Recent accounts of scientific method suggest that a model, or analogy, for an axiomatized theory is another theory, or postulate set, with an identical calculus. The present paper examines five central theses underlying this position. In the light of examples from physical science it seems necessary to distinguish between models and analogies and to recognize the need for important revisions in the position under study, especially in claims involving an emphasis on logical structure and similarity in form between (...) theory and analogy. While formal considerations are often relevant in the employment of an analogy they are neither as extensive as proponents of this viewpoint suggest, nor are they in most cases sufficient for allowing analogies to fulfill the roles imputed to them. Of major importance, and what these authors generally fail to consider, are physical similarities between analogue and theoretical object. Such similarities, which are characteristic in varying degrees of most analogies actually employed, play an important role in affording a better understanding of concepts in the theory and also in the development of the theoretical assumptions. (shrink)

Maps and mapping raise questions about models and modeling and in science. This chapter archives map discourse in the founding generation of philosophers of science (e.g., Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn, and Stephen Toulmin) and in the subsequent generation (e.g., Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, and Bas van Fraassen). In focusing on these two original framing generations of philosophy of science, I intend to remove us from the heat of contemporary discussions of abstraction, representation, and practice of science and thereby (...) see in a more distant and neutral light the many productive ways in which maps can stand in analytically for scientific theories and models. The chapter concludes by complementing the map analogy – i.e., a scientific theory is a map of the world – with a model analogy, viz., a scientific model is a vehicle for understanding. (shrink)

Many scholars often use the terms “metaphors,” “analogies,” and “models” interchangeably and inadvertently overlook the uniqueness of each word. According to recent cognitive studies, the three terms involve distinct cognitive processes using features from a familiar concept and applying them to an abstract, complicated concept. In the field of science and religion, there have been various objects or ideas used as metaphors, analogies, or models to describe the science–religion relationship. Although these heuristic tools provided some understanding of the complex interaction, (...) they failed to address the broad nature of science and religion as well as the multifarious relationship between the two in a sociocultural context. Unlike the previous candidates, the concept of language, including the notions of linguistic worldview, linguistic identity, dialects, power, and bilingualism, offers a unique and comprehensive window through which science, religion, and the relationship between the two are seen with clarity. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up the conciliatory-steadfast debate occurring within social epistemology in regards to the phenomenon of peer disagreement. I will argue, because the conciliatory perspective al-lows us to understand argumentation pragmatically—as a method of problem-solving within a community rather than as a method for obtaining the truth—that in most cases, we should not simply agree to disagree.

One striking feature of the contemporary modeling practice is its interdisciplinarity: the same function forms and equations, and mathematical and computational methods are being transferred across disciplinary boundaries. Within philosophy of science this interdisciplinary dimension of modeling has been addressed by both analogy and template-based approaches that have proceeded separately from each other. We argue that a more fully-blown account of model transfer needs both perspectives. We examine analogical reasoning and template application through a detailed case study on (...) the transfer of the Ising model from physics into neuroscience. Our account combines the analogy and template-based approaches through the notion of a model template that highlights the conceptual side of model transfer. (shrink)

Analogy, as the connection of similar things, is present in all fields of human thought. Art uses verbal (in poetry, literature, art criticism) and optical analogies(in the visual arts), aiming at an emotional perception and interpretation of the world. Philosophy and the sciences also use largely analogical applications, as ameans to construct intuitionally understandable theories. In Law the analogical application of laws is an efficient way to regulate social conflicts. The risk,however, of cognitive distortions, by transferring inadequately explanatory models (...) to other fields, created doubts about the rational appropriateness of suchmethodological tools. Applications of analogical thinking in different domains are readily comprehensible, if the role of analogies in each of them is analysed. Thedifferent aims of science, philosophy and art imply different similarity-criteria to support the transfer of linguistic and visual expressions in regions to which theydo not have a direct connection and application. (shrink)

The preceding theory represents, I believe, a large improvement over conceptual graph theories of analogy. In particular, it is possible for analogical reasoning to be flexible or ‘creative’ on this approach, an aspect of analogy that is not accounted for in conceptual graph theories. I also believe that searching by constraint violations is a more reasonable way to organize memory search than to look for properties of conceptual hierarchies. Proof of this last point, however, awaits an more detailed (...) classification of the constraints that figure in analogical reasoning. (shrink)

