This thesis addresses two enduring issues in legal theory-- rationality and its association with rule of law values--by offering detailed models of two patterns of legal reasoning. One is reasoning by analogy. The other is the inference process that legal reasoners use when they defer epistemically to scientific experts in the course of reaching legal decisions. Discussions in both chapters reveal that the inference pattern known as "abduction" is a deeply important element of many legal inferences, including (...) analogy and epistemic deference to experts--something that has been largely unrecognized in legal theory. After presenting a detailed model of analogy, Chapter 1 argues that legal reasoning by analogy, like analogical argument in logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences, possesses a great deal of rational force when properly executed. Chapter 2 investigates the reasoning process by which non-expert legal reasoners defer epistemically to the judgments of scientists. It presents five main conclusions or explanations. Every practical syllogism actually consists of two distinct chains of inference, and what is usually considered in writings on practical reasoning to be the minor premise of a practical syllogism is actually the conclusion of a separate chain of argument. When a practical reasoner defers epistemically to a theoretical expert, this separate chain of argument has a special structure, which is modeled in Chapter 2. The non-expert legal reasoner must always make a prescriptive practical judgment about the standard of epistemic appraisal and level of epistemic confidence that the reasoner requires of scientific evidence before it may be relied upon in reaching a legal decision. Legal systems should be committed to an emergent rule of law ideal identified and referred to as "intellectual due process" which condemns epistemically arbitrary reasoning processes insofar as they play a role in legal decisionmaking. Since non-arbitrariness is a necessary condition of both epistemic and legal legitimacy, we have compelling reason to doubt that the non-arbitrariness condition can be met when non-experts defer epistemically to scientific experts. (shrink)

Presents the latest research on how reasoning with analogies, metaphors, metonymies, and images can facilitate mathematical understanding. For math education, educational psychology, and cognitive science scholars.

This book brings together in one place David Hitchcock’s most significant published articles on reasoning and argument. In seven new chapters he updates his thinking in the light of subsequent scholarship. Collectively, the papers articulate a distinctive position in the philosophy of argumentation. Among other things, the author:• develops an account of “material consequence” that permits evaluation of inferences without problematic postulation of unstated premises.• updates his recursive definition of argument that accommodates chaining and embedding of arguments and allows (...) any type of illocutionary act to be a conclusion. • advances a general theory of relevance.• provides comprehensive frameworks for evaluating inferences in reasoning by analogy, means-end reasoning, and appeals to considerations or criteria.• argues that none of the forms of arguing ad hominem is a fallacy.• describes proven methods of teaching critical thinking effectively. (shrink)

Compatibilist methods borrowed from the free will debate are often used to establish doxastic freedom and epistemic responsibility. Certain analogies between the formation of intention and belief make this approach especially promising. Despite being a compatibilist myself in the practical debate, I will argue that compatibilist methods fail to establish doxastic freedom. My rejection is not based on an argument against the analogy of free will and free belief. Rather, I aim at showing that compatibilist free will and free (...) belief are equally misguided because freedom is a concept that only applies to an agent’s actions and not to her mental attitudes. Compatibilist strategies that seek to define control by reason-responsiveness merely weaken the conditions for freedom such that arbitrary forms of control can be defined. I will demonstrate that these methods also commit to freedom of fear, freedom of hope and freedom of anger. However, I accept the compatibilist challenge to account for the addict’s and the paranoid’s unfreedom. I will sketch a unified approach to compatibilist free agency that does justice to these phenomena without the help of free will or free belief. (shrink)

Western philosophy and science are responsible for constructing some powerful tools of investigation, aiming at discovering the truth, delivering robust explanations, verifying conjectures, showing that inferences are sound and demonstrating results conclusively. By contrast reasoning that depends on analogies has often been viewed with suspicion. Professor Lloyd first explores the origins of those Western ideals, criticises some of their excesses and redresses the balance in favour of looser, admittedly non-demonstrative analogical reasoning. For this he takes examples both from (...) ancient Greek and Chinese thought and from the materials of recent ethnography to show how different ancient and modern cultures have developed different styles of reasoning. He also develops two original but controversial ideas, that of semantic stretch and the multidimensionality of reality. (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)

The effect of state anxiety on analogical reasoning was investigated by examining qualitative differences in mapping performance between anxious and non-anxious individuals reasoning about pictorial analogies. The working-memory restriction theory of anxiety, coupled with theories of analogy that link complexity of mapping with working-memory capacity, predicts that high anxiety will impair the ability to find correspondences based on relations between multiple objects relative to correspondences based on overlap of attributes between individual objects. Anxiety was induced in one (...) condition by a stressful speeded subtraction task administered prior to the analogy task. Anxious participants produced fewer relational responses and more attribute responses than did non-anxious participants, both in the absence of explicit instructions to find relational mappings (Experiment 1) and after receiving such instructions (Experiment 2). The findings support the postulated links among anxiety, working memory, and the ability to perform complex analogical mapping. (shrink)

Forty years ago Norman Malcolm presented a now-famous paper at the Eastern Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association in Burlington, Vermont. MalcolmKnowledge of Other Minds.” The paper focused on the Argument from Analogy for Other Minds, which, of course, Malcolm roundly criticized. After making a number of preliminary points, Malcolm stated.

