Cowen is right to critique the overuse of narratives to make a point; his critique at heart is a critique of reliance on anecdotal evidence. But I also catch an echo of the argument Plato uses to exclude poetry from the Republic. Perhaps Cowen is too restrictive in the way he thinks about 'story.'
Cowen buys into Booker's model, and similar models, which organize the universe of stories into a number of types -- quest, comedy, tragedy, etc. -- and concludes that we tell ourselves the same stories over and over again. But a careful reader might notice that Booker's types are just that -- types, or subcategories within... (read more)
Cowen is right to critique the overuse of narratives to make a point; his critique at heart is a critique of reliance on anecdotal evidence. But I also catch an echo of the argument Plato uses to exclude poetry from the Republic. Perhaps Cowen is too restrictive in the way he thinks about 'story.'
Cowen buys into Booker's model, and similar models, which organize the universe of stories into a number of types -- quest, comedy, tragedy, etc. -- and concludes that we tell ourselves the same stories over and over again. But a careful reader might notice that Booker's types are just that -- types, or subcategories within... (read more)