From Positivist Ratiocination to Metaphysical Paradox: Epistemological Shifts and Character Typologies in Victorian and Golden Age British Detective Fiction

Abstract

Abstract

This article investigates the profound epistemological transition in British detective fiction from late-Victorian positivist ratiocination to interwar metaphysical paradox. Challenging linear teleological models that trace a seamless evolution from Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle to the classical Golden Age puzzle, the study examines how fundamental shifts in philosophical paradigms dictate evolving plot architectures and character typologies. By deploying a rigorous comparative narratological framework across Conan Doyle's forensic paradigm, G. K. Chesterton's theological subversions, and the ludic formalism of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, the inquiry demonstrates that detective literature functions as a primary ideological arena for interrogating the limits of human cognition, the contested authority of the sovereign rational subject, and the structural intelligibility of modern empirical reality. The comparative textual analysis reveals that while nineteenth-century narratives rely heavily on empirical legibility, forensic quantification, and material mastery to secure imperial and scientific order, subsequent twentieth-century developments systematically subvert these foundational tenets. Through close readings of canonical texts, the research illustrates how the genre gradually abandons absolute deductive certainty, replacing it with hermeneutic ambiguity, spiritual paradox, and self-reflexive narrative play that mirror broader modernist anxieties concerning truth, authority, and systemic contingency. Ultimately, the detective figure transforms from an omniscient positivist arbiter into a vulnerable participant navigating a fundamentally fragmented cosmos.