Analogy in Science

يوريكا ... كثيرًا ما تُستخدم هذه الكلمة للإشارة إلى لحظة الكشف العلمي، تلك اللحظة الفارقة التي تُولد فيها فجأة فكرةٌ عبقرية في ذهن العالِم أو الباحث، فتفصل بين ما هو غير موجود وما هو موجود، أو بالأحرى بين ما هو غير معروف للمجتمع العملي وما هو سائد ومستهلك حتى بات غير مُشبع لمعالجة المزيد من الوقائع. فما الذي يدفع إلى مثل هذه اللحظة، وماذا يُمكننا أن نفعل لكي تأتي إلينا ونختبرها بشكلٍ مُتكرر؟!

Le cycle du renseignement est un ensemble de processus utilisés pour fournir des informations utiles à la prise de décision. Le cycle comprend plusieurs processus. Le domaine connexe de la contre-information est chargé d'empêcher les efforts du renseignement de tiers. Un modèle de base du processus de collecte et d'analyse du renseignement est appelé « cycle du renseignement ». Ce modèle peut être appliqué et, comme tous les modèles de base, ne reflète pas la plénitude des opérations dans le monde (...) réel. Au cours des activités du cycle du renseignement, les informations sont collectées et assemblées, les informations brutes sont transformées en informations traitées, analysées et mises à la disposition des utilisateurs. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11282.81607 . (shrink)

Un processus de collecte du renseignement commence lorsqu'un utilisateur introduit une requête dans le système. Plusieurs objets peuvent être associés au résultat d'une requête, avec différents degrés de pertinence. La plupart des systèmes estiment une valeur numérique indiquant dans quelle mesure chaque objet correspond à la requête, et classent les objets en fonction de cette valeur. De nombreuses recherches se sont concentrées sur les pratiques de recherche du renseignement: un examen approfondi de la littérature scientifique sur la recherche du renseignement (...) par des professionnels, et ont proposé un modèle analytique du comportement des professionnels en quête du renseignement. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14242.58569. (shrink)

Analiza de informații are multe asemănări epistemologice importante cu știința (rezolvarea problemelor, descoperirea, utilizarea cu abilitate a instrumentelor, verificarea cererilor de cunoștințe). Metafora puzzle este folosită atât în activitatea de informații cât și în arheologie. Ambele discipline implică colectarea de dovezi pentru a construi o imagine cât mai completă posibil. Firmele private inovatoare adaptează din ce în ce mai mult modelul serviciilor de informații la lumea afacerilor pentru a ajuta la planificarea propriilor strategii. Practica medicală de diagnosticare a identificării, colectării, (...) analizării și diseminării este similară cu cea a activității de informații. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35820.72324. (shrink)

David Singer afirmă că, în prezent, amenințarea constituie principalul obiectiv al agențiilor de informații. Activitatea de informații poate fi considerată ca fiind procesul prin care anumite tipuri de informații sunt solicitate, colectate, analizate și diseminate, și modul în care sunt concepute și desfășurate anumite tipuri de acțiuni secrete. Ciclul informațional reprezintă un set de procese utilizate pentru a furniza informații utile în luarea deciziilor. Ciclul constă din mai multe procese. Domeniul conex al contrainformațiilor este însărcinat cu împiedicarea eforturilor informative ale (...) altora. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10807.06563. (shrink)

Intelligence analysis has many important epistemological resemblances with science (problem solving, discovery, skillful use of tools, knowledge verification) and is more interested in a posteriori than a priori knowledge, on how or the basis on which a proposition may be known. The puzzle metaphor is used in both information and archeology. Both disciplines involve collecting evidence to build as complete a picture as possible. The process of converting raw information into actionable processed intelligence is almost identical for governmental and business (...) organizations. The medical practice of diagnosing identification, collection, analysis and dissemination is similar to that of intelligence. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26511.12963. (shrink)

Maps and mapping raise questions about models and modeling and in science. This chapter archives map discourse in the founding generation of philosophers of science (e.g., Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn, and Stephen Toulmin) and in the subsequent generation (e.g., Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, and Bas van Fraassen). In focusing on these two original framing generations of philosophy of science, I intend to remove us from the heat of contemporary discussions of abstraction, representation, and practice of science and thereby (...) see in a more distant and neutral light the many productive ways in which maps can stand in analytically for scientific theories and models. The chapter concludes by complementing the map analogy – i.e., a scientific theory is a map of the world – with a model analogy, viz., a scientific model is a vehicle for understanding. (shrink)

