Analogical cognition refers to the ability to detect, process, and learn from relational similarities. The study of analogical and similarity cognition is widely considered one of the ‘success stories’ of cognitive science, exhibiting convergence across many disciplines on foundational questions. Given the centrality of analogy to mind and knowledge, it would benefit philosophers investigating topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language to become familiar with empirical models of analogical cognition. The goal of this essay is to (...) describe recent empirical work on analogical cognition as well as model applications to philosophical topics. Topics to be discussed include the epistemological distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, the debate between empiricists and nativists, the frame problem, expertise, creativity and autism, cognitive architecture, and relational knowledge. Particular attention is given to Dedre Gentner and colleague’s structure-mapping theory – the most developed and widely accepted model of analogical cognition. (shrink)

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (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)

The evidential value of moral intuitions has been challenged by psychological work showing that the intuitions of ordinary people are affected by distorting factors. One reply to this challenge, the expertise defence, claims that training in philosophical thinking confers enhanced reliability on the intuitions of professional philosophers. This defence is often expressed through analogy: since we do not allow doubts about folk judgments in domains like mathematics or physics to undermine the plausibility of judgments by experts in these domains, (...) we also should not do so in philosophy. In this paper I clarify the logic of the analogy strategy, and defend it against recent challenges by Jesper Ryberg. The discussion exposes an interesting divide: while Ryberg’s challenges may weaken analogies between morality and domains like mathematics, they do not affect analogies to other domains, such as physics. I conclude that the expertise defence can be supported by analogical means, though care is required in selecting an appropriate analog. I discuss implications of this conclusion for the expertise defence debate and for study of the moral domain itself. (shrink)

From the political point of view, European Union (EU) integration implies some kind of unity in the community constituted by EU citizens. Unity is difficult to attain if the diversity of citizens (and their nations) is to be respected. A thick bond that melts members' diversity into a 'European pot' is therefore out of the question. On the other hand, giving up unity altogether makes political integration impossible. Through a meta-theoretical analysis of normative positions, this paper proposes a composed notion (...) of European identity that links without binding. It contains four facets – cultural, political, social, external – with nuances, expressed in three binaries, that cut across all of them – history-project, ethos-achievement, commonness-uncommonness. I will submit that a workable European identity (and the related concepts of unity, polity and citizenship) can be better conceived as analogical – a mid way between blending unity and irreconcilable diversity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about (...) substance and relation in the Trinity. I then show how Aquinas appeals to key structural features of analogical concepts, notably, the simpliciter/secundum quid characterization, to resolve apparent conflicts between the unity of substance and distinction of relations in the Trinity. (shrink)

St. Anselm is a master of philosophical prose. His writings on God, truth, and free will are models of clarity born of unflagging concern for argumentative precision. He is especially adept at using analogies to cinch his readers' understanding of these recondite matters. Who could forget the light shed upon the concept of existence by the Painter Analogy in the Ontological Argument or how his River Analogy illumines the unification of the Holy Trinity? Such intellectual insights could only (...) be gifts of the Holy Ghost for the edification of Holy Mother Church. I shall discuss here the three splendid analogies that St. Anselm draws in De Concordia in order to reconcile grace and free will, fostering an understanding of co-operation according to which divine assistance must accentuate, rather than nullify, exercises of human freedom. Central to my discussion is The Father of Scholasticism's four-fold distinction between a power, its exercises, the effects of those exercises, and opportunities to bring about those effects. (shrink)

St. Anselm is a master of philosophical prose. His writings on God, truth, and free will are models of clarity born of unflagging concern for argumentative precision. He is especially adept at using analogies to cinch his readers' understanding of these recondite matters. Who could forget the light shed upon the concept of existence by the Painter Analogy in the Ontological Argument or how his River Analogy illumines the unification of the Holy Trinity? Such intellectual insights could only (...) be gifts of the Holy Ghost for the edification of the Holy Mother Church. I shall discuss here the three splendid analogies that St. Anselm draws in De Concordia in order to reconcile grace and free will, fostering an understanding of cooperation according to which divine assistance must accentuate, rather than nullify, exercises of human freedom. Central to my discussion is The Father of Scholasticism's four-fold distinction between a power, its exercises, the effects of those exercises, and opportunities to bring about those effects. (shrink)

