ABSTRACT
Tolstoy's magnum opus, War and peace transcends the literary scope and elicit philosophic and methodological questions. The aim here is to take it as a starting point to discuss subjects as causality, agency and contemporary issues related to language and writing, in the methodology of history and social sciences. In a first part, it attempts to show how the discussion of Napoleonic invasion's causes, elaborated by Tolstoy in War and peace, brings elements that prefigure the explanation versus understanding debate in analytic philosophy from the mid-twentieth century. The following discusses, inspired by Tolstoy's compositional practices and Ricoeur's idea of time-narrative circle, the methodological fruitfulness of narrative refiguration to interpret art, society and history relationships.
Keywords:
Causality; Agency, Refiguration, Tolstoy, War and peace.