‘Particularism’ and ‘generalism’ refer to families of positions in the philosophy of moral reasoning, with the former playing down the importance of principles, rules or standards, and the latter stressing their importance. Part of the debate has taken an empirical turn, and this turn has implications for AI research and the philosophy of cognitive modeling. In this paper, Jonathan Dancy’s approach to particularism (arguably one of the best known and most radical approaches) is questioned both on logical and empirical grounds. (...) Doubts are raised over whether Dancy’s brand of particularism can adequately explain the graded nature of similarity assessments in analogical arguments. Also, simple recurrent neural network models of moral case classification are presented and discussed. This is done to raise concerns about Dancy’s suggestion that neural networks can help us to understand how we could classify situations in a way that is compatible with his particularism. Throughout, the idea of a surveyable standard—one with restricted length and complexity—plays a key role. Analogical arguments are taken to involve multidimensional similarity assessments, and surveyable contributory standards are taken to be attempts to articulate the dimensions of similarity that may exist between cases. This work will be of relevance both to those who have interests in computationally modeling human moral cognition and to those who are interested in how such models may or may not improve our philosophical understanding of such cognition. (shrink)

This paper is about the use of analogical reasoning, models and metaphors in Galileo's discovery of the mountains of the moon, which he describes in the Starry Messenger, a short but groundbreaking treatise published in 1610. On the basis of the observations of the Moon he has made with the newly invented telescope, Galileo shows that the Moon has mountains and that therefore it shares the same solid, opaque and rugged nature of the Earth. I will first reconstruct Galileo's reasoning, (...) and illustrate the counterintuitive and quasi-circular way in which discovery depends on analogy: in order for analogical reasoning to succeed in bridging ontological gaps and thus serve as a discovery tool, a certain similarity between what are considered as radically different domains has to be presupposed. More particularly, in order for analogical reasoning to lead to genuine discoveries, salient features have to be selected in the source domain that will be mapped onto the target domain. There is disagreement as to how this mapping is successfully carried out: the syntactical, pragmatic and ontological-categorical approaches, all illuminate some features of this selection in the mapping process. On the basis of an analysis of Galileo's discovery, I will argue that we need a different "bootstrapping" approach which involves the construction of an imaginary temporary model encompassing both the source and the target domains, and which is occasionally strengthened by metaphors which serve as incomplete transitional models. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 28, Number 1, April 2002, pp. 113-130 Bayesianism, Analogy, and Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion SALLY FERGUSON Introduction Analyses of the argument from design in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion have generally treated that argument as an example of reasoning by analogy.1 In this paper I examine whether it is in accord with Hume's thinking about the argument to subsume the version of it (...) given in the Dialogues under the model of probabilistic reasoning offered by Bayes's theorem. Wesley Salmon attempted this project in 1978.2 In related projects, David Owen3 as well as Philip Dawid and Donald Gillies4 have more recently attempted to construct Bayesian analyses of Hume's argument concerning testimony in "Of Miracles." I want to be careful at this stage to note exactly what I will claim. It is not that Bayesian reasoning sheds no light on the argument from design, or on arguments concerning testimony. All of the analyses mentioned above are beneficial in that they have been able to expose subtleties in these arguments that had previously gone unnoticed. Salmon's paper, in particular, contributes nicely to an understanding of just how the design argument may function in relation to contemporary scientific reasoning. In this paper I argue that, nonetheless, the attempt to apply Bayesian reasoning to the argument as presented in the Dialogues is not well supported as a reconstruction of Hume's own approach to the argument from design. Sally Ferguson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of West Florida, UOOO University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 114 Sally Ferguson There are two stages to my treatment of the issue. I begin by considering how much Hume knew of Bayes's theorem, and what consequence that knowledge might have had on his treatment of the argument in the Dialogues. This discussion includes a consideration of exactly what has been claimed by other authors on this subject, including what some have argued concerning Hume's reasonings in "Of Miracles," section 10 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. I conclude that, based on the historical data, there is little reason to think of Hume's approach to the argument from design as anything more than proto-Bayesian at best. I then argue further, through a close textual analysis of the Dialogues, that there are good reasons for not treating Hume's reasoning there as even proto-Bayesian. In the end, the benefits that have been claimed for that approach, in terms of exposing both the subtleties of the argument and of Hume's reasoning about it, can equally well be derived from a careful analysis of the argument under a model of analogical reasoning, without need of Bayes's theorem. Section One Perhaps one might think that there is not much use for a consideration of the question whether Hume himself conceived of any of his arguments along specifically Bayesian lines. As Gower argues,5 Hume's knowledge of mathematics in general was fairly limited, and Bayes's theorem was not well known even up until Hume's death. It is important, therefore, for me to establish that there have not only been those who thought that Bayesian reasoning illuminates the arguments Hume gave, but also his own thinking about those arguments. It is also important for me to establish that it is not obvious that knowledge of Bayes's theorem did not affect Hume's reasonings. Each of these points will be addressed in the following. As to the first point, the claims of some authors on the subject are ambiguous. Dawid and Gillie, for example, make no statement to the effect that the probabilities involved in Bayes's theorem were in fact examined in "Of Miracles," nor do they attempt to produce any passages from Hume in support of that view. Thus it would be assumed that they see their attempt not as an attempt to provide an analysis that represents Hume's own approach to the argument, but rather simply as one that provides an illuminating method of analysis and support for an argument that Hume happened to give. Indeed, their conclusion, to the effect that a... (shrink)