Argument from analogy is a common and formidable form of reasoning in law and in everyday conversation. Although there is substantial literature on the subject, according to a recent survey ( Juthe 2005) there is little fundamental agreement on what form the argument should take, or on how it should be evaluated. Th e lack of conformity, no doubt, stems from the complexity and multiplicity of forms taken by arguments that fall under the umbrella of analogical reasoning in argumentation, (...) dialectical studies, and law. Modeling arguments with argumentation schemes has proven useful in attempts to refine the analyst’s understanding of not only the logical structures that shape the backbone of the argument itself, but also the logical underpinning of strategies for evaluating it, strategies based on the semantic categories of genus and relevance. By clarifying the distinction between argument from example and argument from analogy, it is possible to advance a useful proposal for the treatment of argument from analogy in law. (shrink)

In this article, we address fallacious analogical reasoning and the Metaphoric Fallacy to a Deductive Inference (MFDI), recently discussed by B. Lightbody and M. Berman (2010). We claim that the authors’ proposal to introduce a new fallacy is only partly justified. We also argue that, in some relevant cases, fallacious analogical reasoning involving metaphors is only affected by the use of quaternio terminorum.

In this paper, we outline a comprehensive approach to composed analogies based on the theory of conceptual spaces. Our algorithmic model understands analogy as a search procedure and builds upon the idea that analogical similarity depends on a conceptual phenomena called ‘dimensional salience.’ We distinguish between category-based, property-based, event-based, and part-whole analogies, and propose computationally-oriented methods for explicating them in terms of conceptual spaces.

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)

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)

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)

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)

It has often been said that metaphors are based on analogies, but the nature of this relation has never been made precise. This article rigorously and formally specifies two semantic relations that do obtain between some metaphors and analogies. We argue that analogies often provide conditions of meaningfulness and truth for metaphors. An analogy is treated as an isomorphism from a source to topic domain. Metaphors are thought of as surface structures. Formal analogical conditions of meaningfulness and truth are (...) fully and rigorously worked out for several grammatical classes of metaphors. By providing analogical meaningfulness and truth conditions for metaphors, this article shows that truth-conditional semantics can be extended to metaphors. (shrink)

Traditionally, the ideas of “intuitive” and “discursive” forms of understanding have been seen as near opposites. Whereas an intuitive understanding could have a direct grasp of something, a discursive understanding would always depend on what is given to it, as mediated by concepts. In this essay, I suggest that Paul Ricoeur’s conception of analogy presents a way of overcoming this opposition. For Ricoeur, an analogy works within discursive understanding, but it depends on an eventful insight that leads beyond (...) what is merely given in discourse. The analogy “gives more” for thought. Yet, as I argue, what analogy gives for thought is always explicable in conceptual terms: any intuitive understanding is commensurate with a discursive one. I illustrate Ricoeur’s mediation of discursive and intuitive understanding in particular with his conception of metaphor, which vividly depends on overcoming a discursive contradiction by analogical and intuitive means. Before introducing Ricoeur’s conception, I discuss the Kantian background of the intuitive/discursive distinction. In particular, I suggest how Goethe’s attempt to revitalize a notion of intuitive understanding can be compared to Ricoeur’s conception, though Ricoeur improves upon Goethe by grounding intuition in the specific phenomenon of analogy. (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)

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)

I argue that Stephen Wykstra’s much discussed Parent Analogy is helpful in responding to the evidential problem of evil when it is expanded upon from a positive skeptical theist framework. This framework, defended by John Depoe, says that although we often remain in the dark about the first-order reasons that God allows particular instances of suffering, we can have positive second-order reasons that God would create a world with seemingly gratuitous evils. I respond to recent challenges to the Parent (...) Analogy by arguing that God, like a good parent, wants a rightly ordered relationship of mutual love with created beings. (shrink)

This paper investigates a famous argument, first introduced by Richard Taylor, that attempts to establish a radical similarity in the concepts of space and time. The argument contends that the spatial and temporal aspects of material bodies are much more alike, or analogous, than has been hitherto acknowledged. As will be demonstrated, most of the previous investigations of Taylor and company have failed to pinpoint the weakest link in their complex of analogies. By concentrating on their most fundamental cases, however, (...) a substantial difference, or disanalogy, can be brought to light that undermines this purported equivalence of space and time. (shrink)