This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I further (...) distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)

As testing of ChatGPT has shown, this form of artificial intelligence has the potential to develop, which requires improving its software and other hardware that allows it to learn, i.e., to acquire and use new knowledge, to contact its developers with suggestions for improvement, or to reprogram itself without their participation. Как показало тестирование ChatGPT, эта форма искусственного интеллекта имеет потенциал развития, для чего необходимо усовершенствовать её программное и прочее техническое обеспечение, позволяющее ей учиться, т.е. приобретать и использовать новые знания, (...) обращаться к её разработчикам с предложениями по усовершенствованию, или производить самопрограммирование без их участия. (shrink)

This research paper aims to study analogy as a comparative thinking and to investigate whether it is justified in claiming that an analogical thought has cognitive content. Two theories in cognitive science claim that analogy has cognitive content. The first one is called the weak view of analogy in cognition, e.g. the works of Gust et al. (2008), Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Hesse (1950), Black (1955); and the second one is called the strong view of analogy in cognition, e.g. the (...) works of Hofstadter (2001), Hofstadter& Sanders (2013). According to the weak view, analogical thought is only a necessary condition of cognition. But for the strong view, analogy is both necessary and sufficient of cognition. Regardless of the differences, both theories are not justified in claiming analogical content. While the weak view cannot provide an account of the perceptual aspect of content, the strong view suffers from the lack of normative constraint for analogical content. -/- Keywords: analogy, comparative thinking, concept, cognitive content, philosophy of cognitive science . (shrink)

This thesis is a sceptical investigation into the notion that the metaphorical wave-particle binary of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is related to quantum physics. Indeed, the field of literature and science has employed conceptual similarities as the main means of connecting quantum concepts to novels, however, this has led to a host of scholarly difficulties, prompting the need for a re-examination of analogical linkages. Woolf is the model candidate for such a re-examination, given her historical and philosophical proximity with (...) the developments of quantum mechanics. To the Lighthouse, in particular, was written between 1925 and 1927: precisely when quantum physicists were attempting to resolve the wave-particle duality, leading to Niels Bohr's complementarity. This parallel has been noted by researchers as relevant to the novel, as it too displays a general binary that can be read as wave-particle-like, which the author also attempts to resolve along similar philosophical lines. Nevertheless, other than proximity and similarity, there are no reasons to affirm that the science is related to the novel; hence, it is an ideal case study to examine in order to ascertain the value of conceptual similarities in literature and science. To do so, To the Lighthouse's binary and its resolution are interpreted in a thesis-long close reading, in order to compare aspects of it firstly to Woolf's personal thought, and secondly to various non-quantum intellectual contexts that preceded and surrounded her. In doing so, it becomes clear not only that invoking quantum physics serves no clear purpose in better understanding the novel, but also that the notion of resolving wave- particle-like binaries was a widespread philosophical procedure at the turn of the century, decades before Bohr's concept. This negative conclusion interrogates what the scholarly value of interpreting similarities is, though a hypothetical solution can be found in conceptual metaphor theory. (shrink)

Researchers have suggested since the early days of quantum theory that there are strong analogies between quantum phenomena and mental phenomena and these have developed into a vibrant new field of quantum cognition during recent decades. After revisiting some early analogies by Niels Bohr and David Bohm, this paper focuses upon Bohm and Hiley’s ontological interpretation of quantum theory which suggests further analogies between quantum phenomena and biological and psychological phenomena, including the proposal that the human brain operates in some (...) ways like a quantum measuring apparatus. After discussing these analogies I will also consider, from a quantum perspective, Hintikka’s suggestion that Kant’s notion of things in themselves can be better understood by making an analogy between our knowledge-seeking activities and an elaborate measuring apparatus. (shrink)

This article explores the use of model organisms in studying the cognitive phenomenon of decision-making. Drawing on the framework of biological control to develop a skeletal conception of decision-making, we show that two core features of decision-making mechanisms can be identified by studying model organisms, such as E. coli, jellyfish, C. elegans, lamprey, and so on. First, decision mechanisms are distributed and heterarchically structured. Second, they depend heavily on chemical information processing, such as that involving neuromodulators. We end by discussing (...) the implications for studying distinctively human decision-making. (shrink)

