Analogy - denten-courses/metaphor-media GitHub Wiki
Synthesis
An analogy is a comparison between two things, often dissimilar, to explain or clarify a concept by comparing the subject to something similar in essence. Analogies relate a known idea as a blueprint to create a mental link with a presumably unknown concept. Thus, analogies have heuristic value as a means of allowing people to learn or grasp a specific idea.
The root of the word dates back to the Greek phrase analoghía, or proportion. Aristotle provides a systematic understanding of analogy as similarity based on equivalent ratios — a:b=c:d. In this regard, the analogy can be understood as the identity of relation between two ordered pairs; this is a case known as proper proportionality.
Metaphoric analogies usually fall under the guise of improper proportionality as they do not meet Aristotle’s mathematical definition. For example, the phrase John has the cunning of a fox equates the qualities observed of the fox to the human capabilities of John. There is no actual basis of proportionality between John and a fox unless created through analogy.
The formulaic definition of analogy becomes supported by Kant. He argues that analogy serves a specific purpose in the realm of science because the device allows us to compare known constructs with artificial or misunderstood constructs. Kant’s position is especially pertinent in a world that will become more and more dependent on computer intelligence. The analogy would allow us to conceptualize an unexplored frontier through human standards. Moreover, analogy also serves as a bridge between human experience and the afterlife. Only through the basis of human experience can we attempt to predict an unintelligible realm. Arendt extends this diatribe in her discussion of the soul along with inner and outer experience.
There is some debate regarding Aristotle's logical conception of analogy. Quintilian emphasizes analogy as the development of language itself and De Condillac elaborates on this notion by stating that analogy concerns the connection of ideas, establishing the way ideas are perceived. Under this linguistic definition, analogies are a tool of language creation because each newly coined word relates to a previously understood word or concept. Thus, De Condillac argues that languages with more possible analogies should be considered more advanced than languages with less.
Metaphors and similes may be used as a vehicle for an analogy. The analogy can encompass these literary strategies to forward a sort of logical argument about the original subject. Within the realm of inductive reasoning, analogies can serve the purpose of relating two things in some aspects and then inferring their relation in other elements as well.
Quotes
Metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion… Analogy or proportion is when the second term is to the first as the fourth to the third. We may then use the fourth for the second, or the second for the fourth. Sometimes too we qualify the metaphor by adding the term to which the proper word is relative.
Aristotle, S.H Butcher, The Poetics of Aristotle, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902) 79.
It is analogy, and sometimes etymology, that affords the chief support of reason. A certain majesty, and if I may so express myself, religion, graces the antique… analogy; which, translating it closely from Greek into Latin, people have called proportion. What it requires is, that a writer or speaker should compare whatever is at all doubtful with something similar concerning which there is no doubt, so as to prove the uncertain by the certain. This is done in two ways: by comparison of similar words, in respect chiefly to their last syllables (for which reason the words that have but one syllable are said not to be accountable for analogy)
Quintillan, John Watson, Institutes of Oratory, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903) 54.
Since Analogy was not sent down from heaven, when men were first made, to give them rules for speaking, but was discovered after men had begun to speak, and after it was observed how each word in speaking terminated. It is therefore not founded on reason, but on example; nor is it a law for speaking, but the mere result of observation; so that nothing but custom has been the origin of analogy.
Quintillan, John Watson, Institutes of Oratory, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903) 57.
Substitution by analogy is useful, but less sure, and therefore to be adopted with some judgment. It serves to reduce that which is not the object of the senses to their sphere, not by the perceptible operations of the imperceptible body, but by the consideration of some similar perceptible body.
Lord Bacon, Joseph Devey, The New Argonon, (New York: P.F. Collier and Sons, 1902) 227.
All our needs are interdependent, and perceptions can be seen as a series of basic ideas to which we may refer everything that forms part of our knowledge. Above each of these, other series of ideas would rise, thus forming something like chains whose strength will lie entirely in the analogy of the signs, in the order of the perceptions, and in the connection that would have been formed by the circumstances which sometimes join the most disparate ideas.
Here and in the next paragraphs Condillac first broaches the subject of analogy. It plays a crucial role in his conception of language. It is a product of comparison and resemblance ,and its hows in all aspects of language — in grammar, word—formation, phonology, etymology, and style — thus interacting with and mirroring the mind’s corresponding effort to create order and coherence in the connection of ideas. It follows that “the poorer a language is in analogous expressions, the less’ assistance it gives to memory and imagination”. Since any particular and original language embodies a ruling analogy, a language that is a mixture of idioms gives less assistance to the mind. It is this role of analogy that lies behind the conception of language as organism. Since there are always a variety of possible relations of resemblance, analogy does not act as a deterministic vise on the mind; quite the contrary, it opens scope for creativity.
Etienne De Condillac, Hans Aarsleff, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 32.
