PHI 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Iced Tea, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Intelligent Designer

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 1101
• Professor: Mark Brown

Document Summary

An analogy is a comparison of two or more things that are alike in specific ways: analogies can also be used to argue inductively for a conclusion. Such arguments are known as analogical induction" or argument by analogy". It works like this: because these two things are similar in several ways, they must be similar in some further way. ". Examples: animals, like humans, have nerves, a spinal cord, and a brain. So, like humans, animals must feel pain. ": humans can move, do math, and fall in love. Formally: thing a has properties p1, p2, p3, and, thing b also has properties p1, p2, and, therefore, thing b likely has property. How well does it work: like all nondeductive reasoning, good arguments from analogy only provide probable support for their conclusions. The more similarity there is between the two things being compared, the more likely the conclusion is.