According to the deliberative view of democracy, the legitimacy of democratic politics is closely tied to whether the use of political power is accompanied by a process of rational deliberation among the citizenry and their representatives. Critics have questioned whether this level of deliberative capacity is even possible among modern citizenries--due to limitations of time, energy, and differential backgrounds--which therefore calls into question the very possibility of this type of democracy. In my dissertation, I counter this line of criticism, arguing (...) that deliberative democrats and their critics have both idealized the wrong kind of citizen deliberation. Citizen deliberation should not be concerned with the indeterminate project of "translating" abstract democratic principles and values into everyday cases of political problem-solving. Instead, deliberation should take the form of analogy, just as we already find it in everyday politics and affairs. When ordinary citizens use analogies, they do not derive decisions from general principles or values, but they still reason nonetheless. Seen from this analogical perspective, deliberative democracy is already a practical reality to a large degree. When an election is on the horizon, a campaign season arises in which debates, forums, and "barstool" dialogues exponentially increase the amount of citizen deliberation. In these settings, citizens can readily be seen to be mapping analogous past candidates, elections, issues, and problems onto those currently on the ballot so as to reason about them. Consequently, analogical reasoning allows citizens to treat the majority rule mechanisms that proliferate in real politics as "deliberative outlets," which is to say, as catalysts of deliberation akin to the "creative outlets" that catalyze self-expression in the arts. While citizens may recognize majority rule mechanisms as catalysts of deliberation, many democratic theorists will hesitate to embrace this vision of the practical reality of deliberative politics. Isn't analogical reasoning too low in rigor to be placed at the heart of the deliberative ideal? I develop two arguments to explain the foundational role analogy plays in deliberation and to counter such critics. First, I draw on the explosion of research on analogical reasoning over the past two decades to show that it is far more rigorous and systematic than many suppose. Second, I argue that to the extent that citizen deliberation is concerned with rational planning, rather than just reasoning in general, analogical reasoning is logically superior. When we reason about what to do, we make plans that incorporate predictions about what is likely to ensue when a given course of action is selected. However, as soon as predictions enter into deliberation, its underlying logic changes as well. The reason for this change in logic is that as our probabilistic reasoning expands, the probability of its conclusions degenerates. Therefore, when assessing probabilities, we no longer should seek decisions derived from long, elegant chains of reasoning that connect our various options to generalities like values and principles. Instead, what we need is "short and sweet," or terse, humble lines of reasoning, which are more congruent with this form of deliberation. Thus, to the extent that democratic deliberation is involved in rational planning, it calls not for the elegant, deductive kind of reasoning idealized by proponents and critics of deliberative democracy alike. Instead, democratic deliberation calls for the "short and sweet," analogical kind of decision-making we associate with ordinary citizens already. After all, as research has shown, analogies are a much preferred and rigorous way by which even experts engage in probabilistic reasoning. By focusing on analogical reasoning, I therefore conclude that the practical reality of deliberative democracy should be recognized in ways that might ordinarily be dismissed. (shrink)

The paper explores the handling of singular analogy in quantitative inductive logics. It concentrates on two analogical patterns coextensive with the traditional argument from analogy: perfect and imperfect analogy. Each is examined within Carnap’s λ-continuum, Carnap’s and Stegmüller’s λ-η continuum, Carnap’s Basic System, Hintikka’s α-λ continuum, and Hintikka’s and Niiniluoto’s K-dimensional system. Itis argued that these logics handle perfect analogies with ease, and that imperfect analogies, while unmanageable in some logics, are quite manageable in others. The paper (...) concludes with a modification of the K-dimensional system that synthesizes independent proposals by Kuipers and Niiniluoto. (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.

The most contentious tenet of Husserl's phenomenology of feelings is his conclusion that there is an analogy between axiological reason and theoretical reason. Simply, Husserl asserts that the axiological validation of feelings is analogical to the theoretical validation of judgments. While the scholarship has debated the merits of Husserl's analogy over the last 120 years, this paper presents a new accurate interpretation, because it is the first to highlight how Husserl develops this analogy by most often comparing (...) the fulfillment of judgments to the fulfillment of wish feeling intentions. Specifically, I examine how Husserl analogizes wish fulfillment to theoretical fulfillment at different times; in the 1901 Logical Investigations, in his 1908 Lectures on Ethics, and in 1910 manuscripts from Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. In light of this original interpretation, I conclude by arguing – contra popular readings – that Husserl does not over‐intellectualize feelings and their validation. (shrink)

