Reflections on the Unnarratable: Free Will, the Intentional Stance, and a Narrative Model for Emergence

Abstract

Let me begin with a quotation that also frames the introduction to this special issue, from David Herman’s “Narrative, Science, and Narrative Science,” now almost a quarter-century old: “science will not be left unchanged by its encounter with narrative inquiry, but neither will narrative inquiry” (383). The past two decades have seen this prediction come true, or at least its second part, with cognitive narratology. The first part, whether narrative inquiry has changed science, remains a tricky question. Herman’s claim suggests that science has its own style and rhetoric, structured by narrative. And yet, when narratologists train their lens on scientific discourse—the contributors to the present issue included—they usually imply that narrative lacks the precision that science demands. Science communication studies often voice a similar concern: at best, ‘storytelling’ oversimplifies the results of experimental research, but more likely, it distorts them (Katz; Dahlstrom, “(Escaping) the Paradox”). Such concern is not altogether a surprise, given that science works with testable ideas, whereas narratives deal with perspective and interpretation. But the news for narratologists is not all bad: if done responsibly, narratives can make a meaningful connection between science and human experience, thus making factual information more palatable (Dahlstrom, “The Narrative Truth”). This essay will suggest that science narratives which seek to explain unnarratable phenomena choose narrativity over accuracy in order to