In two experiments on analogical hypothesis generation, we factorially manipulated the presence of domain and object similarities between a base situation and a target phenomenon, and assessed their effects on the transfer of the source’s explanatory structure before and after an indication to use the base analog as a source for analogical explanations. The absence of any kind of surface similarity led to very low rates of spontaneous transfer. In both experiments, however, either kind of surface similarity sufficed to enhance (...) the spontaneous transfer of the base explanation during the formulation of plausible hypotheses for the target. The transfer advantage of object and domain similarity cannot be attributed to the effect of these variables on post-access processes, since experimental conditions did not differ with regard to the ability to transfer the base explanation upon explicit request. The effect of domain similarity on spontaneous analogical explanation constitutes a relevant finding, especially given the lack of attention received by this dimension of similarity in behavioural studies and computer simulations of analogical retrieval. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:26. DAVID HUME ON REASON, PASSIONS AND MORALS Perhaps the most notorious passage in Hume's Treatise is the one that concerns the relative roles of reason and passions, where he says: Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions (T 415). This psychology of action is the foundation of Hume's moral theory, wherein we find his two other notorious dicta, one being!.¡oral distinctions cannot be (...) derived from reason, and the other, Ought cannot be derived from is. Many commentators have interpreted Hume as saying that reason plays no role in the making of moral judgments, and, while not taking the rationalistic line, criticized him for not giving reason its proper due. The aim of this paper is to show that Hume's primary concern is to argue against the rationalist position which takes reason to be sufficient (always or sometimes) to move one to act, and to give rise to moral judgments. I wish to show that Hume is only concerned with dismissing the claim that reason could be a sufficient condition, not that it is a necessary one. Indeed, Hume could be interpreted as saying that reason is no less important than passions in shaping human conduct, anc in the area of inorai conduct, there can be no moral judgments without the work of reason. At the same time, however, passions remain the prime mover; reason does not move us to act (generally, hence morally). 1 shall try to show that the dictum '¿¡oral distinctions cannot be derived from reason' is essentially correct, but its being correct in no way shows that reason is not a necessary element of moral distinctions. 27. Before discussing the views of some critics of Hume's moral theory, it is important to clear up one source of misunderstanding that lies in Hume's discussion of the psychology of action. When Hume says that reason is the slave of passions, he does not say thereby that reason is unimportant. He is saying merely that reason alone does not move one to act. The force that propels one to action is the passion, whether it be love, or anger, or pride, or envy, or fear, or desire. Reason alone does not provide the motive. However, it is reason that does the groundwork, analyzing facts, perceiving relations, and drawing conclusions, all of which go to determine which action to perform, but the action will not be performed unless one of the passions is also present. Just because reason is the slave does not indicate that its work is not relevant. To extend the slavery metaphor, we may observe that slave owners supported slavery for the very reason that the slave's work was found indispensable; analogously, it must be observed that Hume is most unlikely to hole that reason plays no part in human action. To complete the analogy, we should say that while much could be achieved with slaves, it was the masters who conceived the plan, and the masters must rank higher in the causal order. We may observe further that greater achievement could be had by treating slaves properly, not overworking them, and not ill-treating them. If reason is the slave, it will be in our interest to cultivate it, sharpen it, and use it always and to the full. This could be inferred from HuTr.e's discussion of the understanding in Book 1 of the Treatise. indeed, in the conclusion of Book I, Hume points out forcefully that we contradict ourselves if we hold that no refin'd or elaborate reasoning is ever to be 28. receiv'd (T 268). For it is only through reasoning that we arrive at any such conclusion. He goes on to say: Very refin'd reflections have little or no influence upon us; and yet we do not, and cannot establish it for a rule, that they ought not to have any influence; which implies a manifest contradiction (T268). There cannot be a clearer demonstration that it is not the case that Hume fails to give reason its proper due. Later, I shall cite further evidence for this in relation specifically to the role of reason in... (shrink)

