Ch.12 Post 3

Another concept in Chapter 12 is called Judging Analogies. When judging analogies, it is necessary to survey the similarities and guess on the more important ones so that we can find a general principle that applies to both sides. After this step, the differences are surveyed too see if there is not some reason that the general principle might not apply to one side. According to Epstein, there is a list of questions to ask yourself when evaluating an analogy: Is this an argument and what is the conclusion? What is the comparison? What are the premises? What are the similarities and can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides? Does the general principle really apply to both sides and do the differences matter? Is the argument strong or valid and is it good? (pg. 257) Something else to watch out for when judging analogies is a fallacy of composition, which comes about when something is supposedly true of the whole analogy when really only part of the whole is true.