Argument from Analogy...

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Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

...is like baking a pie. Discuss.
Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

Do you have a favourite pie ?
Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

How palatable is a platonic pie ?
Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

The importance of keeping an eye on the pie.

'Analogical reasoning is fundamental to human thought and, arguably, to some nonhuman animals as well. Historically, analogical reasoning has played an important, but sometimes mysterious, role in a wide range of problem-solving contexts. The explicit use of analogical arguments, since antiquity, has been a distinctive feature of scientific, philosophical and legal reasoning. This article focuses primarily on the nature, evaluation and justification of analogical arguments. Related topics include metaphor, models in science, and precedent and analogy in legal reasoning.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/
Georgeanna
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Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by Georgeanna »

Are metaphor and analogy the same ? And what does translation have to do with it ?
Douglas Hofstadter speaks.
From: https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturer ... alogy.html

'...In his book The poetics of translation (Barnstone 1993), poet and translator Willis Barnstone has a section called “The Parable of the Greek Moving Van,” where he points out that on the side of all Greek moving vans is written the word μεταφορά (phonetically “metafora” and semantically “transportation”). He then observes:

To come to Greece and find that even the moving vans run around under the sun and smog of greater Athens with advertisements for transportation, for metaphor, and ultimately with signs for translation should convince us that every motor truck hauling goods from one place to another, every perceived metamorphosis of a word or phrase within or between languages, every decipherment and interpretation of a text, every role by each actor in the cast, every adaptation of a script by a director of opera, film, theater, ballet, pantomime, indeed every perception of movement and change, in the street or on our tongues, on the page or in our ears, leads us directly to the art and activity of translation.

I pack my mental goods down into tight, neat bundles, I load them as carefully as I can into the metafora truck of language, it drives from my brain to yours, and then you unpack. What a metaphor for communication! And yet it has often been said that all communication, all language, is metaphorical. Since I believe that metaphor and analogy are the same phenomenon, it would follow that I believe that all communication is via analogy. Indeed, I would describe communication this way: taking an intricate dance that can be danced in one and only one medium, and then, despite the intimacy of the marriage of that dance to that medium, making a radically new dance that is intimately married to a radically different medium, and in just the same way as the first dance was to its medium.'
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chewybrian
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Re: Argument from Analogy...

Post by chewybrian »

Georgeanna wrote: September 15th, 2018, 8:08 am Do you have a favourite pie ?
Pizza, of course, with pepperoni and hot peppers.
Georgeanna wrote: September 15th, 2018, 8:46 am Are metaphor and analogy the same ?
Without resorting to Wikipedia or whatever...

I think an analogy is a comparison to help make a difficult concept easier to understand, comparing it to something one assumes the receiver of the message would already understand. I might say: "Buying penny stocks is like betting on horses at 100:1 odds; you could make a lot of money, but you almost never will." Assuming you had been to the horse track, it might help you get the point.

A metaphor also uses comparison to help with understanding. But, the story is told without directly making the comparison, but rather using a substitution and hoping the receiver will make the comparison themselves. I might tell the story of Miss Penny Stock, who makes a trip to the racetrack, and ignores the advice of all the racetrack regulars who tell her the favorites usually win, and decides instead to bet her retirement money on the longest shot on the board, and loses. In the case of the metaphor, I would allow the reader to (hopefully) figure out that the moral of the story was to avoid penny stocks.

Neither type of 'argument' really amounts to an argument at all. In either case, I am only passing along my opinion that neither long shot horses nor penny stocks are worthy of your investment dollars. Despite their similarities, the results from one of these do not necessarily foretell the expected results from the other. They are somewhat similar activities, but not related. You could also say that either tactic, analogy or metaphor, is a bit condescending, unless maybe I am making a presentation to some young school children. I suppose the metaphor also could add an 'artsy' element to your story, though I prefer something more straightforward.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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