ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the constitution of communities and the modes of communication that enable their existence. It argues that conceptions of communication imply forms of community, that community depends on particular forms of communication, and that a dialectical tension exists between ideal conceptions of communication and the realization of ideal community beyond the local and ephemeral. The chapter also argues that human beings are most aptly designated homo narrans. It explains the narrative perspective on human beings restores this feature by reconstructing it in terms of narrative rationality. The chapter discusses narrative reason incorporates traditional logics as they pertain to communicative practices, but reinstates significant questions of values so that intelligence, authenticity, argumentative ability, and understanding. It offers communities are co-constituted through communication transactions in which participants coauthor a story that has coherence and fidelity for the life that one would lead.
