Mesa K
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MARK BEVIR
University of Newcastle, U.K.
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NARRATIVE AS A FORM OF EXPLANATION
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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.