Many scholars have argued that history embodies a different form of explanation from natural science. This paper provides an analysis of narrative conceived as the form of explanation appropriate to history. In narratives, actions, beliefs, and pro-attitudes are joined to one another by means of conditional and volitional connections. Conditional connections exist when beliefs and pro-attitudes pick up themes contained in one another. Volitional connections exist when agents command themselves to do something having decided to do it because of a (...) pro-attitude they hold. The fear remains, however, that all narratives are constructed in part by the imagination of the writer, so if the human sciences deploy narratives, they lack proper epistemic legitimacy. The paper dispels this fear by arguing that we have proper epistemic grounds for postulating conditional and volitional connections because these connections are given to us by a folk psychology we accept as true. (shrink)

Layunin ng komemoratibong pag-aaral na ito, gamit ang isang naratibong pagsusuri, ang pagturol sa danas at alaala ng mga Marikeño sa panahon ng pananalasa at/o pagbahang idinulot ng Ondoy (Ketsana) noong 2009 at sa mga panahong pagkatapos nito. Habang sentro ng pag-aaral na ito ang apat na barangay ng lungsod o ang mga tinatawag na “tabing-ilog”—Nangka, Tumana, Malanday, at Concepcion Uno—gumamit ang pananaliksik ng dalawang pangunahing método, pakikipagpanayam at pakikipagkuwentuhan. Sa kinasapitan, nakapagluwal ang pananaliksik na ito ng dalawang pangunahing bahagi: (...) una, mga naratibo ng danas at alaala sa panahon ng pananalasa ng Ondoy at ikalawa, pagsisiyasat sa mga sumunod na panahon. Sa kabuoan, nakapaglatag ang pag-aaral na ito ng pitong dalumat ukol sa kahulugan, kabuluhan, at konteksto ng Ondoy sa pananaw ng mga Marikeño: (1) delubyo, (2) kaparusahan, (3) kaligtasan, (4) pagtulong, (5) palatandaan, (6) takot, at (7) kasanayan. Hatid ng pag-aaral na ito ang isang implikasyong magpapahalaga sa dalawang bagay—(1) Araling at Kasaysayang Pangkapaligiran o isang subdisiplinang kakanlong sa pag-aaral ng kasaklawan ng kalikasan at kapaligirang Pilipino at (2) Kasaysayang Pampook o pagsasalaysay ng kasaysayan ukol sa isang partikular na pook. Samakatwid, ang kabuoang implikasyon ay magbibigay-linaw at ambag sa saysay ng Ondoy bílang bahagi ng kalikasan at kapaligirang Marikeño sa unang banda at ang saysay ng Marikina bílang pook sa kabilang banda. (shrink)

The expression "analytic narratives" is used to refer to a range of quite recent studies that lie on the boundaries between history, political science, and economics. These studies purport to explain specific historical events by combining the usual narrative approach of historians with the analytic tools that economists and political scientists draw from formal rational choice theories. Game theory, especially of the extensive form version, is currently prominent among these tools, but there is nothing inevitable about such a technical choice. (...) The chapter explains what analytic narratives are by reviewing the studies of the major book Analytic Narratives (1998), which are concerned with the workings of political institutions broadly speaking, as well as several cases drawn from military and security studies, which form an independent source of the analytic narratives literature. At the same time as it gradually develops a definition of analytic narratives, the chapter investigates how they fulfil one of their main purposes, which is to provide explanations of a better standing than those of traditional history. An important principle that will emerge in the course of the discussion is that narration is called upon not only to provide facts and problems, but also to contribute to the explanation itself. The chapter distinguishes between several expository schemes of analytic narratives according to the way they implement this principle. From all the arguments developed here, it seems clear that the current applications of analytic narratives do not exhaust their potential, and in particular that they deserve the attention of economic historians, if only because they are concerned with microeconomic interactions that are not currently their focus of attention. (shrink)

