Abstract

An account of analogical characterization is developed in which the following things are claimed.(1)  Analogical predications are irreflexive, asymmetrical, atransitive and non-inversive. (2)  Analogies A and B share role-similarity descriptions sufficiently abstract to overcome the differences between A and B. Analogies pivot on the point of limited similarity and substantial, even radical, difference. (3)  The semantical theory for sentences making analogical attributions requires a distinction between (sentential) meaning as truth conditions and (sentential) meaning as a functional compound of the meanings of contained lexical items. Analogical sentences possess both kinds of meaning. They are true via their truth conditions and would be false via their lexical meanings. The distinctive feature of the lexical meaning of analogical sentences is the tightness of constraints on closure. The implications of analogical sentences, given their lexical meanings, though there, aren't drawn. It is in this sense that analogies are made and not found.