The biographical method in social sciences is confronted on the one hand with
sceptical arguments from contemporary constructivist and ethno-methodologist
approaches. These arguments are concerned with the ‘truth conditions’ of life
stories, especially of narrative sentences as statements about past events. On
the other hand - from the analytic or nomologic standpoint - biographical
analyses were accused of being only description, and therefore, lacking
explanation.
These apparently newer arguments have been already discussed in
principle by Arthur C. Danto in his prominent work on the ‘analytic
philosophy of history’. I want to show that his refutations concerning sceptical
and deductive-nomologic arguments against statements about past events in
history can also be taken to defend biographical analysis of life narrations
against recent constructivist, ethno-methodologist and analytic critics.
Especially, the problem of explanation is illustrated by the exemplary parts of a narrative interview
