Analogy
[3][4] Analogy plays a significant role in problem solving, as well as decision making, argumentation, perception, generalization, memory, creativity, invention, prediction, emotion, explanation, conceptualization and communication.
It lies behind basic tasks such as the identification of places, objects and people, for example, in face perception and facial recognition systems.
Analogy is important not only in ordinary language and common sense (where proverbs and idioms give many examples of its application) but also in science, philosophy, law and the humanities.
The concepts of association, comparison, correspondence, mathematical and morphological homology, homomorphism, iconicity, isomorphism, metaphor, resemblance, and similarity are closely related to analogy.
Cajetan named several kinds of analogy that had been used but previously unnamed, particularly:[6] In ancient Greek the word αναλογια (analogia) originally meant proportionality, in the mathematical sense, and it was indeed sometimes translated to Latin as proportio.
These questions were usually given in the Aristotelian format: HAND : PALM : : FOOT : ____ While most competent English speakers will immediately give the right answer to the analogy question (sole), it is more difficult to identify and describe the exact relation that holds both between pairs such as hand and palm, and between foot and sole.
This relation is not apparent in some lexical definitions of palm and sole, where the former is defined as the inner surface of the hand, and the latter as the underside of the foot.
Kant's Critique of Judgment held to this notion of analogy, arguing that there can be exactly the same relation between two completely different objects.
[9] Analogous objects did not share necessarily a relation, but also an idea, a pattern, a regularity, an attribute, an effect or a philosophy.
James Francis Ross in Portraying Analogy (1982), the first substantive examination of the topic since Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia,[dubious – discuss] demonstrated that analogy is a systematic and universal feature of natural languages, with identifiable and law-like characteristics which explain how the meanings of words in a sentence are interdependent.
Ibn Taymiyya,[10][11][12] Francis Bacon and later John Stuart Mill argued that analogy is simply a special case of induction.
[15] In the field of testing, the colon notation of ratios and equality is often borrowed, so that the example above might be rendered, "Smile : mouth :: wink : eye" and pronounced the same way.
Analogy can help prove important theories, especially in those kinds of science in which logical or empirical proof is not possible such as theology, philosophy or cosmology when it relates to those areas of the cosmos (the universe) that are beyond any data-based observation and knowledge about them stems from the human insight and thinking outside the senses.
Analogy can be used in theoretical and applied sciences in the form of models or simulations which can be considered as strong indications of probable correctness.
Other, much weaker, analogies may also assist in understanding and describing nuanced or key functional behaviours of systems that are otherwise difficult to grasp or prove.
[19] The analogical reasoning in the human mind is free of the false inferences plaguing conventional artificial intelligence models, (called systematicity).
[23][24] Empirical evidence shows that humans are better at using and creating analogies when the information is presented in an order where an item and its analogue are placed together.
[27] It has been argued (Morrison and Dietrich 1995) that Hofstadter's and Gentner's groups do not defend opposite views, but are instead dealing with different aspects of analogy.
Pask in his conversation theory asserts an analogy that describes both similarities and differences between any pair of the participants' internal models or concepts exists.
Recent methods involving calculation operate on large document archives, allowing for analogical or corresponding terms from the past to be found as a response to random questions by users (e.g., Myanmar - Burma) [29] and explained.
[34] The process of analogy then involves: In general, it has been found that people prefer analogies where the two systems correspond highly to each other (e.g. have similar relationships across the domains as opposed to just having similar objects across domains) when these people try to compare and contrast the systems.
[36] This is critical in their cognitive development as continuing to focus on specific objects would reduce children's ability to learn abstract patterns and reason analogically.
[36] Interestingly, some researchers have proposed that children's basic brain functions (i.e., working memory and inhibitory control) do not drive this relational shift.
[34] Additionally, research has identified several factors that may increase the likelihood that a child may spontaneously engage in comparison and learn an abstract relationship, without the need for prompts.
[39] The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 taught: For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.
The consequence of this theory is that all true statements concerning God (excluding the concrete details of Jesus' earthly life) are rough analogies, without implying any falsehood.
In traditional Christian doctrine, the Trinity is a Mystery of Faith that has been revealed, not something obvious or derivable from first principles or found in any thing in the created world.
However, these analogies, if taken too far, could teach the heresies of modalism (water states) and partialism (parts of egg), which are contrary to the Christian understanding of the Trinity.
The bounds and rules employed to make analogical deduction vary greatly between madhhabs and to a lesser extent individual scholars.
It is nonetheless a generally accepted source of law within jurisprudential epistemology, with the chief opposition to it forming the dhahiri (ostensiblist) school.