Cet article porte sur la désuétude des concepts colligés en histoire (ex. Renaissance, Guerre froide, Hiver de l’I.A., Procès de civilisation). Ces concepts possèdent un statut particulier, du fait qu’ils ajoutent au passé certains éléments structurants qui lui sont étrangers. La question est donc de savoir si ces apports extérieurs entrent en jeu lorsque vient le moment de juger de l’utilité ou de la désuétude des concepts colligés. En travaillant à partir d’une caractérisation minimale du narrativisme, je présenterai l’analyse de (...) deux formes de désuétudes que l’on retrouve en histoire et qui se distinguent de ce que l’on peut observer ailleurs dans les autres sciences, soit la désuétude occasionnelle et la désuétude par l’élimination. (shrink)

Several scholars observed that narratives about the human past are evaluated comparatively. Few attempts have been made, however, to explore how such evaluations are actually done. Here I look at a lengthy “contest” among several historiographic narratives, all constructed to make sense of another one—the biblical story of the conquest of Canaan. I conclude that the preference of such narratives can be construed as a rational choice. In particular, an easily comprehensible and emotionally evocative narrative will give way to a (...) complex and mundane one, when the latter provides a more coherent account of the consensually accepted body of evidence. This points to a fundamental difference between historiographic narratives and fiction, contrary to some influential opinions in the philosophy of historiography. Such historiographic narratives have similarities with hypotheses and narrative explanations in natural science. (shrink)

This paper engages with the concept of the migrant subject, as framed through contemporary literature on migrancy, and read through the Pauline Ingle photographic collection, located in the Eastern Cape. As against gendered historiographies of labour migrancy and the associated meanings attributed to the rural as a site of social reproduction, Ingle's photographs invite a series of atypical readings that unsettle these subjectivities. Rather, they suggest social and political acts that presage and constitute a migrant citizenship, one that undermines the (...) dichotomy of the rural and urban and projects the possibility of reading the history of the subject in the Eastern Cape differently. (shrink)

Summary This paper traces a mutually reinforcing set of arguments about the practice of history in the work of J. G. A. Pocock and Paul Ricoeur that responds to challenges posed to the autonomy of selves and their communities raised by both thinkers. It begins with their respective views on language, texts and actions, moves to the construction of narrative and historiography, and concludes with their account of selves and the communities to which they belong. Corresponding to these three considerations (...) are a set of conclusions drawn with different emphases: first, that both texts and acts are potentially open to indefinite and plural interpretations; second, that narrative and historiography are constitutively contested modes of critical discourse continually open to the construction of new meaning; and third, that the contested, capable, narrative self, and the community to which that mediated self belongs, exercises autonomy as an active, responsible, reflective citizen and/or critical historian. It concludes from this study that the limited openness of language, narrative and identity constitutes the promise and risk of history as a contested and affective representation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to generalize a pair of concepts that are widely used in the history of science, in art history and in historical linguistics – the concept of internal and external history – and to replace the often very vague talk of ‘historical narratives’ with this conceptual framework of internal versus external history. I argue that this way of framing the problem allows us to see the possible alternatives more clearly – as a limited number of (...) possible relations between internal and external history. Finally, I argue that while external history is metaphysically prior to internal history, when it comes to historical explanations, we need both. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Camus’s and Arendt’s existential aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace the prevalent tendency to probe literature for its moral-philosophical insights, and instead delves into the experiential reality of our engagement with literary works. It starts from Martha Nussbaum’s recognition of the literary ability to account for the fragility of human affairs, yet finds her reduction of narrative imagination to the role of furthering (...) moral lessons wanting politically. Against this background, the article reclaims Camus’s and Arendt’s dialogical-representative judging orientation and its insight into the narrative ability to respond to the intersubjective character of politics. As such, their aesthetic sensibility reveals the potential political significance of literary imagination in its capacity to open a public space where the contradictions of our situated existence can be confronted through politics between plural equals. (shrink)