Reasoning about analogical arguments is known to be subject to a variety of cognitive biases, and a lack of clarity about which factors can be considered strengths or weaknesses of an analogical argument. This can make it difficult both to design empirical experiments to study how people reason about analogical arguments, and to develop scalable tutoring tools for teaching how to reason and analyze analogical arguments. To address these concerns, we describe WG-A (Warrant Game — Analogy), a framework for people (...) to analyze analogical arguments based on Bartha’s (2010) Articulation Model of analogical argumentation. We carry out two experiments designed to probe WG-A’s effectiveness in improving participants’ ability to reason about analogical arguments and argumentation in general, and argue that WG-A is a promising approach, though it is in need of further development. (shrink)

The second edition of the work of the Brazilian physicist Paulo C. Abrantes (2016), entitled Images of nature, images of science, is a good alternative for students of history and philosophy of science. The reason is Abrantes' thesis in this work: to defend that the development of scientific knowledge is dependent on the influence of different images of "nature" and "science" existing during the history of Western scientific-philosophical thought; and an advocate for the historian of science Studying as reasons that (...) allow the adoption of such images at a given time. Through the analysis of historical cases of scientific thought, Abrantes argues that the consolidation of research programs in different subareas of natural science - such as biology, physics and chemistry - was only possible due to the influence, in particular time, of images of nature and science. (shrink)

Discussion of modeling within philosophy of science has focused in how models, understood as finished products, represent the world. This approach has some issues accounting for the value of modeling in situations where there are controversies as to which should be the object of representation. In this work I show that a historical analysis of modeling complements the aforementioned representational program, since it allows us to examine processes of integration of analogies that play a role in the generation of criteria (...) of relevance, which are important for the configuration of the object of research. This, in turn, shows that there are norms in modeling practices whose historical reconstruction is relevant for their philosophical analysis. (shrink)

In recent decades, philosophers of science have devoted considerable efforts to understand what models represent. One popular position is that models represent fictional situations. Another position states that, though models often involve fictional elements, they represent real objects or scenarios. Though these two positions may seem to be incompatible, I believe it is possible to reconcile them. Using a threefold distinction between different signs proposed by Peirce, I develop an argument based on a proposal recently made by Kralemann and Lattman (...) (in Synthese 190:3397–3420, 2013) that shows that the two aforementioned positions can be reconciled by distinguishing different ways in which a model representation can be used. In particular, on the basis of Peirce’s distinction between icons, indices and symbols, I argue that models can sometimes function as icons, sometimes as indexes and sometimes as symbols, depending on the context in which they are considered and the use that they are developed for because they all have iconic, indexical and symbolic features. In addition, I show that conceiving models as signs enables us to develop an account of scientific representation that meets the main desiderata that Shech (in Synthese 192:3463–3485, 2015) presents. (shrink)

Design plays an integral role in the functions of modern society. Yet the abstract process by which designers carry out their work is not obvious. The study of design thinking has grown in recent years into a major area of academic research, yet it presently lacks a clear theoretical basis; and as a discipline, its methodologies are disparate. Here, we outline and clarify the framework of the scholarly study of design thinking, introducing the major ideas and concepts upon which the (...) field is based. We then discuss in detail the various methodological issues of the field, and argue that, in its current state, the field of design thinking cannot sustain itself as an independent area of academic research. We suggest that design thinking may best be studied from a sociological or science, technology, and society (STS) studies perspective. (shrink)

Analogical reasoning is often employed in problem-solving and metaphor interpretation. This paper submits that, as a default, analogical reasoning addressing these different tasks employs different mapping strategies: In problem-solving, it employs analogy-maximising strategies (like structure mapping, Gentner & Markman 1997); in metaphor interpretation, analogy-minimising strategies (like ATT-Meta, Barnden 2015). The two strategies interact in analogical reasoning with conceptual metaphors. This interaction leads to predictable fallacies. The paper supports these hypotheses through case-studies on ‘mind’-metaphors from ordinary discourse, and abstract problem-solving in (...) the philosophy of mind, respectively: It shows that (1) default metaphorical interpretations for vision- and space-cognition metaphors can be derived with a variant of the analogy-minimising ATT-Meta approach, (2) philosophically influential introspective conceptions of the mind can be derived with conceptual metaphors only through an analogy-maximising strategy, and (3) the interaction of these strategies leads to hitherto unrecognised fallacies in analogical reasoning with metaphors. This yields a debunking explanation of introspective conceptions. (shrink)

