Analogical Reasoning
Irving M. Copi, Carl I. Cohen, Victor Rodych · 2018
Nonargumentative analogies are commonly encountered in the writing of high-school students—and some of these are quite funny. Analogical argument is also common in political controversy. Sometimes the analogy is effective, sometimes it is far-fetched. Some analogical arguments are much more cogent than others. Although no argument by analogy can be deductively valid, some such arguments yield conclusions that are very probably true, whereas others are very weak indeed. A careless effort to refute an argument with an analogy can backfire when the allegedly refuting argument differs importantly from the target argument in ways that tend to reinforce the one that is under attack. An argument by analogy is an argument whose premises assert the similarity of two or more entities in one or more respects, and whose conclusion is that those entities are similar in some further respect.