analogy Reference library
Garner's Modern English Usage (5 ed.)
... ; analogism . An analogy is a corresponding similarity or likeness. In logic, analogy means “an inference that, if two or more things are similar in some respects, they must be alike in others.” Analogism is a fairly rare term meaning “reasoning by analogy” <analogism is not the most rigorous form of reasoning> . ...
analogy Reference library
Australian Law Dictionary (3 ed.)
...on the face of it. There is also an overlap between principle and analogy: the force of an analogy can build what amounts to a principle from an analogy: the politically powerful slippery slope and floodgates arguments are suggestive and persuasive because their meaning is immediately apparent. Reasoning by analogy opens the way to similar-fact evidence and cases may be found that support either side. The judicial discretion that is in fact involved in preferring one analogy over another is smuggled in and largely hidden by the reasoning process ...
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A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... Analogies, much employed in the Bible, are a means of reasoning by the use of parallel cases, and ‘analogy’ is therefore an umbrella term covering similes, metaphors, * typology , and * allegory . Thus Paul refers to Christ as a ‘ * rock ’ (1 Cor. 10: 4), where he uses the account in Num. 20: 11 of the gushing of water out of a rock. The Jews of the 1st cent. ce believed that this supernatural rock somehow accompanied the Israelites on their journeyings through the * wilderness together with the numinous * cloud . So Paul applies this belief by...
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A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.)
... A respect in which one thing is similar to another. The analogical extension of terms is the way in which a term covers similar things: people, bottles, and rivers have mouths. Shops, boxes, verdicts, ports, strings of a violin, questions, roads, and books may all be open, but in analogical senses. Analogy butts upon literal meaning, but also upon metaphor , and thus forms a perplexing phenomenon in the philosophy of language ( see also rule-following considerations ). Arguing by analogy is arguing that since things are alike in some ways, they will...
Analogy Reference library
Alexander Kazhdan and Michael W. Tkacz
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
...analogies to sensible objects. Gregory of Nyssa (PG 44:768A) states that the development of the soul presents a certain analogy to the stages of development of the human body through which is revealed order and sequence of the steps that lead man to the virtuous life. Greek theologians, however, did not elaborate a theory of analogy in the style of Thomas Aquinas . John of Damascus , who rarely mentions the word analogy (e.g., Contra Jacobitas 77.3—ed. Kotter , Schriften 4:134), broadly uses reasoning by analogy; he also attacks the weak analogies of...
Analogy Reference library
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
... . A proportional similarity. Most theological discussion of analogy has been concerned with analogical predication, a mode of predication in which terms familiar in one context are used in an extended sense elsewhere. Thus it is claimed that terms like ‘love’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘living’, which are learnt in everyday contexts, are applied to God by analogy because of some relationship (e.g. likeness, exemplarity, participation, and causation) between God's perfections and these human attributes. According to Thomas Aquinas , such a mode of predication is...
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A Dictionary of Construction, Surveying and Civil Engineering (2 ed.)
... A comparison made between two things, used for the purpose of explanation. One thing, which is less understood, is compared with something that is well...
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
...approach to formal analogy. Cross‐cultural generalization allows recognition of regular patterns of behaviour; seen in a sufficient number of cases, this may constitute a ‘law’ to support the credibility of an analogy. Relational analogy is grounded in demonstrating either the causal relationships between the variables that can be observed or the relevance of comparisons between one situation and another by emphasizing common structuring, organizational, or economic systems within the societies concerned. Contextual analogy focuses on examining all...
analogy Reference library
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
... Analogues are what we call predicates whose formal contents ( rationes ) are neither identical (univocity) nor totally different (equivocity), but present a certain unity of meaning based on a direct relation or a similitude of relations. In the Middle Ages , this originally semantic instrument played a decisive role in the question of the constitution of the object of metaphysics (so-called theory of analogy of being ). In Theology , analogy comes into the question of the divine names: how far can concepts expressing a created perfection be...
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A Dictionary of Chemical Engineering
...analogy A form of general agreement or similarity between problems, reasoning, methods, or logic. It is used to compare the results from one particular problem to those of another from a known similarity between them. ...
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The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (4 ed.)
... Illustration of an idea by means of a more familiar idea that is similar or parallel to it in some significant features, and thus said to be analogous to it. Analogies are often presented in the form of an extended simile , as in Blake ’s aphorism : ‘As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.’ In literary history, an analogue is another story or plot which is parallel or similar in some way to the story under discussion. Verb : analogize...
analogy Reference library
Crina Gschwandtner
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.)