Structural analogies connect Williamson’s epistemology and action theory: for example, action is the direction-of-fit mirror image of knowledge, and knowledge stands to belief as action stands to intention. These structural analogies, for Williamson, are meant to illuminate more generally how ‘mirrors’ reversing direction of fit should be understood as connecting the spectrum of our cognitive and practically oriented mental states. This paper has two central aims, one negative and the other positive. The negative aim is to highlight some intractable problems (...) with Williamson’s preferred analogical picture, which links the cognitive and the practical through the nexus of direction-of-fit mirroring. The positive aim of the paper is to propose a better alternative. In particular, we show that an achievement-theoretic proposal captures what is in common across the range of attitudes that exhibit the kind of structure that knowledge-belief, action-desire/intention do, while at the same time avoiding the problems shown to face Williamson’s proposed picture. Moreover, we draw attention to several key theoretical benefits of embracing our proposed achievement-theoretic picture, including some of the key benefits of the knowledge-first programme that Williamson’s own analogies were designed to secure. (shrink)

Cajetan's treatment of analogy in De Nominum Analogia is well known as the most influential and sophisticated theory of a central issue in Thomistic philosophy. The late twentieth century saw that theory subject to a family of criticisms. If the critics are correct, Cajetan's analogy theory is also significant historically for exposing weaknesses latent in medieval semantic assumptions. According to the critics, the Aristotelian assumptions that words signify by means of discrete “concepts,” and that the meaning of propositions (...) depends on the significations of its component terms, cannot do justice to the complexity, variety, and flexibility of actual human discourse; in De Nominum Analogia they see the elegant structure of classical semantics collapsing under the pressure of analogical language. In this article, I examine these criticisms of Cajetan's analogy theory, and argue that, in light of both Cajetan's semantic principles and his hermeneutic practice, they fall short. The conclusion not only implies a defense of Cajetan's project, but clarifies the general philosophical alternatives available within the traditional Aristotelian semantic framework. (shrink)

This paper investigates conceptions of explanation, teleology, and analogy in the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Richards (2000, 2002) and Zammito (2006, 2012, 2018) have argued that Kant’s philosophy provided an obstacle for the project of establishing biology as a proper science around 1800. By contrast, Russell (1916), Outram (1986), and Huneman (2006, 2008) have argued, similar to suggestions from Lenoir (1989), that Kant’s philosophy influenced the influential naturalist Georges Cuvier. In this article, I wish (...) to expand on and further the work of Russell, Outram, and Huneman by adopting a novel perspective on Cuvier and considering (a) the similar conceptions of proper science and explanation of Kant and Cuvier, and (b) the similar conceptions of the role of teleology and analogy in the works of Kant and Cuvier. The similarities between Kant and Cuvier show, contrary to the interpretation of Richards and Zammito, that some of Kant’s philosophical ideas, whether they derived from him or not, were fruitfully applied by some life scientists who wished to transform life sciences into proper sciences around 1800. However, I also show that Cuvier, in contrast to Kant, had a workable strategy for transforming the life sciences into proper sciences, and that he departed from Kant’s philosophy of science in crucial respects. (shrink)

This paper offers a qualified defense of a historically popular view that I call sentimental perceptualism. At a first pass, sentimental perceptualism says that emotions play a role in grounding evaluative knowledge analogous to the role perceptions play in grounding empirical knowledge. Recently, András Szigeti and Michael Brady have independently developed an important set of objections to this theory. The objections have a common structure: they begin by conceding that emotions have some important epistemic role to play, but then go (...) on to argue that understanding how emotions play that role means that there must be some alternative, emotion-independent route to obtaining knowledge of value. If there has to be such an emotion-independent route, then the perceptual analogy breaks down in a significant way. In this paper, I argue that the right ways for sentimental perceptualists to respond to each of these objections are revealed by thinking through how analogous objections applied to perception and the empirical domain would be answered. Although Szigeti's and Brady's objections should not persuade sentimental perceptualists to give up their view, the objections do put important constraints on what a form of the view has to be like in order to do exciting metaethical work. (shrink)

