Mary S. Morgan (London School of Economics), Mat Paskins (London School of Economics), Kim Hajek (London School of Economics), Andrew Hopkins (London School of Economics), Dominic Berry (London School of Economics)
Narrative is at work in many sciences, operating at various levels of reasoning, performing a wide variety of functions. In some areas they are habitual, as in the natural historical sciences, but they are also to be found in less likely places: for example as integral with mathematical simulations, or in giving accounts of chemical syntheses. Despite their endemic nature, philosophers of science have not yet given much credence to narrative — either as kind of explanation, type of observational reporting, format of representation, or any of the other purposes to which they can be put. Yet — as is evident in the brief outline below — the usage of narratives carries both ontological implications, and prompts epistemic questions. Our poster introduces the ‘narrative science project’, which is investigating a number of scientific sites to develop a philosophical approach to scientists’ use of narratives within their communities, rather than in their pedagogical or popularising usages. Three questions exemplify the value of admitting narrative into the philosophy of science.
How do candidate laws of nature interact with narrative explanation in natural historical sciences? Laws are traditionally required for explanation in the sciences, but it has been argued that in the natural historical sciences they rather ‘lurk in the background’. Initial project findings suggest that in narrative accounts in these fields, laws might rather ‘patrol’ than ‘lurk’ — to forbid certain narratives and to constrain those that are told without ever quite determining the account. This ‘patrolling’ may function differently with respect to long-term changes than with short-term upheavals — such as found in geology or earth science. But narratives have also been found in situations of disjunctions or gaps in law-based explanations in these historical sciences, or play a bridging or unlocking function between scientists from different fields working together.
How do the social, medical, and human sciences rely on co-produced “analytical narratives” in reporting their observational materials? It is quite typical of a range of scientific methods that ‘observations’ consist of individual accounts of feelings or attitudes or beliefs so that data provided comes direct from the ‘subjects’ involved. Often the materials come in the form of anecdotes, small contained narratives, or fragments of longer ones. Our evidence suggests we should treat these as ‘co-produced’ observations, where sometimes the analytical work goes alongside the subject to be reported polyphonically, and at other times the ‘objective analysis’ of the observing scientist is integrated into the self-witnessed, ‘subject-based’, reporting to produce something like ‘analytical observations’.
We should consider narrative seriously as an available format of representation in science, worthy of the same philosophical consideration given to models, diagrams, etc. Answers to these questions will rely not just on philosophy but also narrative theory, which help to distinguish narrative and narrating. Such an approach raises a number of issues, for example: Is there a standard plot, or does it vary with discipline? Our poster imagines the narrative plots of chemical synthesis, developmental biology, anthropology, engineered morphology, psychological testimony, and geological time.
