“This analogy is so weak it not only limps, as most analogies do, but it positively staggers around on one leg.” – Dr. Gerard Casey.
That Casey book, Libertarian Anarchy, found me idle and then that line made me laugh. I once heard analogies called the weakest form of argument, and that makes sense. But eh. They are also widely and effectively used. I figure they have some kind of force.
I'll back up. Reason is a part of us, as sentients, right? Some of us are better at it, and some of us are dwarves. (I kid.) (Trolls are the truly deficient ones, but I'm not going there right now.) My point is that while a terran philosopher can analyze inference for pages and pages and pages and… even children just reason, naturally. I remember, way back when, disagreeing with other kids, saying something like: “Nuh uh. That’s like saying…” and other kids did the same. When the challenged stupidity truly compared to the crazy in the absurd example, the analogy was a good point. Interestingly, I guess this defense of analogy has a bit of an analogy aspect to it too.
Dr. Catarina Dutilh Novaes says it well. In Argument and Argumentation (SEP) she writes, “Analogical arguments continue to occupy a central position in philosophical discussions, and a number of the most prominent philosophical arguments of the last decades are analogical arguments, e.g., Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument purportedly showing the permissibility of abortion (Thomson 1971), and Searle’s Chinese Room argument purportedly showing that computers cannot display real understanding (see entry on the Chinese Room argument).” She goes on to show analogy’s prominence in the philosophical traditions of many terran cultures before summarizing, “while analogical arguments in general perhaps confer a lesser degree of conviction than the other three kinds of arguments discussed, they are widely used both in professional circles and in everyday life.”
So, they are weak arguments or at least they can be. But they're still useful, at least sometimes.
Well, I guess I better get back to work. Today, round one of hunting and gathering disappointed everyone. Now that the weather has cooled, I must show this forest what I am made of. I’d rather keep reading the Casey book, but I’ll probably get into it once I’m out there. Have a great weekend terrans.
– Pen