What is narrative possibility?

Abstract

In this paper I offer a new account of narrative possibility that I call the "ecological approach." I situate it relative to alternative "metaphysical" and "epistemological" approaches, and argue that it has advantages in comparison. It saves some of the important insights from each, but serves the purposes of narrative explanation better than either, specifically because it delimits the explanatory modal space of narrative explanation correctly, whereas the others do not.

Keywords: Explanation; John Beatty; Narrative; Possibility.