There are a bewildering variety of claims connecting Darwin to nineteenth-century philosophy of science—including to Herschel, Whewell, Lyell, German Romanticism, Comte, and others. I argue here that Herschel’s influence on Darwin is undeniable. The form of this influence, however, is often misunderstood. Darwin was not merely taking the concept of “analogy” from Herschel, nor was he combining such an analogy with a consilience as argued for by Whewell. On the contrary, Darwin’s Origin is written in precisely the manner that one (...) would expect were Darwin attempting to model his work on the precepts found in Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on Natural Science. While Hodge has worked out a careful interpretation of both Darwin and Herschel, drawing similar conclusions, his interpretation misreads Herschel’s use of the vera causa principle and the verification of hypotheses. The new reading that I present here resolves this trouble, combining Hodge’s careful treatment of the structure of the Origin with a more cautious understanding of Herschel’s philosophy of science. This interpretation lets us understand why Darwin laid out the Origin in the way that he did and also why Herschel so strongly disagreed, including in Herschel’s heretofore unanalyzed marginalia in his copy of Darwin’s book. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure and the defeasibility conditions of argument from analogy, addressing the issues of determining the nature of the comparison underlying the analogy and the types of inferences justifying the conclusion. In the dialectical tradition, different forms of similarity were distinguished and related to the possible inferences that can be drawn from them. The kinds of similarity can be divided into four categories, depending on whether they represent fundamental semantic features of the (...) terms of the comparison or non-semantic ones, indicating possible characteristics of the referents. Such distinct types of similarity characterize different kinds of analogical arguments, all based on a similar general structure, in which a common genus is abstracted. Depending on the nature of the abstracted common feature, different rules of inference will apply, guaranteeing the attribution of the analogical predicate to the genus and to the primary subject. This analysis of similarity and the relationship thereof with the rules of inference allows a deeper investigation of the defeasibility conditions. (shrink)

En el artículo se defiende que si se acepta la superación entre fundacionismo y coherentismo que plantea Ernest Sosa y se sostiene una teoría de la justificación epistémica basada en el ejercicio de virtudes intelectuales, esta no es condición suficiente para usar el razonamiento analógico en la investigación arqueológica. Por ende, aunque se puede sostener su necesidad para utilizar la analogía, no es suficiente a menos que se recurra a la virtud de la responsabilidad (Code) como eje de la justificación (...) epistémica. Finalmente se discute su viabilidad e importancia para el caso de la arqueología en México. (shrink)

A number of researchers today make an appeal to quantum physics when trying to develop a satisfactory account of the mind, an appeal still felt to be controversial by many. Often these "quantum approaches" try to explain some well-known features of conscious experience (or mental processes more generally), thus using quantum physics to enrich the explanatory framework or explanans used in consciousness studies and cognitive science. This paper considers the less studied question of whether quantum physical intuitions could help us (...) to draw attention to new or neglected aspects of the mind in introspection, and in this way change our view about what needs explanation in the first place. Although prima facie implausible, it is suggested that this could happen, for example, if there were analogies between quantum processes and mental processes (e.g., the process of thinking). The naive idea is that such analogies would help us to see mental processes and conscious experience in a new way. It has indeed been proposed long ago that such analogies exist, and this paper first focuses at some length on David Bohm's formulation of them from 1951. It then briefly considers these analogies in relation to Smolensky's more recent analogies between cognitive science and physics, and Pylkko's aconceptual view of the mind. Finally, Bohm's early analogies will be briefly considered in relation to the analogies between quantum processes and the mind he proposed in his later work. -/- [This article is a modified version of an article that was first published in the anthology Being and Brain: At the Boundary between Science, Philosophy, Language and Arts, ed. by G. Globus, K. Pribram and G. Vitiello, Advances in Consciousness Research 58, John Benjamins, Amsterdam 2004, pp. 165-195.]. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present two kinds of analogical representational change, both occurring early in the analogy-making process, and then, using these two kinds of change, to present a model unifying one sort of analogy-making and categorization. The proposed unification rests on three key claims: (1) a certain type of rapid representational abstraction is crucial to making the relevant analogies (this is the first kind of representational change; a computer model is presented that demonstrates this kind of (...) abstraction), (2) rapid abstractions are induced by retrieval across large psychological distances, and (3) both categorizations and analogies supply understandings of perceptual input via construing, which is a proposed type of categorization (this is the second kind of representational change). It is construing that finalizes the unification. (shrink)

Analogy-making is finding analogies between different situations. In this paper, we provide a new model of computational analogy-making which uses Situation Theory as its formal background. Situation Theory is a semantic and logical theory which provides a naturalistic way to represent relations in situations. The system described in this paper is aimed at solving analogy problems made by basic geometric figures in a chessboard-like environment.

