What is narrativity?

buir.contributor.authorKeven, Nazım
buir.contributor.orcidKeven, Nazım|0000-0001-5368-8265
dc.citation.epage214
dc.citation.issueNumber2-3
dc.citation.spage204
dc.citation.volumeNumber37
dc.contributor.authorKeven, Nazım
dc.date.accessioned2025-02-24T13:17:07Z
dc.date.available2025-02-24T13:17:07Z
dc.date.issued2024-06-10
dc.departmentDepartment of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractIn recent years, narrative accounts of the self have gained increasing attention. It is widely accepted that humans are storytelling creatures, that stories shape our self-conception, and that we fail to be agents without a narrative framework. While there is less agreement on what constitutes a narrative, it is generally understood to be more than a chronological listing of life events; it is also an account of the explanatory relationships among these events-a story of how events lead to other events. However, specifying the nature of this explanatory relationship has proven difficult. As critics have pointed out, narrativists often resort to simplistic notions of narrative when faced with criticism. The concept of narrative explanation needs to be elaborated in a way that is both substantive enough to exclude trivial behaviours from being considered narratives and nonrestrictive enough to accommodate ordinary lives that may not be particularly story-like. In this paper, I review existing accounts of narrative explanation and propose a teleological account, according to which narratives consist of goal-directed explanations of a sequence of events. I argue that a teleological account of narrative explanation can be a fruitful way to clarify the concept of "narrative" in the context of the narrative self by addressing the most common objections.
dc.embargo.release2026-06-10
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/rati.12418
dc.identifier.eissn1467-9329
dc.identifier.issn0034-0006
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/116769
dc.language.isoEnglish
dc.publisherWiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
dc.relation.isversionofhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rati.12418
dc.rightsCC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.source.titleRatio
dc.subjectGoal
dc.subjectNarrative
dc.subjectNarrative explanation
dc.subjectNarrative self
dc.subjectPlot
dc.subjectPurpose
dc.subjectStory
dc.subjectTeleological explanation
dc.subjectTeleology
dc.titleWhat is narrativity?
dc.typeArticle

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