The one thing I thought was interesting in this weeks reading would be judging analogies. The book states seven steps in evaluating analogy and they are
1. Is this an argument? What is the conclusion?
2. What is the comparison?
3. What are the premises? (one both sides of the comparison)
4. What are the similarities?
5. Can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that
covers the two sides.
6. Does the general principle really apple to both sides? Do the differences
matter?
7. Is the argument strong or valid? Is it good?
An analogy stated in the Epstein text is “a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: on one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same.” Writing an analogy we must look over the important general principle that applies to what we are comparing to. And then you must look for any differences to see if one side of the argument is not applied.
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