Abstract
In reasoning by analogy, we project a queried property from one or more source cases to a target case on the basis of one or more assumed similarities. There are three ways in which such reasoning can be inferentially sound. First, the variables of which the assumed similarities are values may determine, tightly or loosely, the variable of which the queried property is a value. Second, we may recognize that the source cases have the queried property in virtue of having the assumed similarities. Thirdly, and most weakly, sources and target may share many and varied similarities and have few dissimilarities.
Bibliographical note: This chapter was previously published in The generalizability of critical thinking: Multiple perspectives on an educational ideal. ed. Stephen P. Norris (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992), 109–124. Copyright © 1992 by Teachers College Columbia University. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the Publisher. An earlier version of the chapter was presented at a workshop on the generalizability of critical thinking held at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in September 1989.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lee Brooks, John Burbidge, Robert Ennis , Nick Griffin , Ralph Johnson , John McMurtry , and Harvey Siegel for helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
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Hitchcock, D. (2017). Reasoning by Analogy: A General Theory. In: On Reasoning and Argument. Argumentation Library, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53562-3_12
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