NARRATIIV
Narrative

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts an overview of the relationships between narratology and the narrative turn in the humanities from a historical and conceptual point of view. It surveys the definitions of narrative and narrativity, describes narrative as a possibly basic text-type and a cognitive instrument, and deals with its role in history- writing and identity formation. Narratology as an outshoot of rigorous structuralist poetics is compared to a more amorphous narrative turn in the humanities, encompassing psychology, social sciences, law, medicine, and theology. The narrative turn often uses the term „narrative as a metaphor or metonymy taken from the ordinary language and ignores the fine distinctions devel- oped in literary poetics. The multilayered concept of narrative is analyzed with the help of the traditional metaphysical distinction between form and matter. In some approaches story and experience play the role of matter, while plot, discourse and scripts may function as form. The product of their interaction may become the matter of some higher order process etc. The matter-form distinction may throw some light on philosophers' debates over the question whether life itself might have at least a rudimentary narrative structure. The article touches on the necessity of narrative agency for defining narrative and the possibility of narratives without a narrator. The imitative relationships between narrative and life are dealt in connection with the basic plots or mythoi as classificatory models for histories and biographies. In connection with history-writing the inescapable fictional connotations of the term „narrative” are mentioned, although the narrative form of history-writing does not necessarily mean that history is less objective than the rest of human sciences. Some problems with the theories of narrative construction of personal and collective identity are outlined. The last part of the article describes an antinarrativist turn in moral philosophy and a sobering attitude toward „narrative imperialism”. The differences between classical structuralist narratology and post-classical narratologies are sketched. Finally it is argued that (diachronic) narrative and (synchronic) scientific theory are two complementary instruments for comprehending the world.

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