In their 2018 paper, Carolina Adler, Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn, Thomas Breu, Urs Wiesmann, and Christian Pohl propose that transferability of knowledge across cases in transdisciplinary research should be thought of in terms of arguments by analogy. We aim to advance this discussion about transferability by examining it in the light of recent ideas about knowledge transfer, extrapolation, and external validity in the philosophy of science. We problematise Adler et al.’s proposal by identifying the ‘transdisciplinarian’s circle’, due to which even (...) knowledge that could be of use in other projects may be identified too late for efficient knowledge transfer to take place. We then suggest that Steel’s ideas on overcoming the ‘extrapolator’s circle’ can serve as a source of inspiration for addressing the issue of the transdisciplinarian’s circle. (shrink)

The author argues that the proper use of analogy opens up reason to revelation. Drawing on ancient and medieval sources (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Aquinas), he discusses the transcendental properties of being (unity, truth, goodness, and beauty) and their analogous application.

'Public reason' in Rawls's stipulated usage signifies propositions that can legitimately be used in deliberating on and deciding fundamental issues of political life and legislation because they are propositions which all citizens may reasonably be expected to endorse: their use is therefore fair (respects the moral principle of reciprocity) and preserves the public peace which is at risk from contests between comprehensive doctrines, contests exemplified by wars of religion. This attractive set of suggestions is ruined by irresoluable ambiguities, truncation of (...) reason's resources and of public discourse just when they are most needed, and incipient capitulation to some radical injustices. But public reason may nonetheless be an opportune phrase for conveying the gist of four permanently valid theses in the classical political thought that develops from Socrates/Plato to Aquinas and beyond. That tradition has been significantly modified by recognition that a human right to immunity of religious beliefs and acts from coercion extends – precisely by reason of the importance of finding and adhering to the truth about the divine source of reality and value – to mistaken as well as correct religious beliefs and practices. That immunity is subject to limitations necessary to preserve public order; likewise, a religion's legitimacy as a source of reasons for public actions is dependent on its willingness to foster genuine public discourse. Analogously, a political or legal philosophy's rational warrant is dependent on the compatibility of its theses with the worth of authentic discourse and the support they give to institutions, including the rule of law, which favour such discourse. Habermas's account of discourse ethics fails by overlooking some truths about discourse, truth and friendship that Plato made clear in Gorgias. And (the rule of) law, too, is most adequately understood as a product and articulation of public reason. (shrink)

The present article is the first to investigate in any detail the plant–animal analogies that are integral to Nehemiah Grew's Anatomy of Plants (1682). It focuses on three analogies that Grew used (either productively or critically) to produce novel accounts of vegetative processes: those between sperm and pollen, blood and sap, and mouths and roots. I suggest that Grew's analogical approach and specific mappings allowed him, on the one hand, to “see” plant features and functions that other botanists had overlooked, (...) and, on the other, to determine when the analogies that other botanists deployed did not convincingly describe observable phenomena. On this basis, I argue, he was able to present what he, and several contemporaries, considered to be more accurate accounts of the nature of the vegetative parts and processes in question. More broadly, the article seeks to show that the analogical and observational were complementary aspects of Grew's method, and that, far from hindering his empirical endeavour, his analogies were crucial to it. (shrink)

Legal Reason describes and explains the process of analogical reasoning, which is the distinctive feature of legal argument. It challenges the prevailing view, urged by Edward Levi, Cass Sunstein, Richard Posner and others, which regards analogical reasoning as logically flawed or as a defective form of deductive reasoning. It shows that analogical reasoning in the law is the same as the reasoning used by all of us routinely in everyday life and that it is a (...) valid form of reasoning derived from the innate human capacity to recognize the general in the particular, on which thought itself depends. The use of analogical reasoning is dictated by the nature of law, which requires the application of rules to particular facts. Written for scholars as well as students and persons generally who are interested in law, Legal Reason is written in clear, accessible prose, with many examples drawn from the law and from everyday experience. (shrink)

ABSTRACTLegal reasoning is commonly thought of as being based on either rules or analogies. More specifically, there is ongoing debate regarding whether precedential reasoning is best characterized as rule-based or analogical. This article continues that work by comparing recent and representative approaches from each camp, namely, Stevens's analogical model and the “rule-based” model of Horty and Rigoni. In the course of the comparison improvements on each approach are suggested and the improved models serve as the basis for the (...) ultimate evaluation. The evaluation demonstrates that the “best” approach depends on the goals one has in theorizing legal reasoning as well as the jurisprudential assumptions one is willing to make. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a descriptive theory of analogical reasoning in mathematics, stating general conditions under which an analogy may provide genuine inductive support to a mathematical conjecture (over and above fulfilling the merely heuristic role of ‘suggesting’ a conjecture in the psychological sense). The proposed conditions generalize the criteria of Hesse in her influential work on analogical reasoning in the empirical sciences. By reference to several case studies, we argue that the account proposed in this (...) paper does a better job in vindicating the use of analogical inference in mathematics than the prominent alternative defended by Bartha. (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)