Analogical inferences are an important consequence of the way semantic knowledge is represented, that is, with relations as explicit structures that can take arguments. We review evidence that this feature of semantic cognition successfully predicts how quickly and broadly children's concepts change with experience and show that Rogers & McClelland's (R&M's) parallel distributed processing (PDP) model fails to simulate these cognitive changes due to its handling of relational information.

We examine the interrelationships between analog computational modelling and analogue (physical) modelling. To this end, we attempt a regimentation of the informal distinction between analog and digital, which turns on the consideration of computing in a broader context. We argue that in doing so one comes to see that (scientific) computation is better conceptualised as an epistemic process relative to agents, wherein representations play a key role. We distinguish between two, conceptually distinct, kinds of representation that, we argue, are both (...) involved in each case of computing. Based on the semantic and syntactic properties of each of these representations, we put forward a new account of the distinction between analog and digital computing. We discuss how the developed account is able to explain various properties of different models of computation, and we finish by conceptually comparing analog computational modelling to analogue (scale) modelling. It is concluded that, contrary to the standard view, the two practices are orthogonal, differing both in their foundations and in the epistemic functions they fulfil. (shrink)

While rules and exemplars are usually viewed as opposites, this paper argues that they form end points of the same distribution. By representing both rules and exemplars as (partial) trees, we can take into account the fluid middle ground between the two extremes. This insight is the starting point for a new theory of language learning that is based on the following idea: If a language learner does not know which phrase‐structure trees should be assigned to initial sentences, s/he allows (...) (implicitly) for all possible trees and lets linguistic experience decide which is the “best” tree for each sentence. The best tree is obtained by maximizing “structural analogy” between a sentence and previous sentences, which is formalized by the most probable shortest combination of subtrees from all trees of previous sentences. Corpus‐based experiments with this model on the Penn Treebank and the Childes database indicate that it can learn both exemplar‐based and rule‐based aspects of language, ranging from phrasal verbs to auxiliary fronting. By having learned the syntactic structures of sentences, we have also learned the grammar implicit in these structures, which can in turn be used to produce new sentences. We show that our model mimicks children’s language development from item‐based constructions to abstract constructions, and that the model can simulate some of the errors made by children in producing complex questions. (shrink)

I begin with a typology of reasoning and cross it with types of processes. I demonstrate that the thrust of Plato’s Republic is theory-building. This involves the critical and dialectic processes which are paradigms of Platonic methodology. Book I displays abductive analogical reasoning joined by an induction that is embedded in a deduction; hence there is a deduction–induction–abduction chain. In Book VI, Plato constructs a visual model of the divided line, which also displays model-based and abductive hypothesis generation (...) that is essential to theory building. Book VII provides an abductive metaphor model of the allegory of the cave. Both models depict degrees of reality and the ascendency of knowledge. The multimodal model-based allegory has far reaching applications from criminal justice to information systems. I conclude by capturing the narrative of the Republic as a critical and dialectic process of theory building using deductive–inductive–abductive chains, an abductive visual model and an abductive metaphor model. Hence, the Republic is simultaneously a masterpiece of deductive reasoning and a marvel of complex model-based abduction, involving visual models, analogies and metaphors. (shrink)

Is the science of moral cognition usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate 'moral grammar' that causes them to analyse human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyse human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his influential work on the linguistic analogy and its implications for (...) jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls' original ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgement. (shrink)

