Narratives and Pragmatic Arguments: Ivens’ The 400 Million

Abstract

Narratives and pragmatic arguments maintain a tight but complex relation. Narratives are a proto-scientific method to empirically investigate actions. In narratives, actions are explored, explained, interpreted, and evaluated. The action is a central element in a causal chain of events: motive – action – consequences. Storytelling is a way to summarize, share, preserve and accumulate narrative investigations. Pragmatic argumentation is another method to evaluate actions. Pragmatic arguments evaluate actions in terms of their observed or predicted consequences. Therefore, pragmatic argumentation is an abstract, intellectual complement of the narrative. Rhetorically, storytelling is supposed to appeal to reason, just as a pragmatic argument appeals to reason. Both devices are employed to support standpoints in which an action is positively or negatively evaluated, encouraged or discouraged. The rhetorical dynamics, however, differ. The justifying force of the narrative is primary, its causality is direct, motivated, embodied. The justifying force of the pragmatic argument is apodictic, grounded on abstract generalized regularities. We see this complex relation reflected in creating a documentary. In this chapter, I elaborate on the connection between narrative and pragmatic argument and illustrate its application to Joris Ivens’s 1939 documentary The 400 Million.