In general, we know that gesture accompanying spoken instruction can help children learn. The present study was conducted to better understand how gesture can support children’s comprehension of spoken instruction and whether the benefit of teaching though speech and gesture over spoken instruction alone depends on differences in cognitive profile – prior knowledge children have that is related to a to-be-learned concept. To answer this question, we explored the impact of gesture instruction on children’s analogical reasoning ability. Children between (...) the ages of 4 and 11 years solved scene analogy problems before or after speech alone or speech and gesture instruction while their visual attention was monitored. Our behavioral results suggest a marginal benefit of gesture instruction over speech alone, but only 5-year-old children showed a distinct advantage from speech+gesture instruction when solving the post-instruction trial, suggesting that at this age, children have the cognitive profile in place to utilize the added support of gesture. Furthermore, while speech+gesture instruction facilitated effective visual attention during instruction, directing attention away from featural matches, and towards relational information, was pivotal for younger children’s success post instruction. We consider how these results contribute to the gesture-for-learning literature and consider how the nuanced impact of gesture is informative for educators teaching tasks of analogy in the classroom. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Analogy and the Principle of Justice The Logical Form of Analogical Inference Limitations of Analogical Reasoning Challenges to Traditional Theory Analogical Reasoning and Normative Legal Theory References.

Adult humans show exceptional relational ability relative to other species. In this research, we trace the development of this ability in young children. We used a task widely used in comparative research—the relational match-to-sample task, which requires participants to notice and match the identity relation: for example, AA should match BB instead of CD. Despite the simplicity of this relation, children under 4 years of age failed to pass this test (Experiment 1), and their performance did not improve even with (...) initial feedback (Experiment 2). In Experiments 3 and 4, we found that two kinds of symbolic-linguistic experience can facilitate relational reasoning in young children. Our findings suggest that children learn to become adept analogical thinkers, and that language fosters this learning in at least two distinct ways. (shrink)

Analogical reasoning projects a property taken to hold of something or things (the source) to something else (the target) on the basis of just those similarities premised in the analogy. Standard similarity-based accounts of analogical reasoning face the question: Under what conditions does a collection of similarities sufficiently warrant analogical projection? One answer is: When a thing’s having the premised similarities somehow determines its having the projected property. Standardly, this answer has been interpreted as claiming that a (...) formally defined determination relation exists between the variables of which the determining properties are values and the variable of which the determined property is a value. This paper supplies another answer: Analogical projection is warranted when an item’s having the projected property is grounded in its having the premised similarities. Drawing on the metaphysics of grounding, we propose a model of grounded analogy on which analogical reasoning is valid under metaphysical necessity. Our model thus provides one answer to John Stuart Mill’s question of how analogical reasoning based on limited information about a single source case can provide an indefeasible justification for analogical projection. Once a relation of total grounding is ascertained to hold between some similarities and the projected property, no other properties bear on the projectability of the projected property from the source to the target. (shrink)

In his book The Unfinished Project, Lorenzo Simpson articulates a hermeneutical model for understanding across difference that stresses the importance of analogies. While noting much that is helpful in his account, in this paper I question Simpson’s emphasis on analogical reasoning. After detailing Simpson’s approach, I explore some problems with analogies as a route to understanding. I examine some assumptions behind the idea that one must analogize from what one already understands in order to expand thatunderstanding. In particular I (...) argue that, while in some cases it can be helpful, it is not necessary to use analogies in order to understand another who does not share one’s social position, culture, or worldview, and, perhaps more importantly, it is never sufficient. Moreover, attempting to locate correspondences between oneself and another may in some cases undermine the ability toform the kind of practical relationship that understanding across difference requires. Understanding another is best described, not as requiring analogies between self and other, but rather as requiring a practical relation, a type of relation that I will detail further in the second half of this paper. (shrink)

Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum is a known figure in philosophy of probability of the 1930s. A previously unpublished manuscript fills in the blanks in the full picture of her work on inductive reasoning by analogy, until now only accessible through a single publication. In this paper, I present Hosiasson’s work on analogical reasoning, bringing together her early publications that were never translated from Polish, and the recently discovered unpublished work. I then show how her late work relates to Rudolf (...) Carnap’s approach to “analogy by similarity” developed in the 1960s. Hosiasson turns out to be a predecessor of the line of research that models analogical influence as inductive relevance. A translation of Hosiasson’s manuscript concludes the paper. (shrink)

