Narrative Theory and the Intentional Stance
TL;DR: The authors argue that stories like Hemingway's are told for particular reasons, in the service of communicative goals about which interpreters are justified in framing at least provisional hypotheses, a primordial basis for making the ascriptions of intentionality that lie at the heart of folk psychology or everyday reasoning concerning one's own and others' minds.
Abstract: Drawing on treatments of the problem of intentionality in fields encompassed by the umbrella discipline of cognitive science, including language theory, psychology, and the philosophy of mind, this paper explores issues underlying recent debates about the role of intentions in narrative contexts To avoid entering the debate on the terms set by antiintentionalists, my analysis shifts the focus away from questions about the boundary for legitimate ascriptions of communicative intention, the tipping-point where those ascriptions become illicit projections of readerly intuitions onto an imagined authorial consciousness Instead, I propose a two-part strategy for examining how storytelling practices are bound up with inferences about intention The first part uses Hemingway's 1927 short story "Hills Like White Elephants" to argue that narrative interpretation requires adopting the heuristic strategy that Daniel Dennett has characterized as "the intentional stance" In other words, it makes sense to assume that stories like Hemingway's are told for particular reasons, in the service of communicative goals about which interpreters are justified in framing at least provisional hypotheses This first part of my analysis is tantamount to grounding stories in intentional systems The second part, which draws on work on folk psychology (and research in the philosophy of mind more generally), describes narrative as a means by which humans learn to take up the intentional stance in the first place, and later practice using it in the safe zone afforded by storyworlds This part of my analysis involves grounding intentional systems in stories Here I argue that narrative constitutes in its own right a discipline for reading for intentions, a primordial basis for making the ascriptions of intentionality that lie at the heart of folk psychology, or everyday reasoning concerning one's own and others' minds
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763 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a survey of approaches to constructing a storyworld from context of Narration to Narrative as a type of text, with a focus on the role of stories in science.
Abstract: List of Illustrations. The Elements. Preface . The Scope and Aims of This Book. Storytelling Media and Modes of Narration. Acknowledgments . 1. Getting Started: A Thumbnail Sketch of the Approach Developed in This Book. Toward a Working Definition of Narrative. Profiles of Narrative. Narrative: Basic Elements. 2. Background and Context: Framing the Approach. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative and Narrative Theory. Major Trends in Recent Scholarship on Narrative. 3. Back to the Elements: Narrative Occasions . Situating Stories. Sociolinguistic Approaches. Positioning Theory. The Narrative Communication Model. Conclusion. 4. Temporality, Particularity, and Narrative: An Excursion into the Theory of Text Types. From Contexts of Narration to Narrative as a Type of Text. Text Types and Categorization Processes. Narrative as a Text-Type Category: Descriptions vs. Stories vs. Explanations. Summing up: Text Types, Communicative Competence, and the Role of Stories in Science. 5. The Third Element: Or, How to Build a Storyworld . Narratives as Blueprints for Worldmaking. Narrative Ways of Worldmaking. Narrative Worlds: A Survey of Approaches. Configuring Narrative Worlds: The WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN Dimensions of Storyworlds. Worlds Disrupted: Narrativity and Noncanonical Events. 6. The Nexus of Narrative and Mind . The Consciousness Factor. Consciousness Across Narrative Genres. Experiencing Minds: What It's Like, Qualia, Raw Feels. Storied Minds: Narrative Foundations of Consciousness?. Appendix . Reproduction of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927). Transcript of a Story Told during Face-to-Face Interaction: UFO or the Devil. Pages from Daniel's Clowes's Graphic Novel Ghost World (1997). Screenshots from Terry Zwigoff's Film Version of Ghost World (2001). Glossary . References. Index
511 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the author is only the source of a text, and has no other properties, and the investigation is about the nature of the text, not the author's intentions.
Abstract: Sometimes we find ourselves believing in the existence of an object which provides the basis for a new investigation. Its provenance is irrelevant. The properties of the source of an artwork are irrelevant to our reception of it. We find ourselves confronting the work, and it provides die material for further investigations. The artist's intentions are irrelevant to the identity of a work. Similarly, an author is only the source of a text. He has no other properties. The investigation is about the nature of the text.
317 citations
01 Mar 1994
198 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a method for the identification of the most likely candidate genes in the UHRA test set, which is not available in the test set of this paper, but can be found at http://www.imprint.co.uk/
Abstract: Original article can be found at: http://www.imprint.co.uk/ Copyright Imprint [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]
75 citations
Cites background from "Narrative Theory and the Intentiona..."
...The locus classicus of this idea can be found in Bruner’s (1990) seminal work, but it has been acknowledged approvingly by others too, who have explored it with varying degrees of commitment (Sterelny, 2003; Gallagher, 2006; Gallese, 2007; Herman, 2008b; Zahavi, 2007)....
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...…and/or causally — and conflict and resolution … in my own reading of the oral narratives of a wide range of foraging peoples, I have yet to encounter a culture whose stories do not exhibit the same structural features as Western narrative (Scalise Sugiyama, 2005, p. 180; see also Herman, 2008a)....
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References
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01 Jan 1927
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being.