This chapter examines the use of vegetal analogy in late Renaissance physiology through the case of the German physician Daniel Sennert. It is centered on Sennert’s explanation of generation, in particular the transmission of life through the vegetative soul within the seed, as developed in his early works on medicine and alchemy, the _Institutionum medicinae libri V_ and _De chymicorum…liber_. This chapter first summarizes Sennert’s account of generation and the seed’s “formative force” according to Aristotle and Galen, as well (...) as his appraisal of the medical debates on the origin of the seed’s soul and form. Then, the next part explores Sennert’s own interpretation of the origin of forms, for which plant physiology served as a common denominator of his medical, alchemical and theological inclinations. Finally, this chapter considers how Sennert attempted to harmonize his reasoning with the Paracelsian account of generation, seed and life. (shrink)

We propose and investigate an Analogy Principle in the context of Unary Inductive Logic based on a notion of support by structural similarity which is often employed to motivate scientific conjectures.

The Principle of Analogy. ABSTRACT. Sceptics question whether ‘distinctively human’ predicates such as ‘just’, ‘loving’ and ‘powerful’ can intelligibly be attributed to a divine being. If not, then a vicious form of agnosticism seems to threaten orthodox theism. Especially if one assumes a broadly empiricist semantics the challenge, whether formulated in terms of a univocal or an equivocal understanding of predicates, seems to generate intractable philosophical problems. Aquinas’ theory of analogical predication, understood either in terms of ‘analogy duorum (...) ad tertium’ or in terms of ‘analogy unus ad alterum’, is an influential response to this sceptical challenge. Difficulties in each understanding are explored and it is suggested that a more fruitful framework for understanding theistic language is to be found in late 20th century nativism of Fodor and Quine. (shrink)

A "good" arguer is like an architect with a penchant for civil and civic engineering. Such an arguer can design and present their reasons artfully about a variety of topics, as good architects do with a plenitude of structures and in various environments. Failures in this are rarely hidden for long, as poor constructions reveal themselves, often spectacularly, so collaboration among civical engineers can be seen as a virtue. Our logical virtues should be analogous. When our arguments fail due to (...) being uncivil and demagogic, since we inhabit the arguments we build, we are all crushed beneath our flawed reasoning. This mixed metaphor takes us to a self-referential analysis of argumentation, analogy, and humor. I argue that good argumentation strives to collaboratively convince rather than belligerently persuade. A convincing means toward this end is through humorous analogical arguments, whether the matter at hand is ethical, logical, theological, phenomenological, epistemological, metaphysical, political, or about baseball. (shrink)

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)

In this paper, I focus on the important semantic components involved in analogy in hopes of providing an epistemic ground for predicating names of God analogously. To this task, I address a semantic/epistemic problem, which concludes that the doctrine of analogy lacks epistemological grounding insofar as it presupposes a prior understanding of God in order to sufficiently alter a given concept to be proportionate to God. In hopes of avoiding this conclusion, I introduce Aquinas’s specifically semantic aspects that (...) follow after the real distinction between a thing’s esse and its essence or form in the context of analogy and show that the ratio of a term can be altered in a way proportionate to a consideration of the mode of being of God. (shrink)

One of the most deeply entrenched ideas in Popper's philosophy is the analogy between the growth of scientific knowledge and the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. Popper gave his first exposition of these ideas very early on. In a letter to Donald Campbell, 1 Popper says that the idea goes back at least to the early thirties. 2 And he had a fairly detailed account of it in his "What is dialectic?", a talk given in 1937 and published in (...) 1940: 3 If we want to explain why human thought tends to try out every conceivable solution for any problem with which it is faced, then we can appeal to a highly general sort of regularity. The method by which a solution is approached is .. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s analogy between psychoanalysis and his later philosophical methods is explored and developed. Historical evidence supports the claim that Wittgenstein characterized an early version of his general remarks on philosophy (§§89-133 in the Philosophical Investigations) as a sustained comparison with psychoanalysis. A non-adversarial, therapeutic interpretation is adopted towards Wittgenstein which emphasizes his focus on dissolving the metaphysical puzzlement of particular troubled individuals. A “picture” of Freudian psychoanalysis is sketched which highlights several features of Freud’s therapeutic techniques and his conception (...) of a neurosis. This portrait of Freud’s methods is used as an “object of comparison” for drawing attention to important aspects of Wittgenstein’s later practice of philosophy. Wittgenstein’s therapeutic conception of philosophy, though concerned with ordinary linguistic practices, is held to focus primarily on rooting out the prejudices and dogmas which lie at the heart of the puzzled philosopher’s inclinations to make metaphysical assertions. (shrink)