This paper describes a cubic water tank equipped with a movable partition receiving various amounts of liquid used to represent joint probability distributions. This device is applied to the investigation of deductive inferences under uncertainty. The analogy is exploited to determine by qualitative reasoning the limits in probability of the conclusion of twenty basic deductive arguments (such as Modus Ponens, And-introduction, Contraposition, etc.) often used as benchmark problems by the various theoretical approaches to reasoning under uncertainty. The (...) probability bounds imposed by the premises on the conclusion are derived on the basis of a few trivial principles such as "a part of the tank cannot contain more liquid than its capacity allows", or "if a part is empty, the other part contains all the liquid". This stems from the equivalence between the physical constraints imposed by the capacity of the tank and its subdivisions on the volumes of liquid, and the axioms and rules of probability. The device materializes de Finetti's coherence approach to probability. It also suggests a physical counterpart of Dutch book arguments to assess individuals' rationality in probability judgments in the sense that individuals whose degrees of belief in a conclusion are out of the bounds of coherence intervals would commit themselves to executing physically impossible tasks. (shrink)

The development of analogical reasoning has traditionally been understood in terms of theories of adult competence. This approach emphasizes structured representations and structure mapping. In contrast, we argue that by taking a developmental perspective, analogical reasoning can be viewed as the product of a substantially different cognitive ability – relational priming. To illustrate this, we present a computational (here connectionist) account where analogy arises gradually as a by-product of pattern completion in a recurrent network. Initial exposure to (...) a situation primes a relation that can then be applied to a novel situation to make an analogy. Relations are represented as transformations between states. The network exhibits behaviors consistent with a broad range of key phenomena from the developmental literature, lending support to the appropriateness of this approach (using low-level cognitive mechanisms) for investigating a domain that has normally been the preserve of high-level models. Furthermore, we present an additional simulation that integrates the relational priming mechanism with deliberative controlled use of inhibition to demonstrate how the framework can be extended to complex analogical reasoning, such as the data from explicit mapping studies in the literature on adults. This account highlights how taking a developmental perspective constrains the theory construction and cognitive modeling processes in a way that differs substantially from that based purely on adult studies, and illustrates how a putative complex cognitive skill can emerge out of a simple mechanism. (shrink)

In _Historia animalium_ VIII 1.588a18 ff., Aristotle describes the cognitive powers of non-human animals as sketches of human cognitive powers. According to the wording he chooses here, the cognitive powers of non-human animals are “traces” or “footprints” (ἴχνη, 588a19) of human ones. In this paper I explore the conceptual framework that lays behind this image, in order to show that it is much more than a rhetorical figure, and that Aristotle’s wording encompasses a whole articulated theory, whose details are set (...) out in _De anima_ and the _Parva naturalia_. Moreover, I try to clarify some technicalities of the scientific model he devises in order to explain certain features of the sensory-perceptual part of the soul (with particular attention to the perception of the so-called “common” and “incidental” sensory items) that bear a real analogy to the functions of reason and intellect, and that can consequently be considered their precursors. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I provide the logical foundation for a solution to the mind-body problem, a solution which is directly based upon Wilfrid Sellars' analogical theory of thought and sensation. Chapters I-IV are devoted to an interpretation, analysis, and constructive criticism of Sellars' notions of the inner thought episode and the sensing state. My analysis is offered in support of three general contentions: I argue that the postulation of inner thought episodes and sensing states is necessary for adequate explanations of (...) agent behavior; I hope to show how the analogical theory of inner thought episodes and sensing states actually generates a legitimate problem concerning the relationship between the mental and the physical; and I demonstrate the importance of the notion of analogy in philosophical theory construction. I suggest that the role of analogy provides the key for the solution to the mind-body problem. ;Chapter One is essentially introductory in nature. I offer an interpretation and reconstruction of Sellars' illustrative story entitled "The Jonesean Myth" . The "Myth" provides a suitable representation of Sellars' overall philosophy of mind. But perhaps more importantly, the "Myth" is a paradigm example of what I shall call the analogical method of inquiry, a method employed for the introduction of the notions of inner thought episodes and sensing states. In brief, I want to show how the "Myth" provides the logical basis for a theory adequate for explanations of the mental activity of agents. ;Chapters II and III are closely related. In Chapter II, I present a theory of linguistic representation which will serve as the analogical base for the introduction and characterization of the inner thought episode. In Chapter III, I develop the notion of the inner thought episode , and I examine its nature and status as a theoretical construct. Chapters II and III are thus related by the Sellarsian thesis that the concept of mental representation is to be understood in terms which apply, primarily, to characterizations of the features of the linguistic framework presented in Chapter II. ;In Chapter IV, I argue, again following Sellars' lead, that the explication of the notion of the perceptual thought episode requires the introduction of a second distinct sort of inner episode, namely, that of the sense experience or sensing state. The argument offered in Chapter IV is designed to show that sensing states are theoretical constructs, the reference to which is essential for explanations concerning the occurrence and nature of perceptual representations. Sensing states are introduced and characterized by an analogical extension of families of predicates which are suitable for the identification and description of ordinary physical objects . ;In Chapter V, I propose a solution to the mind-body problem, as the latter is generated by the analysis given to the thought episode and the sensing state . In general terms, I argue that any purported solution to the mind-body problem must provide an explanatory basis for agent behavior, and it is for this reason that I reject "reductionistic" theories of mind of the kind represented by logical behaviorism, type-identity physicalism, and Turing Machine functionalism. My solution, instead, involves a commitment to what I shall call token physicalism, a thesis which is contingent upon the development of a theory of neurophysiology which is rich enough to capture, in an analogical sense, both the intentional features of the thought episode, and the occurrent-like qualities which are exemplified by the sensing state. (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)