As we have seen, memory consists in the power we have to recall signs of our ideas or the circumstances that have accompanied them;but this power will not act except when, owing to the analogy of the signs we have chosen and the order we have established among our ideas, the objects we wish to revive pertain to some of our present needs. In short, we cannot recall a thing unless it is at some point connected with some of those things that we control. For a man who has only accidental signs and natural signs has none that is a this command.Thus his needs can cause only the exercise of his imagination, and by that token he will be without memory.
Etienne De Condillac, Hans Aarsleff, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 37.
The first aim in the creation of hieroglyphs was to preserve the memory of events and to proclaim laws, ordinances, and whatever related to the governance of society. In the beginning they therefore took care to use only figures with an analogy that was as much as possible within the reach of everyone; but this method led them into refinements when philosophers began to apply themselves to matters of speculation. As soon as they thought they had found the most abstruse qualities in things, some of them, whether owing to eccentricity or in order to conceal their knowledge from the people, took pleasure in choosing their written characters from figures whose relation to what they wished to express was unknown.
Etienne De Condillac, Hans Aarsleff, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 179.
Here, in ranked order, are the causes that contribute to the development of talented artists: (I) the climate is an essential condition; (2) the government must have taken permanent form, so that a nation’s character is settled; (3) this character must form the character of the language by multiplying the turns of phrase that express the prevailing taste of a nation; this occurs slowly in languages for me don the ruins of several other languages, but once these obstacles have been overcome, the rules of analogy become established, the language makes progress, and good talents develop. Thus we see why great writers are not born at the same rate in all ages, and why they arise sooner in some nations and later in others. It remains for us to examine why superior figures in all genres are nearly contemporaries.
Etienne De Condillac, Hans Aarsleff, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 189.
It is praiseworthy by the aid of comparative anatomy to go through the great creation of organised natures, in order to see whether there may not be in it something similar to a system and also in accordance with the principle of production. For otherwise we should have to be content with the mere principle of judgement (which gives no insight into their production) and, discouraged, to give up all claim to natural insight in this field... This analogy of forms, which with all their differences seem to have been produced according to a common original type, strengthens our suspicions of an actual relationship between them in their production from a common parent, through the gradual approximation of one animal-genus to another-from those in which the principle of purposes seems to be best authenticated, i.e. from man, down to the polype, and again from this down to mosses and lichens, and finally to the lowest stage of nature noticeable by us, viz. to crude matter.
Emmanuel Kant, J.H. Bernard, Kant's Critique of Judgement, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914) 338.
Analogy (in a qualitative signification) is the identity of the relation between reasons and consequences (causes and effects), so far as it is to be found, notwithstanding the specific difference of the things or those properties in them which contain the reason for like consequences (Le. considered apart from this relation). Thus we conceive of the artificial constructions of beasts by comparing them with those of men; by comparing the ground of those effects brought about by the former, which we do not know, with the ground of similar effects brought about by men (reason)] which we do know; i.e. we regard the ground of the former as an analogon of reason.
Emmanuel Kant, J.H. Bernard, Kant's Critique of Judgement, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914) 399.
We can indeed think one of two dissimilar things, even in the very point of their dissimilarity, in accordance with the analogy of the other; but we cannot, from that wherein they are dissimilar, conclude from the one to the other by analogy, transfer from the one to the other this sign of specific distinction. Thus I can, according to the analogy of the law of the equality of action and reaction in the mutual attraction and repulsion of bodies, also conceive of the association of the members of a commonwealth according to rules of right; but I cannot transfer to it those specific determinations (material attraction or repulsion), and ascribe them to the citizens in order to constitute a system called a state. Just so we can indeed conceive of the causality of the original Being in respect of the things of the world, as natural purposes, according to the analogy of an Understanding, as ground of the forms of certain products which we call works of art (for this only takes place on behalf of the theoretical or practical use that we have to make by our cognitive faculty of this concept in respect of the natural things in the world according to a certain principle).
Emmanuel Kant, J.H. Bernard, Kant's Critique of Judgement, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914) 400.
An analogy is made to the outwardness of sense experience, on the assumption that an internal space houses what is within us in the same way that external space provides for our bodies, so that an "inner sense", namely, the intuition of introspection, is pictured as fitted to ascertain whatever goes on "within" with the same reliability our outer senses have in dealing with the outer world. And for the soul, the analogy is not too misleading. Since feelings and emotions are not self-made but "passions" caused by outside events that affect the soul and bring about certain reactions, namely, the soul's pathémata—its passive states and moods—these inner experiences may indeed be open to the inner sense of introspection precisely because they are possible, as Kant once remarked "only on the assumption of outer experience.”
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, (San Diego: Harcourt, 1977) 73.
For one thing, there is no whole to any analogy, we use as much of it as we need; and, if we tactlessly take any analogy too far, we break it down. There are no such limits to the relations of tenor and vehicle as this account puts. The result of the doctrine may be seen in those anxious, over-careful attempts to copy perceptions and feelings in words, to "hand over sensations bodily," of which modern prose at its most distinguished too often consists. Words are not a medium in which to copy life. Their true work is to restore life itself to order.
