Non-causal Connections in Scientific Narratives

Abstract

While scientific narratives have often been studied in relation to causality and explanation, not much attention has been given to their non-causal content. This less explored aspect of narratives is addressed here. I argue that colligatory inferences underlie narrative connections and become significant when they help constitute new scientific phenomena from scattered information. Through a sedimentological case study, I identify kinship relations as non-causal connections that provide continuity to changing phenomena without relying on causal explanations. These relations depend on more basic affinities between apparently unrelated phenomena. As I will defend, such connections contribute to a non-explanatory form of understanding.