Skip to main content
Log in

Verdi is the puccini of music

  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

An account of analogical characterization is developed in which the following things are claimed.

  1. (1)

    Analogical predications are irreflexive, asymmetrical, atransitive and non-inversive.

  2. (2)

    Analogies A and B share role-similarity descriptions sufficiently abstract to overcome the differences between A and B. Analogies pivot on the point of limited similarity and substantial, even radical, difference.

  3. (3)

    The semantical theory for sentences making analogical attributions requires a distinction between (sentential) meaning as truth conditions and (sentential) meaning as a functional compound of the meanings of contained lexical items. Analogical sentences possess both kinds of meaning. They are true via their truth conditions and would be false via their ‘lexical’ meanings. The distinctive feature of the ‘lexical’ meaning of analogical sentences is the tightness of constraints on closure. The implications of analogical sentences, given their lexical meanings, though ‘there’, aren't drawn. It is in this sense that analogies are made and not found.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bosanquet, Bernard: 1911, Logic or the Morphology of Knowledge, 2d edn., Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, Mario: 1974, Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Vol. I, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carney, James D. and Richard K. Scheer: 1980, Elements of Logic, 3d edn., Macmillan, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Copi, Irving M.: 1986, Introduction to Logic, 7th edn., Macmillan, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giere, Ronald: 1984, Understanding Scientific Reasoning, 2d edn., Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, Ian: 1975, Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesse, Mary: 1966, Models and Analogies in Science, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesse, Mary: 1988, ‘Theories, Family Resemblances and Analogy’, in D. H. Helman (ed.), Analogical Reasoning: Perspectives of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, and Philosophy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 317–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hintikka, Jaakko: 1987, ‘The Fallacy of Fallacies’, Argumentation 1, 211–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofstadter, Douglas R.: 1986, ‘Analogies and Roles in Human Thinking and Machine Thinking’, in Metamagical Themes: A Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, Bantam Books, New York, pp. 547–602.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joseph, H. W. B.: 1916, An Introduction to Logic, 2d edn., Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keynes, J. M.: 1963, A Treatise on Probability, Macmillan, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson: 1980, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, David: 1978, ‘Truth in Fiction’, American Philosophical Quarterly 15, 37–46 (reprinted with postcripts in Lewis, David: 1983, Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 261–68).

    Google Scholar 

  • MacCormac, Earl: 1983, ‘Scientific Metaphors as Necessary Conceptual Limitations of Science’, in Nicholas Rescher (ed.), The Limits of Lawfulness, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, pp. 61–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacCormac, Earl: 1985, A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill, J. S.: 1961, A System of Logic, Longman's Green, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, Terence: 1980, Non-Existent Objects, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrin, Porter G. and Wilma R. Ebbitt: 1972, Writer's Guide and Index to English, Scott Foreman, Glenview, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polya, G.: 1954, Induction and Analogy in Mathematics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V.: 1977, ‘Natural Kinds’, in Stephen P. Schwartz (ed.), Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, pp. 155–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V.: 1981, Theories and Things, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rescher, Nicholas: 1985, The Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, James F.: 1981, Portraying Analogy, Cambridge University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, Stephen P. (ed.): 1977, Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stebbing, L. Susan: 1961, A Modern Introduction to Logic, Harper Torchbooks, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thom, René: 1975, Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, W. A. Benjamin, Reading, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ulam, S. M.: 1983, Adventures of a Mathematician, 2d edn., Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weddle, Perry: 1978, ‘Comparison’, in Argument: A Guide to Critical Thinking, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 138–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, John: 1965, ‘Was Achilles' “Achilles' Heel” Achilles' Heel?’, Analysis XXV, 142–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, John: 1974a, The Logic of Fiction, Mouton, The Hague.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, John: 1974b, ‘Semantic Kinds’, Philosophia III, 117–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, John and Brent Hudak: 1989, ‘By Parity of Reasoning’, Informal Logic XI, 125–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods, John and Douglas Walton: 1982, Argument: The Logic of the Fallacies, McGraw-Hill, Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Igor Stravinsky, quoted in Hofstadter (1986, p. 562). We are much indebted to Hofstadter's stimulating essay.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Woods, J., Hudak, B. Verdi is the puccini of music. Synthese 92, 189–220 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00414299

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00414299

Keywords

Navigation