Analogy and Balancing: The Partial Reducibility Thesis and Its Problems

Abstract

With an analysis of the structure and the sequence of analogy, the paper is mainly a critique to the partial reducibility thesis: a thesis sustaining that analogy, besides a strictly analogical step, is in the remaining part reducible to balancing. Thus, the paper points out some problems raised by the partial reducibility thesis, such as the contingency of reducibility or the fact that a proper analogy is done under the cover of a balancing. The main point is, however, the claim that analogy and balancing have opposite normative conditions, being this premise the reason to a structural explanation for the unacceptability of the reducibility enterprise.

Keywords: analogy, antecedent, balancing, factors of comparison, gaps, partial reducibility thesis, principles, rules, similarity, subsumption