The Rationality of Narrative Inquiry in Research and Professional Development

Abstract

SUMMARY As researchers follow the hermeneutic turn to narrative, are they also obliged to join what Richard Bernstein calls the 'rage against reason'? Taking criteria from Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action and his concept of communicative rationality, I propose that narrative inquiry can indeed be a rational enterprise. Habermas recreates a standpoint from which critiques are possible, for he detects and analyses the implicit rationality built into everyday communicative practices in which conversation partners orient themselves toward understanding rather than the success of their own points of view. In these practices, as in narrative inquiry, participants claim that each could challenge the other's implicit claims to truth, sincerity and social appropriateness. I give examples to illustrate how such challenges can be met in one specific line of narrative research .