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1. Narratives
The following introduction to narratives uses materials from these sites:
Narratives as Instruments of Psychological Coherence
http://www.jate.u-szeged.hu/~pleh/magyar/cikkek/regi/koh1.html
Introduction to Narratology
http://www.sla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/narratology/index.html
Narrative: a linear ordering of facts, actions and events typical when telling a story.
Narrative theory in cognitive science: the theory that a story-like, narrative organization is fundamental to human cognition
in various forms and at various levels.
The narrative teory of consciousness (Dennett)
The narrative theory of personal identity (McIntyre)
Narratives as sources of psychological coherence
Narratives as source of coherence about the world.
Features of a narrative:
unique
single line or thread of events (later we will call this singular causation)
temporal the linear order is a temporal order
coherent narrative coherence is a linkage between the events that occur in the narrative (later we see that this is not circular)
"The old writers strived to unfold a simple and clear thread of rationalism from the strange, chaotic material of life; in their optic
action is born by a cause which we can grasp by reason, and the act gives rise to a new act. Adventure is nothing but a transparent
causal chain of such deeds.
Milan Kundera: The Art of the Novel
Narration:
"Narration refers to the way that a story is told, and so belongs to the level of discourse (although in first-person narration it may be that the narrator
also plays a role in the development of the story itself). The different kinds of narration are categorized by each one's primary grammatical stance: either
1) the narrator speaks from within the story and, so, uses "I" to refer to him- or herself (see first-person narration); in other words, the narrator is a
character of some sort in the story itself, even if he is only a passive observer; or 2) the narrator speaks from outside the story and never employs the "I"
(see third-person narration). See also third-person omniscient narration; third-person-limited narration; and objective shot."
"NARRATOLOGY EXAMINES THE WAYS that narrative structures our perception of both cultural artifacts and the world around us. The study of
narrative is particularly important since our ordering of time and space in narrative forms constitutes one of the primary ways we construct meaning in
general. As Hayden White puts it, "far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a
meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted". Given the prevalence
and importance of narrative media in our lives (television, film, fiction), narratology is also a useful foundation to have before one begins analyzing
popular culture."
"One goal of narratological theory is to figure out how exactly words come to refer at all, how words come to make sense."
It is not true the a narrative consists of words arranged in a certain order - words obtain meaning through their position in
the narrative.
At the intuitive level, we immediatly see the possible relevance of this concept to Wittgenstein and mechanisms.
In the following, we will unfold this idea.
<Recalling Wittgenstein's vocabulary, Ricoeur suggests that, "if narrating is a unique 'language-game,' and if a language game 'is part of an activity or a form
of life,' then we must ask to which form of life narrative discourse as a whole is bound" (Ricoeur 1981: 274). Ricoeur says that any narrative is endowed
with an episodic dimension, the dimension of time, which is expressed in the succession of events; and a non-chronological dimension, which constructs
"meaningful totalities out of scattered events." An essential aspect, "the art of narrating, as well as the corresponding art of following a story, ... require
that we are able to extract a configuration from a succession" (ibid:278).
Narrative may be considered as the outcome of an act of interpretation which gives meaning to a sequence of actions. >
http://research.umbc.edu/eol/magrini/mag-narr.html
We will see (or at least suggest) that the actual relationship is the opposite: "language-game" is based on narratnio which is not "a form of life"
but the organizing frame of all possible "forms of life", human and animal.
2. Properties of Narratives
Albrecht Durer: Woodcut to Wie der Wrffel auff ist Kumen (Nuremberg: Max Ayrer, 1489).
travelling knight is stopped by the devil, who holds up a die to tempt the knight to gamble; 2) the second "frame" is the bottom-left-hand corner of the
image, where a quarrel breaks out at the gambling table; 3) the third "frame" is the top-left-hand corner of the image, where the knight is punished by
death on the wheel. By having the entire sequence in a single two-dimensional space, the image comments on the fact that narrative, unlike life, is never a
gamble but always stacks the deck towards some fulfilling structural closure. (A similar statement is made in the Star Trek episode I analyze under
Lesson Plans.) Here, the structural relationship between temptation and punishment is underlined by the fact that the two actions are juxtaposed on the
top-right and top-left hand of the image. Temporal action is thus re-presented as a spatial juxtaposition" Introduction to Narratology
3. Causality in Narratives
It would be a mistake to think that causation enters narratives because narratives tell stories of human acts and these latter are causal.
(A superficial reading of the Kundera quote would imply this).
It is the opposite: those events will be united in a narrative which have a causal connection - of a special kind.
Remark: narratives need not be stories of human acts, they are series of events in general.
The claim here is that a narrative is not just a sequence of any events
but a sequence of events that consitute a mechanism.
In the deep, underlying the narrative, there is a mechanism.
The narrative structure is a copy of the mechanism structure
linear, temporal arrangement, etc etc.
Narratives are possible because there are mechanisms that can be reproduced.
A narrative is a reproducion of a mechanism in the cognitive domain.
The concept of mechamism in this context
says more: a mechanism is a causal system of a special kind
fundamental: the animal origin of narratives
The role of repetition
a mechanism is a causal system that can be repeated
without this, a narrative is not possible
(i.e. both mechanisms and narratives support counterfacturals)
(cf. the metaphoric use of 'iterable' and 'reference' by Derrida vs Searle)
The episodic organization of narratives
observation from literary theory, film theory etc.:
narratives consist of smaller meaningful parts, called episodes
an episode is a unit of meaning
episodes are treated as entities - e.g. they are subjects of anaphora (i.e. jumps)
Anaphora is coreference of one expression with its antecedent.
The antecedent provides the information necessary for the expression's interpretation.
This is often understood as an expression referring back to the antecedent.
Narratives in psychology
In a typical interpretation of narratives, the narrative organization is a property or a construct of the mind.
Property of mind - e.g. organization of memory and recall
Consrtuct of mind - e.g. the mind "likes" to establish coherence by projecting a stucture into things; narrative would be an example
Anti-associationism (the same role is played in Chomskyan linguistics by grammar)
Historical narratives, folk tales etc (Vladimir Propp)
Behind the rich world of fantasy there is much control
Even fairy tales and other seemingly completely unlimited stories are variations of but a few characters, actors, and
a few functional plots, they are not free and disordered.
Stories follow well-established lines.
Narratives as imposed order
linguistic order beyond grammar and sentence
inernal order which can be a mirror of exernal (temporal) order
Narration as an instrument for coherence
(1) Temporal order is the basis of the ordering of experience, not just external events.
The "narrative re-creation of the world" is based on subjective narrative time, as a firm starting point of the subject, a scaffolding or footing.
(2) A story needs a hero - a proactive agent with goals and a perspective --. the narrative creation of the self as such a hero
The essential element is the linkage, therefore coherence, of the acts of the hero.
6. To Summarize:
Narratives are (based on) mechanisms
Narratives are fundamental for cognition because mechanisms are fundamental for embodiment (and e. is fundamental for c.)
If text was the basic building stone of the Cartesian mind (and the Cartesian world view)
--- the speculative
then mechanism-like action-event complexes are the basis for the biological mind
--- the material
When studying the human mental states, we need a substrate that can support a dynamic mind of narratives.
(Mental models will be tools that are able to reproduce mechanisms in that way).