p.9 Now I propose simply that we recognize sequential explanation
as a valid mode of explanation: that in some senses of "understand" we understand an event when we recognize
it as belonging to a sequential context, which consists of the narration of events which recognizes them as forming
a transient sequence, entirely apart from questions of causal relation. (328)
Mink is prepared to conclude that "one can understand an event or set of events only
by knowing their consequences - in a temporal, not a causal sense" (332).
p.25 the significance of past occurrences is understandable only as they are locatable in the ensemble of
interrelationships that can be grasped only in the construction of narrative form
p.38 No doubt the requirement of economy, which is Occam's razor
applied to formal systems, reflects the fact that a simpler postulate set is easier to comprehend as a whole
than a more cumbersome one which might be equally useful from the standpoint of technical application.
p.39 But there is another way in which a number of things
may be comprehended, as elements in a single complex of concrete relationships. It is in this way that we see together
the multiple images and allusions of a poem, or the combination of influences, motives, beliefs, and purposes which explain
a concrete historical action. It is not as instances of a theory but as centers of concrete relationships that we
understand ourselves and others, and one may say that there is also a kind of configurational comprehension.
As the theoretical mode of comprehension corresponds to what Pascal called l'esprit de geometrie, so the configurational
mode corresponds to what he called l'esprit de finesse, the ability to hold together a number of elements in
nice balance.
p.39 Speaking roughly, one might say that theoretical comprehension emphasizes
the relations that may hold between universals and particulars, configurational comprehension [emphasizes] the relations
that may hold between particulars and particulars, and categoreal comprehension [emphasizes] the relations that may
hold between universals and universals. Subject as this formulation is to correction and expansion, it serves to indicate
that these three modes exhaust the possibilities.
p.40 Each mode of comprehension tends to generate its own form of
discourse, including concepts which take their proper meaning from the way in which they function within the mode.
p.56 a narrative... answers no questions except "And then what happened?" and affords no understanding beyond
such answers.
p.58 the actions and events of a story comprehended as a whole are connected by a network of overlapping
descriptions.
p.69 to predict an event is to show that the general statement describing its occurrence follows logically
from a set of general laws together with (true) statements of initial conditions.
p.74 One might say that for the proto-science view of history, a hypothesis is in the first instance
a candidate, regarded with interest and some hopeful expectation but without approval until it passes its examination
and is admitted (on the condition of continued good behavior) as a law. But historians seem generally to regard generalized
hypotheses not as potential laws but as guides whose services they employ.
p.74-75 The question is whether the historian seeks a distinctively different mode of understanding
in the attainment of which generalized hypotheses are means but not ends.
p.176 narrative form represents a way of thinking rather than merely a literary
device employed for arbitrary or traditional reasons.
p.176-177 In [W.B.] Gallie's view, successful narrative makes no question arise relevant
to understanding the narrative, which only a causal account could answer.
p.185 it remains true that narrative is a primary cognitive instrument - an instrument
rivaled, in fact, only by theory and metaphor as irreducible ways of making the flux of experience comprehensible.