Reasoning patterns found in Galileo’s treatise on machines, On Mechanics, are compared with patterns identified in case studies of scientifically trained experts thinking aloud, and many similarities are found. At one level the primary patterns identified are ordered analogy sequences and special diagrammatic techniques to support them. At a deeper level I develop constructs to describe patterns that can support embodied, imagistic, mental simulations as a central underlying process. Additionally, a larger hypothesized pattern of ‘progressive imagistic generalization’—Galileo’s development (...) of a model or mechanism that becomes more and more general with each machine while still being imagistically projectable into many machines—provides a way to think about his progress toward a modern explanatory model of torque. By unpacking his arguments, we gain an appreciation of his skillful ability to foster imagistic processes underlying scientific thinking. (shrink)

There’s a widespread conviction in the norms of assertion literature that an agent’s asserting something false merits criticism. As Williamson puts it, asserting something false is likened to cheating at the game of assertion. Most writers on the topic have consequently proposed factive norms of assertion – ones on which truth is a necessary condition for the proper performance of an assertion. However, I argue that this view is mistaken. I suggest that we can illuminate the error by introducing a (...) theoretical distinction between the norm of a practice and its goal. In light of this distinction, we can see that proponents of factive norms tend to mistake the goal of a practice for the norm. In making my case, I present an analogy between the norms and goals of placing wagers and the norms and goals of assertion. One may place a bet and lose without being subject to criticism, while one may win and be worthy of criticism. Whether one wins or loses is irrelevant to the normative evaluation of a bet. What is relevant is whether the bet maximizes the bettor's expected value, which is a function of what might be lost, what might be gained, and how likely those prospects are, given the bettor's evidence. Similarly, I argue, whether one's assertion is true or false is not strictly relevant to the normative evaluation of an assertion. What is relevant is whether the speaker has adequate supporting reasons for the assertion, and that the necessary conventional and pragmatic features are present. However, context will determine what count as supportive reasons for a given proposition, what counts as relevant, and what count as conventional and pragmatic elements possessing that relevance. My proposed norm, the Supportive Reasons Norm, is thus sensitive to the context of assertion and shifts from context to context. (shrink)

Extensive interpretation of legal provisions is in tension with the prohibition of reasoning by analogy in criminal law, for it is unclear what the difference is between the two. Some scholars claim that they differ from a theoretical point of view, since they do not have the same argumentative structure. On the other hand, the two come to the same result starting from the same legal materials: they justify the extension of a regulation to a case that is (...) not explicitly considered by the law. The paper deals with this issue discussing a recent Italian case and proposes an account of the distinction between the two based upon the principle of semantic tolerance and its inferential structure in legal argumentation. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning research in recent years on what is called analogical reasoning and transfer, the problem of how similarity or invariant relations are fundamentally accessed is typically either unrecognized, or ignored in componential and computational analyses. The access problematic is not a new one, being outlined by the paradox found in Plato’s Meno. In order to understand the analogical-access problematic, it is suggested that the concepts of analogical relations including the lexical concept metaphor, isomorphic relation in mathematics, homology (...) in biology, stimulus generalization in psychology, transfer of learning in education, and transposition phenomena in perception, be reconceptualized as subsets of a higher-order domain as all share the problem of how invariance relations are generated and accessed. A solution is suggested based on two specific evolutionary and neurological models, coupled with findings regarding the cognitive importance of knowledge-base. The paper constitutes a reciprocal complementarity analysis of a previous paper on metaphor. A higher-order form of analogical reasoning called analogical progression is introduced. Implications for research are discussed that indicate the need for a paradigm shift. The paper concludes with a four-stage model of analogical access. (shrink)

