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Analogy and distance

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Summary

The paper presents a technical analysis of the notion of analogy by means of the notion of conceptual similarity (the inverse of distance). The main idea is to elucidate the analogy (similarity) between predicates (properties) in terms of the higher-order predicates they share or fail to share. The notions of predicate-similarity and theory-similarity (defined as the inverse of theory-distance) are then combined to give an analysis of the analogy between conceptual systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 40 B, 00170, Helsinki 17, Finland

    Raimo Tuomela

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  1. Raimo Tuomela
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Tuomela, R. Analogy and distance. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 11, 276–291 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01800910

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