ABSTRACT
One of the tasks to which we made reference in the previous chapter, but for which we provided little guidance, was proposing an explanation. The logical arguments we developed there were useful primarily in selecting between possible causal factors or in showing that proposed explanations were or were not satisfactory. Before these techniques are useful, however, one must come up with possible explanations. One of the most useful tools for doing so is analogy. In analogy one compares one entity or group of entities with others and argues that as a result of the similarities the new item or group exhibits with these other items, the item of interest will also behave like them in a certain, but previously unknown, respect. This chapter explores the logic of this reasoning.