The ability to reason by analogy is particularly important because it permits the extension of knowledge of a target domain by virtue of its similarity to a base domain via a process of analogical inference. The general procedure for analogical inference involves copying structure from the base to the target in which missing information is generated, and substitutions are made for items for which analogical correspondences have already been found. A pure copying with substitution and generation process is too (...) profligate to be useful, and so constraints must be placed on what information is to be carried over. In this paper, the importance of systematicity as a constraint on inference is explored in four studies in which subjects find correspondences between domains and also make inferences. This work suggests that people prefer to make inferences of information connected to systematic correspondences between domains. A second important theme of this paper is that violations of one‐to‐one mapping can lead to inconsistent object substitutions in inference. The data reveal no such inconsistent substitutions in people's inferences, suggesting that they do respect one‐to‐one mapping in analogical inference. These findings are discussed relative to four prominent computational models of analogical mapping and inference. (shrink)

The study of the fallacies has changed almost beyond recognition since Charles Hamblin called for a radical reappraisal of this area of logical inquiry in his 1970 book Fallacies. The “witless examples of his forbears” to which Hamblin referred have largely been replaced by more authentic cases of the fallacies in actual use. It is now not unusual for fallacy and argumentation theorists to draw on actual sources for examples of how the fallacies are used in our everyday reasoning. (...) However, an aspect of this move towards greater authenticity in the study of the fallacies, an aspect which has been almost universally neglected, is the attempt to subject the fallacies to empirical testing of the type which is more commonly associated with psychological experiments on reasoning. This paper addresses this omission in research on the fallacies by examining how subjects use two fallacies – circular argument and analogical argument – during a reasoning task in which subjects are required to consider a number of public health scenarios. Results are discussed in relation to a view of the fallacies as cognitive heuristics that facilitate reasoning in a context of uncertainty. (shrink)

One major facilitator of analogical reasoning is conceptual metaphor: cross-domain mappings that preserve relations and thereby motivate the extension of linguistic terms from the source to the target domain. Their conscious and explicit use in analogical reasoning has been helpful and productive in disciplines ranging from physics to psychology, and philosophy. At the same time, students of metaphor have suggested that partially unwitting use of conceptual metaphors led to unsound but intuitive conceptions of the mind, in philosophy and (...) psychology. This paper develops an explanation of some highly influential intuitions from the philosophy of mind, which helps answer the resulting question: When and why does the frequently helpful use of metaphors in analogical reasoning turn pernicious? In response, the paper brings together two hitherto largely distinct strands of research from cognitive psychology, in a case-study on the philosophy of mind: The paper uses structure-mapping theory to explain how simple analogical reasoning generates conceptual metaphors that facilitate more complex analogical reasoning, which is often non-intentional. Second, the paper examines how such reasoning interacts with partial-matching effects in memory-based processing. Drawing on Budiu and Anderson’s model of “information-based processing”, the paper shows that this interaction leads to predictable fallacies. It brings out the relevance of such fallacies by showing that they shaped introspective conceptions of the mind that dominated philosophical discourse throughout early modernity and retain some cultural influence to this day. On this basis, the paper delineates when and where those fallacies are liable to occur. (shrink)

The role of analogy appears in surprisingly different areas of the first Critique. On the one hand, Kant considered the concept to have a specific enough meaning to entitle the principle concerned with causation an analogy; on the other hand we can find Kant referring to analogy in various parts of the Transcendental Dialectic in a seemingly different manner. Whereas in the Transcendental Analytic, Kant takes some time to provide a detailed (if not clear) account of the (...) meaning of the term ‘analogy’ and his reasons for his employment of it, in the Transcendental Dialectic on the other hand, Kant’s employment of the term seems far less technical. It would seem on the face of it, that Kant has two senses of ‘analogy’: one technical sense reserved for those constitutive principles of the understanding as laid out in the Analytic, and another casual and commonplace use of the term. This picture, although it contains elements of truth, is ultimately misleading. I argue for three claims in this paper. Firstly, I suggest that there can be found in the first Critique a unified conception of analogy. Secondly, I argue that Kant self-consciously differentiated his employment of analogy from the employment that can be found in many early modern philosophers, e.g. Locke. Thirdly, I will tentatively suggest that this interpretation of analogy can aid us in addressing certain contentious areas of transcendental idealism, most notably the account of causation. (shrink)

