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or warrant an assertion. Such fulfillment can occur alone or with others. It can occur byreading a book, consulting an authority, performing a test, believing a good argument,confirming by experience, and so on. There are as many ways of fulfilling intentions asthere are intentions. As filled intentions, they share a common structural relationship ofpresence and absence, and an approximate correlation between the object and itssuccessive appearances. The closer I come -- or we come -- to having the appropriateevident experiences, warrants an assertion; in turn, reaching understanding communicativelyvalidates evidence. Establishing the validity of evident experience is something thatrequires intersubjective validation, achieved through a process or rational argumentationthat approximates ideal speech. In turn, evident experience establishes the objectivity ofa rationally achieved consensus. For a claim to be warranted, it must be supported by bothrational argument and appropriate evidence.The relation of narrative to argumentation is even more clear. Ricoeur himself makesthe connection apparent on a number of occasions. 21 Following his lead we can say thata narrative is an interpretation of events that raises claims of truth and normativity andthus presupposes the anticipation of consensus of universally binding reasons, whereasargumentation presupposes a narrative-interpretative framework that delimits a context ofrelevant facts to be subject to justification. “Narrative evidence” refers to the form ofdiscourse we use to make truth claims about human actions. The evidence we bring todiscussion to argue for an interpretation unfolds in a narrative, as participants raise andtest the implicit truth claims contained in an interpretation to reach consensus. Narrativeevidencethus requires a principle of universalization in order to find a fair resolution toconflicting narratives, in the absence of an overarching vantage point that everyone recognizes.In turn, the argumentative practice itself -- that would vindicate a validity claim --occurs, in part, through narration. In short, narration and argumentation overlap. Narrationrequires argumentation to redeem its validity claims to truth and normativity, given theinadequacies in a model of narrative truth as manifestation. Argumentation requiresnarration to determine what the validity claim is about, how an event is placed under anexplanatory rule, and to establish generalizable needs and vindicate normative judgments.Argumentation constitutes the “logical framework” and interpretation of the “inventiveframework.” 22The political implications of the dialectic of narrative evidence and argumentationcannot be overstated if an interpretation of history is a retelling of what happened: whatstories are told, how events are organized and assigned significance, to whom and whatresponsibility is attributed, and to whom stories are told, determine what will be preserved,remembered, judged and, above all, taken as true. To Ricoeur’s credit, he has alwaysinsisted that one can argue for the relative superiority of a conflicting interpretation byshowing how one interpretation is false or invalid, or that the possibility of one interpretationis more probable than another. It is always possible to argue for one interpretationover another. To do so, we offer evidence from experience, use creative language toreveal and to show, and rationally debate the implicit validity claims raised. This, Ibelieve, is what is implied in Ricoeur’s theory of truth, developed along the arc fromphenomenology to narrative to communicative action.2122Ricoeur, “Interpretation and/or Argumentation,” 109-126.Paul Ricoeur, “Conscience and the Law,” in idem, The Just, 153.92