I'll show that the kind of analogy between life and information [argued for by authors such as Davies (2000), Walker and Davies (2013), Dyson (1979), Gleick (2011), Kurzweil (2012), Ward (2009)] – that seems to be central to the effect that artificial mind may represent an expected advance in the life evolution in the Universe – is like the design argument, and that if the design argument is unfounded and invalid, the argument to the effect that artificial mind may (...) represent an expected advance in the life evolution in the Universe is also unfounded and invalid. However, if we are prepared to admit (though we should not do so) this method of reasoning as valid, I'll show that the analogy between life and information to the effect that artificial mind may represent an expected advance in the evolution of life in the Universe seems to suggest some type of reductionism of life to information, but biology respectively chemistry, or physics are not reductionist, contrary to what seems to be suggested by the analogy between life and information. (shrink)

The Logic of Analogy is a study of the valid logical forms of qualitative and quantitative analogical argument, and the rules pertaining to them. It investigates equally valid conflicting arguments, statistics-based arguments and their utility in science, arguments from precedent used in law-making or law-application, and examines subsumption in analogical terms. Included for purposes of illustration is a large section on Talmudic use of analogical reasoning.

Based on de Broglie’s wave hypothesis and the covariant ether, the Three Wave Hypothesis (TWH) has been proposed and developed in the last century. In 2007, the author found that the TWH may be attributed to a kinematical classical system of two perpendicular rolling circles. In 2012, the author showed that the position vector of a point in a model of two rolling circles in plane can be transformed to a complex vector under a proposed effect of partial observation. In (...) the present project, this concept of transformation is developed to be a lab observation concept. Under this transformation of the lab observer, it is found that velocity equation of the motion of the point is transformed to an equation analogising the relativistic quantum mechanics equation (Dirac equation). Many other analogies has been found, and are listed in a comparison table. The analogy tries to explain the entanglement within the scope of the transformation. These analogies may suggest that both quantum mechanics and special relativity are emergent, both of them are unified, and of the same origin. The similarities suggest analogies and propose questions of interpretation for the standard quantum theory, without any possible causal claims. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Immanuel Kant argues that when we form a judgment of taste, the representation goes together with a demand that we require others to share. Some commentators note that the aesthetic feeling in a judgment of taste and its expectant universality seems to display a normative necessity in the explicit judgment itself, and that the expression of this normative component is sometimes stated as a claim to which everyone ought to conform. In this (...) paper, I argue that the normative component of taste and its concomitant demand should not be interpreted too strongly as an actual expectation, but rather as only a conceivable possibility. Toward this end, I examine several passages for the declaration of taste to call into view certain caveats which suggest that Kant’s description of an intersubjective demand arising concomitantly with a judgment of taste functions only as an “analogical ought,” i. e., that the demand of taste is expressed as if the satisfaction I feel in a judgment of taste can possibly demand universal assent. (shrink)

The aim of this critical note is to discuss Heraclitus' use of analogy as a pattern of thought not only with argumentative value but also ontological and epistemological status. Heraclitus' analogy is of two kinds and is expressed in the use of the adverbs ὥσπερ ("as") and ὅκωσπερ ("just as"). The first is used as an explanatory device, while the second denotes the ontological homogeneity of logos. Analogy reveals not only the inherent opposition of logos in each (...) single thing, but also the interdependent common interrelation between things. (shrink)

The evolution of arm-leg relationships presents something of a problem for embodied cognitive science. The affordances of habitual bipedalism and upright posture make our two sets of appendages and their interrelationships distinctively human, but these relations are largely neglected in evolutionary accounts of embodied cognition. Using a mixture of methods from historical linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics and linguistic anthropology to analyze data from languages around the world, this paper identifies a robust, dynamic set of part-whole relations that emerge across the human (...) waistline between upper and lower appendage sets cross-culturally. The general pattern—identified as “arm-leg syncretism”—provides a plausible primary source for the uniquely human penchant for creative analogy, or “double-scope conceptual blending”, said to underlie the human language faculty (Fauconnier and Turner 2002, 2008; Deely 2002; Anttila 2003; Bybee 2010). This account not only addresses a conspicuous gap in the literature but also enables us to better understand what it means to be human—including how we came to be unique among other species and how we are still vitally interrelated with other species. Deely (2010) blends both sides of this tension into a single phrase: “the semiotic animal”. The paper further develops this distinction by drawing attention to one of the roles upright posture played in the emergence of semiotic consciousness. (shrink)

