Narrative and causality

Abstract

When discussing narrative in historical sciences, particular emphasis is often placed on causality. During the course of a story, events are linked in such a way that cause-and-effect relationships emerge, helping to explain the occurrence of past phenomena. Yet, the way in which these relationships are conceived may vary depending on the context and in relation to different formal features of the narrative. Sometimes it is enough for the narrative explanation to establish an analogy with a regularity for the phenomenon considered in the explanandum to be characterised in terms of sufficiency and necessity. Alternatively, we find more complex cases where narratives adopt a diffuse inferential form due to the number of causal terms involved. These cases will be studied as forms of contributory causation, which can be incorporated into the narrative in two ways: either as an account of the repercussion of an antecedent insufficient to produce the explanandum, but relevant to produce some of its properties; or as a set of causes that each alone is insufficient, but together become sufficient in explanatory terms. Moreover, there will be narratives in which the relationship between events is described as remote causes, which define an attribute of historicity specific to some narratives. Following their characterisation, a discussion on the explanatory relevance of remote causes will be raised on which a pragmatic approach will be adopted.