Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T16:32:12.360Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analogy and Inference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

William H. Shaw  and
L. R. Ashley
William H. Shaw
Affiliation:
Tennessee State University
L. R. Ashley
Affiliation:
New York State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The nature of analogies, and their legitimacy in argumentation and inference, is a disputed subject. This essay is intended to shed some light on the tangle of issues that it involves. After discussing in section one the different functions of analogy, in particular in explanation and in science, we present in section two a prima facie defense of analogical argument against those who repudiate it entirely and in section three an account of its logical structure. Section four argues that analogical inference does not collapse, as some of its critics contend, into standard induction, and section five attempts to explicate more precisely the warrant for analogical inference. We conclude in section six by suggesting a typology for arguments from analogy.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1983 , pp. 415 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In conversation with the members of Professor Brandt's 1978–79 NEH seminar, Ann Arbor, April 7, 1979.

2 Reprinted in Flew, Anthony, ed., Logic and Language (first and second series; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965)Google Scholar.

3 Waismann, F., The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, ed. Harré, R. (London: Macmillan, 1965), 60Google Scholar.

4 James, William, Principles of Psychology, vol. 1 (New York: Dover, 1950), 582Google Scholar.

5 Charles M. Myers, “Inexplicable Analogies”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22 (March 1962).

6 In fact, theologians have argued that analogy provides the only way in which the divine can be known; see Palmer, Humphrey, Analogy (London: Macmillan, 1973), andCrossRefGoogle ScholarBurrell, D., Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973). InGoogle ScholarBlack's, Max terminology an “analogue model” represents the original structure or web of relationships in a different medium; see Models and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 222Google Scholar.

7 Quine, W. V. O., Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1960), 9; cf.Google ScholarJevons, W. Stanley, The Principles of Science (New York: Dover, 1958), 628–643Google Scholar.

8 Hempel, Carl G., Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: Free Press, 1965), 434–436.Google Scholar Sometimes, of course, analogies mislead scientists as Bunge, Mario observes in Method, Model, and Matter (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1973), 125–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The literature on the different types of models and analogies in science is extensive. An accessible place to begin digging into it is Hesse, Mary, “Models and Analogy in Science”, in Edwards, Paul, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 354–359.Google Scholar An interesting recent contribution to the literature is Redhead, Michael, “Models in Physics”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31/2 (June 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Thagard, Paul R., “The Best Explanation: Criteria for Theory Choice”, Journal of Philosophy 75/2 (February 1978), 89–91; andCrossRefGoogle ScholarAchinstein, Peter, Law and Explanation (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 132–133, 153–155Google Scholar.

10 Campbell, Norman R., “The Structure of Theories”, in Feigl, H. and Brodbeck, M., eds., Readings in the Philosophy of Science (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953). A prime target of Campbell was, of course,Google ScholarDuhem, Pierre; see in particular the latter's The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (New York: Atheneum, 1962), Part 1, chap. 4.Google Scholar

11 Hempel, , Aspects, 442–445Google Scholar.

12 Mill, J.S., “Of Analogy”, in Nagel, E. and Brandt, R. B., eds., Meaning and Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 350,Google Scholar

13 Beardsley, Monroe, Practical Logic (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950), 105–109; andGoogle ScholarCopi, Irving M., Introduction to Logic (5th ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1978), chap. 11Google Scholar.

14 Keynes, J. Maynard, A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan, 1921), 247.Google Scholar

15 Mill, , “Of Analogy”, 351Google Scholar.

16 E.g., Copi, Introduction; Kahane, Howard, Logic and Philosophy (2nd ed.; Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1973), 255–256;Google ScholarCornman, James W. and Lehrer, Keith, Philosophical Problems and Arguments (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 368–369; andGoogle ScholarSalmon, Wesley, Logic (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 70–73Google Scholar.

17 Cf. Strawson, Peter F., “The 'Justification' of Induction”, in Nagel, E. and Brandt, R. B., eds., Meaning and Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965).Google Scholar

18 Goodman, Nelson, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (3rd ed.; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), 63–64. Goodman himself does not mention arguments from analogyGoogle Scholar.

19 Beardsley, , Practical Logic, 105–109Google Scholar.

20 Quine, W. V. O., The Web of Belief (2nd ed.; New York: Random House, 1978), 90–91.Google Scholar On Quine's view both induction and analogy produce hypotheses which still need to be evaluated and confirmed, but this does not entail that such inferences carry no epistemic warrant in and of themselves. The nature and extent of that warrant in the case of analogical inference is the subject of this paper. Accordingly, Herbert Feigl (“Other Minds and the Egocentric Predicament”, Journal of Philosophy, November 6, 1958, 979) is mistaken to denigrate analogical arguments for whose conclusions direct evidence is not available. (These are precisely the interesting and important cases.) On the one hand, if the conclusion has been directly established, one hardly needs an analogy. On the other hand, prior to its conclusion being checked, the argument is no stronger as an analogical inference than, ceteris paribiis. one whose conclusion cannot be directly confirmed (or disconfirmed).

21 Popper, Karl R., Objective Knowledge (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 23–24, 96Google Scholar.

22 Quoted by Keynes, A Treatise, 217.

23 Stebbing, L. S., A Modern Introduction to Logic (2nd ed.; New York: Humanities Press, n.d. [1933]), 249–250;Google ScholarEaton, Ralph M., General Logic (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931), 550–560;Google ScholarCohen, Morris R. and Nagel, Ernest, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1934), 286–288;Google ScholarKeynes, , A Treatise, 217–273;Google Scholar and Jevons, , Principles, 596–597Google Scholar.

24 Thomson, Judith Jarvis, “A Defense of Abortion”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1/1 (Fall 1971)Google Scholar.

25 Goodman, , Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 94–95.Google Scholar Contrast Keynes, A Treatise, 258 and passim. Russell, Bertrand discusses Keynes' “postulate of limited variety” in Human Knowledge (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), 438–444.Google Scholar See also Hesse, Mary on “clustering” in The Structure of Scientific Inference (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), 167–169, 208–209, and passimGoogle Scholar.

26 Mill, , “Of Analogy”, 353Google Scholar.

27 See Achinstein, , Law and Explanation, 132–133,Google Scholar and Stebbing, , A Modern Introduction, 255Google Scholar.