This thesis addresses two enduring issues in legal theory-- rationality and its association with rule of law values--by offering detailed models of two patterns of legal reasoning. One is reasoning by analogy. The other is the inference process that legal reasoners use when they defer epistemically to scientific experts in the course of reaching legal decisions. Discussions in both chapters reveal that the inference pattern known as "abduction" is a deeply important element of many legal inferences, including analogy (...) and epistemic deference to experts--something that has been largely unrecognized in legal theory. After presenting a detailed model of analogy, Chapter 1 argues that legal reasoning by analogy, like analogical argument in logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences, possesses a great deal of rational force when properly executed. Chapter 2 investigates the reasoning process by which non-expert legal reasoners defer epistemically to the judgments of scientists. It presents five main conclusions or explanations. Every practical syllogism actually consists of two distinct chains of inference, and what is usually considered in writings on practical reasoning to be the minor premise of a practical syllogism is actually the conclusion of a separate chain of argument. When a practical reasoner defers epistemically to a theoretical expert, this separate chain of argument has a special structure, which is modeled in Chapter 2. The non-expert legal reasoner must always make a prescriptive practical judgment about the standard of epistemic appraisal and level of epistemic confidence that the reasoner requires of scientific evidence before it may be relied upon in reaching a legal decision. Legal systems should be committed to an emergent rule of law ideal identified and referred to as "intellectual due process" which condemns epistemically arbitrary reasoning processes insofar as they play a role in legal decisionmaking. Since non-arbitrariness is a necessary condition of both epistemic and legal legitimacy, we have compelling reason to doubt that the non-arbitrariness condition can be met when non-experts defer epistemically to scientific experts. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Models Analogy Metaphor Metaphorical Models Current Issues.

In this paper we present Drama, a distributed model of analogical mapping that integrates semantic and structural constraints on constructing analogies. Specifically, Drama uses holographic reduced representations (Plate, 1994), a distributed representation scheme, to model the effects of structure and meaning on human performance of analogical mapping. Drama is compared to three symbolic models of analogy (SME, Copycat, and ACME) and one partially distributed model (LISA). We describe Drama's performance on a number of example analogies and (...) assess the model in terms of neurological and psychological plausibility. We argue that Drama's successes are due largely to integrating structural and semantic constraints throughout the mapping process. We also claim that Drama is an existence proof of using distributed representations to model high‐level cognitive phenomena. (shrink)

The aim of the dissertation is to formulate a research program in moral cognition modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar and organized around three classic problems in moral epistemology: What constitutes moral knowledge? How is moral knowledge acquired? How is moral knowledge put to use? Drawing on the work of Rawls and Chomsky, a framework for investigating -- is proposed. The framework is defended against a range of philosophical objections and contrasted with the approach of developmentalists like Piaget and Kohlberg. (...) ;One chapter consists of an interpretation of the analogy Rawls draws in A Theory of Justice between moral theory and generative linguistics. A second chapter clarifies the empirical significance of Rawls' linguistic analogy by formulating a solution to the problem of descriptive adequacy with respect to a class of commonsense moral intuitions, including those discussed in the trolley problem literature originating in the work of Foot and Thomson. Three remaining chapters defend Rawls' linguistic analogy against some of its critics. In response to Hare's objection that Rawls' conception of moral theory is too empirical and insufficiently normative, it is argued that Hare fails to acknowledge both the centrality of the problem of empirical adequacy in the history of moral philosophy and the complexity of Rawls' approach to the problem of normative adequacy. In response to Nagel's claim that the analogy between moral theory and linguistics is false because whatever native speakers agree on is English, but whatever ordinary men agree in condemning is not necessarily wrong, it is argued that the criticism ignores both Rawls' use of the competence-performance distinction and the theory-dependence of the corresponding distinction in linguistics. In response to Dworkin's claim that Rawls' conception of moral theory is incompatible with naturalism and presupposes constructivism, it is argued that Dworkin's distinction between naturalism and constructivism represents a false antithesis; neither is an accurate interpretation of the model of moral theory Rawls describes in A Theory of Justice. The thesis concludes by situating Rawls' linguistic analogy within the context of broader debates in metaethics, democratic theory, natural law theory, and the theory of moral development. (shrink)

Questions about the structure and justification of theories, the interpretation of data, and the problem of realism have been in the forefront of debate in recent philosophy of science, and the topic of models and analogies is increasingly recognized as integral to this debate. Models of physical matter and motion ‐ for example, models of atoms and planetary systems ‐ were already familiar in Greek science, but serious analysis of “model” as a concept entered philosophy of science only in (...) the nineteenth century. This was largely the result of proliferation in classical physics of theoretical entities such as “atom,” “electro‐magnetic wave,” and “electron,” for which there appeared to be no directly observable evidence (see theoretical terms). (shrink)

