The Narrative Function and the Legitimation of Knowledge Summary and Analysis

One must play by the rules of the narrative game. There is some confusion between the narrative of science and the narrative of the epic. Science itself attempts to pass itself off as a narrative of an historical epic. By doing this, science attempts to find its own legitimation, not unlike the narrative of the hero.

Perhaps the innovation of the narrative of science originated with Plato. Plato's dialectic aims at finding a narrative for science, which allows legitimation. Plato's technique is the dialog where the discourse takes place where the conclusion follows from true propositions like a sound syllogism. This is what is called Plato's dialectic.

This dialectic aims at the pragmatic, which combines story and teaching. This too is a language game controlled by certain...