...the notion of analogia fidei (analogy of faith). See also eternal truths ( creation of ) . Crina Gschwandtner Crit. edn of Cajetan, De Nominum Analogia (completed 1498, first pub. Venice, 1506) by P. N. Zammit, OP (Rome, 1934; rev. P. H. Hering, OP, Rome, 1952; Eng. tr., Duquesne Studies, Philosophical Series, 4; Pittsburgh, 1953). T. L. Penido , OP, Le Rôle de l’analogie en théologie dogmatique (Paris, 1931). E. L. Mascall , Existence and Analogy (London, 1949). H. Lyttkens , The Analogy between God and the World: An...
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (3 ed.)
...arguably developed by analogy with pairs such as impórt/ímport . If a speaker were to invent a verb ‘locketize’ (meaning to enclose in a locket) it might likewise be by analogy with other formations in – ize : locketize would be to locket as palletize is to pallet , as containerize is to container , and so on. The term ‘ analogical ’ has been used more generally, of any change in which similarity in meaning leads to formal similarity. E.g. in the history of English, cows (plural) may be said to have replaced kine by a process in which a form...
analogy Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages
... The doctrine of analogy was discussed in medieval *logic , *metaphysics , and theology. Medieval theories of analogy ultimately stem from Aristotle’s comments on a special type of equivocation. Normally, an equivocal term has completely different definitions in each of its uses. In Metaphysics 4.2, Aristotle describes how the multiple use of a term can have different senses that are related to each other through one central meaning. Many theologians invoke analogy when explaining how we can talk meaningfully about God with terms drawn from...
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The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (2 ed.)
...). New verbs almost always inflect regularly (e.g. faxing , faxes , faxed ), by analogy with regular verbs. In historical linguistics , the term analogy is used in connection with the tendency for Irregular forms to become regular (e.g. shape , shove : past tense shaped , shoved , in the 14th century shoop , shofe ; past participle shaped , shoved , in the 14th century shopen , shoven ). Interestingly, irregular patterns are sometimes spread by analogy: for example, the historical past tense form of the verb dive is the regular ...
analogy Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.)
... . In common modern usage the word signifies a resemblance or similarity between objects of discourse. More technically analogy is a linguistic and semantic phenomenon which occurs when one word bears different but related meanings, as in the expressions a healthy diet and a healthy complexion. In theology it helps to explain how one can significantly refer to God by means of words more usually used of people. Thus one can meaningfully say that ‘God is wise’ and ‘Solomon is wise’, even though the wisdom of God is incomprehensible. The use of analogy in...
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The Oxford Companion to the English Language (2 ed.)
...Analogy . A comparison or correspondence between two things because of a third element that they are considered to share. An analogy is usually framed in order to describe or explain the nature of something: for example, time in ‘Let me give you an analogy. Time is like a river. Just as the river flows from higher to lower ground, so time flows from the past into the future.’ Once the time/river analogy has been drawn, people can talk about the flow of time and the currents of history . When such usages are established, their users may forget the...
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A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... A comparison between two different things based upon some similarity , in the interests of clarification or explanation. Typically the illustration of an unfamiliar or abstract concept by comparison to a more familiar or concrete one. Rhetorically these may be expressed in the form of metaphors or similes . See also analogical thinking . ...
Analogy Reference library
Alexander Gramsch
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
... Archaeological interpretation relies on analogical reasoning. On the descriptive level, the objects we want to describe and classify are compared to other, known objects, for example, stone adzes. On the interpretive level, ethnographic or historic information is used either to widen our imagination or to interpret past phenomena—the subject of the analogy—through comparison with better documented phenomena—the source of the analogy. However, this method is not as straightforward as it may seem, but has been highly debated. How can we bridge the cultural...
ANALOGY Reference library
Alain de Libera
Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon
...of participation by degrees. Although the conception of analogy “in accord with the anterior and the posterior” in the Avicenna tradition dominated most logical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle up to 1250–60 (Nicolas of Paris, Summae metenses ; Roger Bacon , Quaestiones alterae supra libros primae philosophiae Aristotelis , IV, q. 3–4), later theories became increasingly complex. III. Philosophical Analogy/Theological Analogy The distinction between philosophical and theological analogies explodes the initially unitary formulation. Since, given...
