Integration of Narrative Thinking and Detective Logic in Chesterton’s Father Brown

Abstract

The vast body of detective stories offer a model of how to integrate two complementary forms of thinking: logic thinking and narrative thinking. This article offers an hypothesis, created by Chesterton, in which Father Brown is a paradigm of the relationship between these two forms. Since the existence of logical thinking tools has been affirmed for more than two thousand years, this article focuses on the existence of narrative thinking tools specifically in the character of Father Brown. Demonstrating the existence of these narrative thinking tools is an important first step toward achieving an integration with logic. This article therefore represents a preview of further studies that are being done as part of the doctoral thesis: How the Existence of Narrative Thinking in Chesterton’s Detective, Father Brown, equipped him to know reality. This article proposes that there is room for further study to actually codify these narrative thinking tools; just as Aristotle had done for logic. Also it points to the possibility of a detective model of thinking; especially because detective stories continue to be so popular.