (For example, see Beatty “Narrative possibility and narrative explanation,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017): 31–41; Norton Wise, “On the narrative form of simulations,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 62 (2017) 74–85.) In this article we are first treated to a historical overview of the emergence of a tradition of ‘the logic of narration’ as a subject of investigation in the philosophy of history, one that he argues is clearly separate from potentially overlapping or similar efforts in aesthetics or narratology. To some degree Mink sees the growth of a philosophy of science in the mid-twentieth century as something exemplary, and which ought also to be underway for the philosophy of history. In particular, he is dissatisfied with the suggestion that a philosophy of science might effectively stand in for a philosophy of reliable knowledge, one applicable to history as much as science or any other subject. Instead Mink encourages us to appreciate history as potentially possessing organisational structures for knowledge distinct from the sciences, ones that are obviously no less defensible, valuable, or effective.
In service of this argument he makes a case for three distinct modes of comprehension: the theoretical; the categoreal; and the configurational. The last is taken to define the mode of comprehension exemplified by historical practice. But do we need to apply these distinctions to different fields of research, or do they perhaps operate throughout all research and creative enterprises, simply to a greater or lesser degree at different points in the production process? - Author DB
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MITCHELL, W.J.T, ED. ON NARRATIVE. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 1980.
This collection of essays brought together a range of authors in philosophy, literary theory, and narratology producing cutting-edge research on narrative precisely at a time when the humanities, anthropology, and social sciences were taking the ‘narrative turn’. The authors variously analyse narrative, or explore its functions, on topics ranging across the representation of reality, narration in the psychoanalytic dialogue, distinction between narrative novels and narrative films, time and narrative, and the narrativization of real events. It forms a well from which we can draw concepts and ideas that may translate to cases of Narrative Science. - Author DB
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MORGAN, M.S. “MODELS, STORIES AND THE ECONOMIC WORLD.” JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY 8 (2001): 361–84.
In the midst of the rapid growth and development of our understanding of modelling throughout the history and philosophy of science at the turn of the twenty-first century, Mary S. Morgan here focuses on an aspect of modelling that had otherwise been neglected, and which went on to form part of the basis of the Narrative Science project. Some key economists and economic theorists, such as Deirdre McCloskey, Allan Gibbard, and Hal Varian, had already stated that there was some kind of relation between the modelling that economists do, and forms of storytelling that they engage in with the models, though what that relation was did not seem clear from their work. Instead Morgan uses insights from literary theory and narratology in order to give stories their due significance, and from there establish a logic of the narratives that feature in economic modelling. She argues that the established view, that economists use models to help answer ‘why...?’ questions, needs to be modified, the far more common kind of question being ‘what happens if...?’
The core of the paper establishes relations between the world, models, and the practices of economists with their models. Thanks to Morgan’s attention to work on narrative, and Louis Mink’s theories in particular, we can appreciate the more complex structures of reasoning and knowledge-making in story-like representations, as well as they ways these constitute their own ways of knowing.
The core of the paper establishes relations between the world, models, and the practices of economists with their models. Thanks to Morgan’s attention to work on narrative, and Louis Mink’s theories in particular, we can appreciate the more complex structures of reasoning and knowledge-making in story-like representations, as well as they ways these constitute their own ways of knowing.
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“the suggestion we might take from the literature on narrative as a cognitive instrument is that in using the model to tell stories about the world, we are able to grasp not only the model as a whole, but we are also in some way trying to grasp the complexity of the real whole world and the typical elements in it.”
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Author - DB
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SALMON, CHRISTIAN. STORYTELLING, LA MACHINE À FABRIQUER DES HISTOIRES ET À FORMATER LES ESPRITS. PARIS: LA DÉCOUVERTE, 2008.