I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936) 154.
On the contrary all the doctrines of recent psychology lead to the conclusion that the actual perception of resemblance is an activity comparatively late in its development. A vague feeling of the identity of two sensations or situations must repeatedly be experienced before it can be analyzed into the intellectual recognition of a resemblance or analogy. This first hazy feeling is the original fire-mist, out of which solidifies but slowly the explicit comparison.
Gertrude Buck, The Metaphor: A Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric, (Ann Arbor: The Island Press, 1899) 15.
Examples
Thus the cup is to Dionysus as the shield to Ares. The cup may, therefore, be called 'the shield of Dionysus,' and the shield 'the cup of Ares.' Or, again, as old age is to life, so is evening to day. Evening may therefore be called, 'the old age of the day,' and old age, 'the evening of life,' or, in the phrase of Empedocles, 'life's setting sun.' For some of the terms of the proportion there is at times no word in existence; still the metaphor may be used.
Aristotle, S.H Butcher, The Poetics of Aristotle, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902) 79.
Some have separated analogy from similitude; I consider it comprehended in similitude. For when we say, As one is to ten, so are ten to a hundred, there is similitude, as much as there is when we say, As is an enemy, so is a bad citizen.
Similitude of course can be misleading, because it is only analogy. Erasmus is fond of suggesting or affirming that as a is to b, c is to d. The relation of a to b may be a fact, but in the relation of c to d there's many a slip. Rhetorically, though, if not always logically, the device can be pleasing and persuasive; sometimes it has powerful emotional effect in a particular context: As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods: They kill us for their sport. (<- King Lear - Shakespeare)
Erasmus, Craig Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) lxv. editor's note
Hemlock is poisonous to man, and wine neutralises hemlock; but if you put an admixture of wine into your hemlock, you make its venom much more immediate and quite beyond treatment, because the force and energy of the wine carries the effect of the poison more rapidly to the vital centres. Now merely to know such a rare fact in nature is surely both elegant and interesting as information. Suppose then one were to adapt this by saying that adulation poisons friendship instantly, and that what neutralises that poison is the habit of speaking one's mind, which Greek calls parrhesia, outspokenness. Now, if you first contaminate this freedom of speech and put a touch of it into your adulation, so that you are flattering your friend most insidiously while you most give the impression of perfect frankness, the damage is by now incurable. Would this not win credit as an ingenious application of the parallel? I think it would.
Erasmus, Craig Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978) 134.
When men are ignorant of the natural causes producing things, and cannot even explain them by analogy with similar things, they attribute their own nature to them. The vulgar, for example, say the magnet loves the iron.
Giambattista Vico, Thomas Bergin, Max Fisch, The New Science of Giambattista Vico, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1948) 11.
Again, if the inquiry do not relate to perfect mixtures of spirits, bat merely to their composition, as whether they easily incorporate with each other, or there be rather (as an example) certain winds and exhalations, or other spiritual bodies, which do not mix with common air, but only adhere to and float in it in globules and drops, and are rather broken and pounded by the air, than received into, and incorporated with it; this cannot be perceived in common air, and other aeriform substances, on account of the rarity of the bodies, but an image, as it were, of this process may be conceived in such liquids as quicksilver, oil, water, and even air, when broken and dissipated it ascends in small portions through water, and also in the thicker kinds of smoke; lastly, in dust, raised and remaining in the air, in all of which there is no incorporation: and the above repre sentation in this respect is not a bad one, if it be first diligently investigated, whether there can be such a difference of nature between spirituous substances, as between liquids, for then these images might conveniently be substituted by analogy.
Lord Bacon, Joseph Devey, The New Argonon, (New York: P.F. Collier and Sons, 1902) 228.
By right we ought only to describe as Art, production through freedom, ;.e. through a will that places Reason at the basis of its actions. For although we like to call the product of bees (regularly built cells of wax) a work of art, this is only by way of analogy : as soon as we feel that this work of theirs is based on no proper rational deliberation, we say that it is a product of Nature (of instinct), and as Art only ascribe it to their Creator.
Emmanuel Kant, J.H. Bernard, Kant's Critique of Judgement, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914) 183.
Works Cited
Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind. San Diego: Harcourt, 1977.
Aristotle, S.H Butcher. The Poetics of Aristotle. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902.
Bacon, Joseph Devey. The New Argonon. New York: P.F. Collier and Sons, 1902.
Buck, Gertrude. The Metaphor: A Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric. Ann Arbor: The Island Press, 1899.
De Condillac, Etienne., and Hans Aarsleff. Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Erasmus, Craig Thompson. Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.
Kant, Emmanuel., J.H. Bernard. Kant's Critique of Judgement. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914.
Quintillan, John Watson. Institutes of Oratory. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903.
Richards, I. A. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936.
Vico, Giambattista.,Thomas Bergin, Max Fisch. The New Science of Giambattista Vico. New York: Cornell University Press, 1948.