To advance a successful reading of Kant's theory of motivation, his interpreter must have a carefully developed position on the relation between our rational and sensible capacities of mind. Unfortunately, many of Kant's commentators hold an untenably dualistic conception, understanding reason and sensibility to be necessarily conflicting aspects of human nature that saddle Kant with a rigoristic and fundamentally divided moral psychology. Against these interpreters, I argue for a reading that maintains a unified conception, claiming that we must think of (...) reason and sensibility as interdependent capacities, which stand to one another as form to matter. Our sensible nature thus does not stand opposed to reason; its fundamental character is determined by reason's activity. I take Kant's account of moral motivation and the feeling of respect to represent the lynchpin of this unified account. Against interpreters who would emphasize either the intellectual or affective nature of respect, I claim that it should be understood as the formal element of moral sensibility, the result of practical reason determining the capacity to feel and fundamentally transforming its character. To make this argument, I draw on Kant's account of sensibility in the Critique of Pure Reason, claiming that space, time, and respect for the moral law are analogous formal elements of sensibility. (shrink)

Athens or Jerusalem? By Tertullian.--Philosophy the handmaid of theology, by Clement of Alexandria.--Faith in search of understanding, by St. Augustine.--Revelation and analogy, by St. Thomas Aquinas.--The mystic way, by M. Eckhart.--The darkened intellect, by J. Calvin.--The reasons of the heart, by B. Pascal.--Faith, reason, and enthusiasm, by J. Locke.--Miracles and the skeptic, by D. Hume.--The limits of reason, by I. Kant.--Truth and subjectivity, by S. Kierkegaard.--In justification of faith, by W. James.--Religion as poetry, by G. Santayana.--Faith and symbols, by (...) P. Tillich.--Three parables on falsification, by A. Flew, R. M. Hare, and B. Mitchell.--For further reading (p. 233-235). (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to determine whether analogical reasoning can supply a basis for believing that we have a moral obligation to rescue strangers. The paper will focus on donating cadaver organs. I construct a moral analogical argument involving an easy rescue case and organ donation. Various alleged relevant differences between the cases are examined and rejected. Finally, what I cal l “the ownership dilemma” is introduced and I conclude that this dilemma is inescapable. Thus, analogical (...) class='Hi'>reasoning, however convincing it might appear, is virtually worthless as a strategy of rationality persuading people that they have a duty to donate blood, cadaver organs, or, more generally, a duty to give up any property to aid strangers. (shrink)

John Woods and Brent Hudak’s theory on arguments by analogy (1989), although correct in its meta-argumentative approach, gives rise to problems when we consider the possibility of weighing reasons. I contend that this is an outcome of construing the relationship between the premises and the conclusion of arguments compared in argumentation by analogy as inferences. An interpretation in terms of reasons is proposed here. The reasons-based approach solves these problems and allows the theory to be extended to account (...) for a particular variant of argumentation by analogy in which the subjects of comparison are not arguments, but weighings of reasons. (shrink)

Casuistry, which involves analogical reasoning, is a popular methodological approach in bioethics. The method has its advantages and challenges, which are widely acknowledged. Meta-philosophical reflection on exactly how bioethical casuistry works and how the challenges can be addressed is limited. In this paper we propose a framework for structuring casuistry and analogical reasoning in bioethics. The framework is developed by incorporating theories and insights from the philosophy of science: Mary Hesse’s ideas on horizontal and vertical relations in analogical (...) reasoning in the sciences, Paul Bartha’s articulation model of analogical reasoning and Daniel Steel’s insights on mechanism-based extrapolation in biomedical research. Adopting our framework results in two practical benefits: it sets methodological standards for analogical reasoning and enables us to compare and evaluate diverging lines of analogical reasoning in a systematic way. Adopting the framework also has theoretical benefits: it helps to understand how analogical reasoning can have moral normativity; it pinpoints exactly where moral principles or theories enter analogical reasoning; and it helps to understand why casuistry is an attractive method in bioethics and in applied ethics more generally. (shrink)

We argue that analogical reasoning, particularly Gentner's structure-mapping theory, provides an integrative theoretical framework through which we can better understand the development of symbol use. Analogical reasoning can contribute both to the understanding of others’ intentions and the establishment of correspondences between symbols and their referents, two crucial components of symbolic understanding. We review relevant research on the development of symbolic representations, intentionality, comparison, and similarity, and demonstrate how structure-mapping theory can shed light on several ostensibly disparate findings (...) in the literature. Focusing on visual symbols, we argue that analogy underlies and supports the understanding of both intention and correspondence, which may enter into a reciprocal bootstrapping process that leads children to gain the prodigious human capacity of symbol use. (shrink)