A short reconstruction of the transformations of the Greek classical analogy between the body and the city through the Arabic philosophy, the Renaissance political thought, and the origins of modern science up to Adam Smith and the shaping of political economy.

A number of researchers today make an appeal to quantum physics when trying to develop a satisfactory account of the mind, an appeal still felt to be controversial by many. Often these "quantum approaches" try to explain some well-known features of conscious experience (or mental processes more generally), thus using quantum physics to enrich the explanatory framework or explanans used in consciousness studies and cognitive science. This paper considers the less studied question of whether quantum physical intuitions could help us (...) to draw attention to new or neglected aspects of the mind in introspection, and in this way change our view about what needs explanation in the rst place. Although prima facie implausible, it is suggested that this could happen, for example, if there were analogies between quantum processes and mental processes (e.g., the process of thinking). The naive idea is that such analogies would help us to see mental processes and conscious experience in a new way. It has indeed been proposed long ago that such analogies exist, and this paper rst focuses at some length on David Bohm's formulation of them from 1951. It then briefly considers these analogies in relation to Smolensky's more recent analogies between cognitive science and physics, and Pylkko's aconceptual view of the mind. Finally, Bohm's early analogies will be briefly considered in relation to the analogies between quantum processes and the mind he proposed in his later work. (shrink)

Analogical reminding in humans and machines is a great source for chance discoveries because analogical reminding can produce representational change and thereby produce insights. Here, we present a new kind of representational change associated with analogical reminding called packing. We derived the algorithm in part from human data we have on packing. Here, we explain packing and its role in analogy making, and then present a computer model of packing in a micro-domain. We conclude that packing is likely used in (...) human chance discoveries, and is needed if our machines are to make their own chance discoveries. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the ways in which metaphors are used in the text of “The Wealth of Nations”. Its claims are: a) metaphor statements are basically similar to those in the “Theory of the Moral Sentiments”; b) the metaphors’ ‘primary subjects’ refer to mechanics, hydraulics, blood circulation, agriculture, medicine; c) metaphors may be lumped together into a couple of families, the family of mechanical analogies, and that of iatro-political analogies. Further claims are: a basic physico-moral analogy is the framework for (...) Smith’s psychological theory as well as for his overall social theory and for his theory of market mechanisms; a iatro-mechanical analogy is as pervasive as the physico-moral analogy and provides the framework for his overall evolutionary theory of society; the invisible-hand simile relies on the physico-moral analogy, and elaborates on the role of vis attractiva and vis a tergo in mechanics. (shrink)

Sometimes analogy researchers talk as if the freshness of an experience of analogy resides solely in seeing that something is like something else -- seeing that the atom is like a solar system, that heat is like flowing water, that paint brushes work like pumps, or that electricity is like a teeming crowd. But analogy is more than this. Analogy isn't just seeing that the atom is like a solar system; rather, it is seeing something new about the atom, an (...) observation enabled by 'looking' at atoms from the perspective of one's understanding of solar systems. The question for analogy researchers then is this: Where does this new knowledge about atoms come from? How can an analogy provide new knowledge and new understanding? (shrink)

يناقش الكتاب دور النماذج الفكرية والمادية في اكتساب وتشكيل كافة أنماط المعارف الإنسانية، بداية من المعرفة العادية التي يسعى بها عامة الناس إلى فهم ما يدور حولهم من أمور الحياة، ومرورًا بالمعارف الفلسفية والدينية والفنية التي تحكم توجهات الإنسان العقلانية والوجدانية، ووصولاً إلى المعرفة العلمية الرامية إلى فهم ظواهر الكون وترويضها وفقًا لقوانين حاكمة. ويطرح الكتاب فرضًا أساسيًا مؤداه أن ما يتلفظ به العلماء من كلمات مثل «الفرض» و«القانون» و«النظرية» ما هي إلا أسماء مترادفة لشيء واحد يصب في خانة «النموذج»، (...) وإذا كان ثمة فرق بين ما نعنيه بهذه الكلمات، فهو في الحقيقة فرقٌ في الدرجة لا في النوع، أو هو فرق بين نموذج أولي في مرحلة الفرض، وبين ذات النموذج في مرحلة القانون أو النظرية، وعلى هذا فمن الأجدر بنا ألا نتحدث عن فرض أو قانون أو نظرية، وإنما عن «نموذج علمي» يمر بمراحل متعددة حتى يتم تأكيده وقبوله، وهو في الوقت ذاته عُرضة لأن يحل محله نموذج آخر إذا اتسعت دائرة البحث لتشمل وقائع أخرى لا يحتويها النموذج أو يعجز عن تفسيرها. (shrink)