Salmon critiques the instrumentalisation of narrative, here as “storytelling,” in its expansion into domains of consumerism, the military, and political discourse. This is the phenomenon whereby telling a story has become the way to market a brand by appealing to emotional responses, instead of focusing on the logo or the product, or whereby storied simulations have become a key tool in US military training for urban warfare or anti-terrorist operations. If Salmon insists in a 2008 postface that he does not want to reduce storytelling to simple propaganda, but rather to draw out the origins of the trend, its diffusion, its precise effects, his position is nonetheless consistently critical. Thus he constantly opposes storytelling in its new incarnation to more traditional or valorised practises, writing for instance of its use in politics as “la mise en scène de la démocratie plutôt que son exercice” (the mise en scene of democracy rather than its exercise) (137). Storytelling for Salmon ultimately constitutes a new form of disciplinary power (pouvoir disciplinaire) which acts to regulate individual actions and affects, in echo to themes discussed by Foucault, Crary or Debord.
By assimilating narrative, in its form as storytelling, to rhetoric, control and propaganda, Salmon’s position is one which would tend to induce suspicion of narrative in science. Or at least to prompt defenders of science to deny the role of narrative. Our project constitutes a counterpoint to accounts like Salmon’s in that we do not nostalgically oppose narrative to earlier forms of discourse, but rather work to elucidate its functions throughout the modern period in the practical work of scientists. Might this historical perspective rehabilitate narrative by showing another use for stories than manipulation? By showing how narrative has made a productive (if not essential) contribution to knowledge-making through a longer historical period than the few decades at the turn of the twenty-first century? That said, there are similarities between the way narrative is theorised in the commercial world, as explained by Salmon, and our discussions around narrative as a means of configuring information, or facilitating interdisciplinary research. - Author Dr. Kim Hajek
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By assimilating narrative, in its form as storytelling, to rhetoric, control and propaganda, Salmon’s position is one which would tend to induce suspicion of narrative in science. Or at least to prompt defenders of science to deny the role of narrative. Our project constitutes a counterpoint to accounts like Salmon’s in that we do not nostalgically oppose narrative to earlier forms of discourse, but rather work to elucidate its functions throughout the modern period in the practical work of scientists. Might this historical perspective rehabilitate narrative by showing another use for stories than manipulation? By showing how narrative has made a productive (if not essential) contribution to knowledge-making through a longer historical period than the few decades at the turn of the twenty-first century? That said, there are similarities between the way narrative is theorised in the commercial world, as explained by Salmon, and our discussions around narrative as a means of configuring information, or facilitating interdisciplinary research. - Author Dr. Kim Hajek
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STERNBERG, MEIR. "RECONCEPTUALIZING NARRATOLOGY: ARGUMENTS FOR A FUNCTIONALIST AND CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO NARRATIVE." ENTHYMEMA IV (2011): 35–50.
In this relatively informal question-and-answer piece, Sternberg outlines his very personal take on the dispute between functionalist/constructivist approaches to narratology and their structuralist counterparts. As a major proponent of the functionalist view, Sternberg is concerned to present its (supposed) advantages over what he sees as the fixity, bordering on sterility, of a structuralist or “typologist” perspective. The article provides an accessible if slightly polemical overview of the main points of difference between these two conceptions of narrative. In brief, where the “typologists,” typified here by Gerard Genette, seek to understand narrative based on forms and structures present in the text, functionalists like Sternberg privilege the effect of the text on its reader. Sternberg thus advocates for a “protean,” or “many-to-many” relationship between textual form and its function in producing narrative, with the major role played by reader interpretation, even to the point that an infinity of narratives could be generated from a single text or a single object. If it is valuable to the Narrative Science Project to consider how a reader might generate or “fill in” a scientific narrative in response to a text, object, or image, we nonetheless see a constraining role for the textual/visual form of that scientific document. Having no stake in debates on the direction of narratology, we are content to adopt notions from both extremes outlined here; for us, it is more interesting to explore which kinds of scientific narratives, in which circumstances, call on their readers to play a greater or lesser interpretative role in making knowledge—and to ask what sorts of scientific knowledge are thus generated.
- Author Dr. Kim Hajek
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- Author Dr. Kim Hajek
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