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The problem of narration emerges when we pass from considerations concerned with pragmatic methodology and focused on research procedures, to the consideration of the results of research (i.e., apragmatic considerations). In many sciences an answer to a given research question takes on the form of a coherent and complete verbal structure. That verbal structure might be called a narrative, although the term may seem somewhat shocking when applied to certain disciplines. For all the differences in the structures of narratives in the various sciences each narrative is a report on the results of research, that is, a coherent sequence of statements about specified facts. From that point of view there is no difference not only between, say, history and geology, but also between history, on the one hand, and physics or musicology, on the other. A physicist, a musicologist and a historian alike must report on the results of their research, conducted by different methods, in a certain order which is accepted in their respective disciplines. This means that they must compose certain fragments into a readable whole (which may prove readable only to those who know the specific language of a given discipline), in which the results of one's own research, one's own knowledge, and some results of researches conducted by others, are merged into a possibly well-structured report.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-1123-5_25

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