A short reconstruction of the origins of the concept of metaphor, the early modern mistrust of metaphor in the name of univocal scientific language, the twentieth century rescue of the cognitive value of metaphor.

A model of analogical mapping is proposed that uses five principles to generate consistent and conflicting hypotheses regarding assignments of elements of a source domain to analogous elements of a target domain. The principles follow the fine conceptual structure of the domains. The principles are: (1) the principle of proportional analogy; (2) the principle of mereological analogy, (3) the principle of chain reinforcement; (4) the principle of transitive reinforcement; and (5) the principle of mutual inconsistency. A constraint-satisfaction network is used (...) to find the set of assignments that preserves the greatest relational structure of the source. In contrast to the model proposed here, most models of analogical mapping use only the principle of proportional analogy. The use of many principles is shown to be superior in that it permits smoother integration of pragmatic factors and results in a more efficient mapping process. (shrink)

A review of Ch.M.A. Clark, Economic Theory and Natural Philosophy. The Search for the Natural Laws of the Economy. The key point of my critical appraisal is lack of univocal definition of nature, natural law and natural philosophy.

The discovery of the role of models in science by Granger parallels the analogous discovery made by Mary Hesse and Marx Wartofsky. The role models are granted highlights the linguistic dimension of science, resulting in a 'softening' of Bachelard's rationalistic epistemology without lapsing into relativism. A 'linguistic' theory of metaphor, as contrasted with Bachelard's 'psychological' theory, is basic to Granger's account of models. A final paragraph discusses to what extent Granger's 'mature' theory of models would imply a revision of his (...) early economic methodology. (shrink)

We analyze the logical form of the domain knowledge that grounds analogical inferences and generalizations from a single instance. The form of the assumptions which justify analogies is given schematically as the "determination rule", so called because it expresses the relation of one set of variables determining the values of another set. The determination relation is a logical generalization of the different types of dependency relations defined in database theory. Specifically, we define determination as a relation between schemata of first (...) order logic that have two kinds of free variables: (1) object variables and (2) what we call "polar" variables, which hold the place of truth values. Determination rules facilitate sound rule inference and valid conclusions projected by analogy from single instances, without implying what the conclusion should be prior to an inspection of the instance. They also provide a way to specify what information is sufficiently relevant to decide a question, prior to knowledge of the answer to the question. (shrink)

This essay (a revised version of my undergraduate honors thesis at Stanford) constructs a theory of analogy as it applies to argumentation and reasoning, especially as used in fields such as philosophy and law. The word analogy has been used in different senses, which the essay defines. The theory developed herein applies to analogia rationis, or analogical reasoning. Building on the framework of situation theory, a type of logical relation called determination is defined. This determination relation solves a puzzle about (...) analogy in the context of logical argument, namely, whether an analogous situation contributes anything logically over and above what could be inferred from the application of prior knowledge to a present situation. Scholars of reasoning have often claimed that analogical arguments are never logically valid, and that they therefore lack cogency. However, when the right type of determination structure exists, it is possible to prove that projecting a conclusion inferred by analogy onto the situation about which one is reasoning is both valid and non-redundant. Various other properties and consequences of the determination relation are also proven. Some analogical arguments are based on principles such as similarity, which are not logically valid. The theory therefore provides us with a way to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate arguments. It also provides an alternative to procedures based on the assessment of similarity for constructing analogies in artificial intelligence systems. (shrink)

This paper will attempt to offer a defence of to the Multiverse (MV) hypotheses, in the context of the theistic Fine Tuning Argument (FTA). It will be argued that theistic proponents of the FTA who argue that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) are, themselves, guilty of moving the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine analogy will be used to demonstrate how the This Universe Objection (TUO), first (...) outlined by White (2000) and further clarified by Draper et al (2007), fails to adequately account for the anthropic principle (or selection effect). (shrink)