Narrativism, as represented by Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit, can fruitfully be analyzed as an inversion of two brands of positivism. First, narrativist epistemology can be regarded as an inversion of empiricism. Its thesis that narratives function as metaphors which do not possess a cognitive content is built on an empiricist, "picture view" of knowledge. Moreover, all the non-cognitive aspects attributed to narrative as such are dependent on this picture theory of knowledge and a picture theory of representation. Most of (...) the epistemological characteristics that White and Ankersmit attribute to historical narratives therefore share the problems of this picture theory.The article's second thesis is that the theories of narrative explanation can also fruitfully be analyzed as inversions of positivist covering-law theory. Ankersmit's brand of narrativism is the most radical in this respect because it posits an opposition between narrative and causal modes of comprehension while simultaneously eliminating causality from narrativist historical understanding. White's brand of narrativism is more of a hybrid than is Ankersmit's as far as its theory of explanation is concerned; nevertheless, it can also be fruitfully interpreted as an inversion of covering-law theory, replacing it by an indefinite multitude of explanatory strategies.Most of the striking characteristics of both White's and Ankersmit's narrativism presuppose positivism in these two senses, especially their claim that historical narratives have a metaphorical structure and therefore no truth-value. These claims are hard to reconcile with the factual characteristics of debates by historians; this problem can be tracked down to the absence in "metaphorical" narrativism of a conceptual connection between historical narratives and historical research. (shrink)

This paper examines how Hayden White and specifically Frank Ankersmit have attempted to develop the representationalist account of historiography. It is notable that both reject the copy theory of representation, but nevertheless commit to the idea that historiography produces representations. I argue that it would have been more advantageous to go yet one step further and reject representationalist language altogether on the level of narratives, as this implies that one is re-presenting a given object in one’s language in some sense. (...) Narratives and other synthesizing expressions, such as colligatory notions, do not have such objects or references in the past itself, and therefore, it would be more appropriate to talk about constructed ‘presentations.’ In the end, I outline a non-representationalist alternative, according to which historiography is a form of discursive and argumentative practice. (shrink)

A common method for warranting the historical adequacy of philosophical claims is that of relying on historical case studies. This paper addresses the question as to what evidential support historical case studies can provide to philosophical claims and doctrines. It argues that in order to assess the evidential functions of historical case studies, we first need to understand the methodology involved in producing them. To this end, an account of historical reconstruction that emphasizes the narrative character of historical accounts and (...) the theory-laden character of historical facts is introduced. The main conclusion of this paper is that historical case studies are able to provide philosophical claims with some evidential support, but that, due to theory-ladenness, their evidential import is restricted. (shrink)

The classical Indian variety of history may be called ‘istory’. It is not completely true that no real importance was attached to istory in classical India. But much of oral istorical literature is lost since—perhaps—narrating istory was considered a performance. Unlike historical narratives, istorical narratives are presentative, not representative. Istory can be understood as a system of narrating past events that has a purpose and poetic beauty. Finally, the paper will argue that istory is based on cognitive tools of two (...) types: epistemic tools such as testimony, inference, tarka and aesthetic tools. Thus, it has a hybrid cognitive method. (shrink)

We examine dialectical tensions between “dialogue” and “narrative” as these discourses supplant one another as the fundamental discourse of intelligibility, through juxtaposing two interpretations of Genesis 38 rooted in changing interpretative paradigms. Is dialogue properly understood as a narrative genre, or is narrative the content about which people are in dialogue? Is the divine–human relationship a narrative drama or is it a dialogue between a god and human beings? We work within parameters laid out by the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer (...) (primarily representing dialogue) and Ricoeur (primarily representing narrative). On the one hand, a feminist approach can develop Tamar as a courageous hero in impossible circumstances, strategizing to overturn Judah’s patriarchal naïveté. On the other hand, Judah seems to be able to be read as a tragic hero, seeking to save Tamar. These readings challenge one another, where either Tamar’s or Judah’s autonomy is undermined. By putting these interpretations into dialogue, our aim is to show that neither dialogue nor narrative succeeds the other with finality, and that we can achieve a fragile integration of the two (dialogue and narrative) despite their propensity toward polarization. (shrink)

Cet article a été présenté au "Lunch Seminar" de l'Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University, le 20 Avril 2005.