Stories offer us some of the richest and most enduring insights into the human condition and have preoccupied philosophy since Aristotle. This article, based on the affirmative view of narrativity advanced by theorists like Ricoeur, Rorty and MacIntyre, argues that historical truth is as much the property of narrative knowledge as it is of so-called objective knowledge. It proposes a critical dialogue between Aristotelian poetics and contemporary hermeneutic readings, discussing the relations between narrative and memory, fiction and history, catharsis and testimony, narrative identity and moral responsibility. Considering the new possibilities of interactive and non-linear narration in the digital era, narrative is seen as an open-ended invitation to ethical and poetic responsiveness.
Narrative; History; Fiction; Poetics; Phenomenology