The cultural, economic and political crisis affecting the European Union (EU) today is manifested in the political community’s lack of enthusiasm and cohesion. An effort to reverse this situation – foster ‘EU identity’ – was the creation of EU citizenship. Citizen- ship implies a people and a polity. But EU citizens already belong to national polities. Should EU citizenship override national citizenship or coexist with it? Postnationalists like Habermas have suggested EU citizenship can overcome nationalisms, grounding political belonging on the (...) body of laws that members of the post- national polity generate in the public sphere. Cosmopolitan communitarianists like Bellamy, by contrast, think that EU citizens should form a mixed commonwealth, with political belonging based on national citizenship. I will argue in favour of the second option, and submit an analogical reading of the ensuing ideas of citizenship, identity and polity. Cosmopolitan communitarianist EU citizenship promises to better foster the great richness of European national cultural, religious, historical, political, legal and linguistic diversity in a ‘mixed’ polity. Its main challenge is how to keep the diverse, mixed polity together. (shrink)

The reasoning process of analogy is characterized by a strict interdependence between a process of abstraction of a common feature and the transfer of an attribute of the Analogue to the Primary Subject. The first reasoning step is regarded as an abstraction of a generic characteristic that is relevant for the attribution of the predicate. The abstracted feature can be considered from a logic-semantic perspective as a functional genus, in the sense that it is contextually essential for the attribution (...) of the predicate, i.e. that is pragmatically fundamental (i.e. relevant) for the predica-tion, or rather the achievement of the communicative intention. While the transfer of the predicate from the Analogue to the analogical genus and from the genus to the Primary Subject is guaranteed by the maxims (or rules of inference) governing the genus-species relation, the connection between the genus and the predicate can be complex, characterized by various types of reasoning patterns. The relevance relation can hide implicit arguments, such as an implicit argument from classification , an evaluation based on values, consequences or rules, a causal relation, or an argument from practical reasoning. (shrink)

There is ample justification for having analogical material in standardized tests for graduate school admission, perhaps especially for law school. We think that formal-analogy questions should compare different scenarios whose structure is the same in terms of the number of objects and the formal properties of their relations. The paper deals with this narrower question of how legitimately to have formal analogy test items, and the broader question of what constitutes a formal analogy in general.

This article identifies and formalizes the logical features of analogous terms that justify their use in deduction. After a survey of doctrines in Aristotle, Aquinas, and Cajetan, the criteria of “analogy of proper proportionality” are symbolized in first-order predicate logic. A common genus justifies use of a common term, but does not provide the inferential link required for deduction. Rather, the respective differentiae foster this link through their identical proportion. A natural-language argument by analogy is formalized so as (...) to exhibit these criteria, thereby showing the validity of analogical deduction. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion that business calls for an adversarial ethic, akin to that of sport. On this view, because of their competitive structure, both sport and business call for behaviours that are contrary to ‘ordinary morality’, and yet are ultimately justified because of the goods they facilitate. I develop three objections to this analogy. Firstly, there is an important qualitative difference between harms risked voluntarily and harms risked involuntarily. Secondly, the goods achieved by adversarial relationships in sport (...) go beyond the function of sport, i.e. to entertain audiences. Thirdly, the most plausible account of the athlete’s motivational development starts with their love of the sport, which can explain a commitment to the sporting ethics in a way that is not paralleled in business. I close by drawing attention to the ways in which an Aristotelian conception of business ethics may be able to accommodate these objections. (shrink)

The conspicuous similarities between interpretive strategies in classical statistical mechanics and in quantum mechanics may be grounded on their employment of common implementations of probability. The objective probabilities which represent the underlying stochasticity of these theories can be naturally associated with three of their common formal features: initial conditions, dynamics, and observables. Various well-known interpretations of the two theories line up with particular choices among these three ways of implementing probability. This perspective has significant application to debates on primitive ontology (...) and to the quantum measurement problem. (shrink)