Abstract: Translators' Preface. Author's Preface to the Seventh German Edition. Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being. 1. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being. 2. The Twofold Task of Working out the Question of Being. Method and Design of our Investigation. Part I:. The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being. 3. Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein. Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein. Being-in-the-World in General as the Basic State of Dasein. The Worldhood of the World. Being-in-the-World as Being-with and Being-One's-Self. The 'they'. Being-in as Such. Care as the Being of Dasein. 4. Dasein and Temporality. Dasein's Possibility of Being-a-Whole, and Being-Towards-Death. Dasein's Attestation of an Authentic Potentiality-for-Being, and Resoluteness. Dasein's Authentic Potentiality-for-Being-a-Whole, and Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of Care. Temporality and Everydayness. Temporality and Historicality. Temporality and Within-Time-Ness as the Source of the Ordinary Conception of Time. Author's Notes. Glossary of German Terms. Index.
16,708 citations
Book•
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TL;DR: Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution has led psychology away from the deeper objective of understanding mind as a creator of meanings, and only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can be grasped.
Abstract: Jerome Bruner argues that the cognitive revolution, with its current fixation on mind as "information processor;" has led psychology away from the deeper objective of understanding mind as a creator of meanings. Only by breaking out of the limitations imposed by a computational model of mind can we grasp the special interaction through which mind both constitutes and is constituted by culture. (http://books.google.fr/books?id=YHt_M41uIuUC&pg=PA157&dq=Bruner,+J.+%281990%29.+Acts+of+meaning&hl=fr&ei=EwOXTrqpCsPWsgaGgO2YBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
10,465 citations
"Narrative Theory and the Intentiona..." refers background in this paper
...…pronunciations or recitations but assertions, 02_6.2herman.indd 237 5/27/08 11:18:37 AM ly in section 3 below, the adoption of the intentional stance is inextricably interlinked with what philosophers of mind refer to under the rubric of folk psychology (Bruner 1990, 1991; Fletcher; Hutto 2007)....
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...Further, drawing on work by Bruner (1990, 1991) and Hutto (2006a, 2007), I discuss implications of the converse claim — that intentional systems are grounded 02_6.2herman.indd 240 5/27/08 11:18:38 AM in storytelling practices....
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...2 In this sense, and as I discuss more fully [End Page 237] in section 3 below, the adoption of the intentional stance is inextricably interlinked with what philosophers of mind refer to under the rubric of folk psychology (...
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Book•
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: The Adapted Mind as discussed by the authors explores evolutionary psychology and its implications for a new view of culture, in which the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture.
Abstract: Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.
4,793 citations
"Narrative Theory and the Intentiona..." refers background in this paper
...02_6.2herman.indd 238 5/27/08 11:18:37 AM ethology (Griffi n 1976; Ristau 1999), primate cognition (Hauser 1996), and evolutionary psychology (Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992; Williams 1966) suggest that humans’ tendency to attribute mental states and dispositions to their conspecifi cs is an…...
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Book•
01 Jan 1966
4,508 citations
"Narrative Theory and the Intentiona..." refers background in this paper
...…11:18:37 AM ethology (Griffi n 1976; Ristau 1999), primate cognition (Hauser 1996), and evolutionary psychology (Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992; Williams 1966) suggest that humans’ tendency to attribute mental states and dispositions to their conspecifi cs is an evolved cognitive capacity that…...
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Book•
01 Jan 1987TL;DR: The Intentional Stance as discussed by the authors is the first full-scale presentation of a theory of intentionality that has been developed for almost twenty years, and it can be seen as a pre-emptive strategy of interpretation that presupposes the rationality of the people or other entities we are hoping to understand and predict.
Abstract: How are we able to understand and anticipate each other in everyday life, in our daily interactions? Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, asserts Daniel Dennett in this first full-scale presentation of a theory of intentionality that he has been developing for almost twenty years. We adopt a stance, he argues, a predictive strategy of interpretation that presupposes the rationality of the people - or other entities - we are hoping to understand and predict.These principles of radical interpretation have far-reaching implications for the metaphysical and scientific status of the processes referred to by the everday terms of folk psychology and their corresponding terms in cognitive science.While Dennett's philosophical stance has been steadfast over the years, his views have undergone successive enrichments, refinements, and extensions. "The Intentional Stance" brings together both previously published and original material: four of the book's ten chapters - its first and the final three - appear here for the first time and push the theory into surprising new territory. The remaining six were published earlier in the 1980s but were not easily accessible; each is followed by a reflection - an essay reconsidering and extending the claims of the earlier work. These reflections and the new chapters represent the vanguard of Dennett's thought. They reveal fresh lines of inquiry into fundamental issues in psychology, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory as well as traditional issues in the philosophy of mind.Daniel C. Dennett is Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor at Tufts University and the author of "Brainstorms" and "Elbow Room." "The Intentional Stance," along with these works, is a Bradford Book.
4,288 citations
"Narrative Theory and the Intentiona..." refers background in this paper
...(Dennett 1987: 17) Humans approach one another, for example, as intentional systems, that is, as constellations of actions whose behavior can be explained and predicted by this method of attributing beliefs, desires, and rational acumen (49)....
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