Model transfer is the scientific practice of taking a model which was initially applied in one particular kind of target system in some particular scientific domain and applying it to represent a novel target system in a novel scientific domain. This paper motivates a realist interpretation of empirically successful model transfers and the implications of such an interpretation for the metaphysics of science. The paper uses two examples of empirically successful model transfer, the first of which (...) is a strikingly successful recent application of the Ising model to neurobiology, the second of which is Maxwell’s “method of physical analogy”. The paper first defends the need for a realist picture regarding the transfer of model templates and the apparent discovery of physical analogies. Then, it examines further the implications of such a picture, finding it to be quite revisionary in its conception of the nature of causal processes. (shrink)

In this paper, a criticism of the traditional theories of approximation and idealization is given as a summary of previous works. After identifying the real purpose and measure of idealization in the practice of science, it is argued that the best way to characterize idealization is not to formulate a logical model – something analogous to Hempel's D-N model for explanation – but to study its different guises in the praxis of science. A case study of it is (...) then made in thermostatistical physics. After a brief sketch of the theories for phase transitions and critical phenomena, I examine the various idealizations that go into the making of models at three difference levels. The intended result is to induce a deeper appreciation of the complexity and fruitfulness of idealization in the praxis of model-building, not to give an abstract theory of it. (shrink)

This article highlights a use of analogies in science that so far has received relatively little systematic discussion: providing reasons for pursuing a model or theory. Using the development of the liquid drop model as a test case, I critically assess two extant pursuit worthiness accounts: that analogies justify pursuit by supporting plausibility arguments and that analogies can serve as a guide to potential theoretical unification. Neither of these fit the liquid drop model case. Instead, I develop (...) an alternative account, based on the idea that analogies facilitate the transfer of a well-understood modelling strategy to a new domain. 1Introduction2Case Study: The Development of the Liquid Drop Model3Plausibility Accounts 3.1Bartha on plausibility and analogical inference3.2Plausibility and the drop analogy4Analogies as a Guide to Unification5Generative Accounts 5.1Analogy-based modelling strategies5.2Did analogies play a merely generative role?6A New Pursuit Worthiness Account of Analogies 6.1Transferring understanding-with through analogies6.2Understanding-with and the liquid drop model7Conclusion. (shrink)

This synthetic survey of the models on which theEinflihlungstheorie is based has showed the deficiency of a pattern and the oscillation of a distinction.The hydraulic model, which following a radical subjectivism is specified as a projection or transfer of pathemic contents from the subject into the object, experiences a crisis if confronted with the rights of the object, which claims to be empathized in this way or in that way. Such a claim induces to recognize a character proper to (...) the object, which does not accept to be reduced to a mere neutral container ready to receive the subjective pathemic contents.Consequently, the distinction between empathy towards the human and empathy towards the sub-human — which appeared to be a major difference —vanishes, since the relation with the object (natural or artistic) is specified in terms of intersubjectivity andalter-ego.The subjectivistic hydraulic pattern is not just substituted by an opposite, objectivistic pattern, which would create the same difficulties, only upset; but rather by ananalogic model, in which sense is established in the correlation between subject and object, and on the aesthetic ground of the qualitative affinities, which determine a horizon of style.It is an analogic model which characterizes, in Husserl, the constitution of the transcendental intersubjectivity: empathy becomes the condition of possibility of the comprehension of other subjects in their typic or stylistic structure.InAesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft Max Dessoir severely criticizes the theorists of empathy because they hyposthatize organic metaphors creating a “schablonenhafte Versprachlichung.”44 Empathy is certainly metaphor, yet not in the sense of a figurative expression, but as a realmetapherein ortransfert: as translation of sense — not from a full to an empty vessel, but rather in the circular form of the analogic circuit. (shrink)

There is an analogy between concepts such as end-extension types and minimal types in the model theory of Peano arithmetic and concepts such as P-points and selective ultrafilters in the theory of ultrafilters on N. Using the notion of conservative extensions of models, we prove some theorems clarifying the relation between these pairs of analogous concepts. We also use the analogy to obtain some model-theoretic results with techniques originally used in ultrafilter theory. These results assert that (...) every countable nonstandard model of arithmetic has a bounded minimal extension and that some types in arithmetic are not 2-isolated. (shrink)