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One observation I've seen made, and have agreed with time, is that using analogies is bad form in an argument. Once an analogy has been made, the conversation
by anilgulecha 6y ago
One observation I've seen made, and have agreed with time, is that using analogies is bad form in an argument.
Once an analogy has been made, the conversation always turns to contorting it to matching the viewpoints by both sides. It's always distracting.
If you're reaching for an analogy, spend a bit more time to try to make your point without it.
- FartyMcFarter 6y agoAnalogies are usually not a proof, but they can help understanding things. If humans were infinitely smart, analogies wouldn't be needed. But since we aren't, we often understand things better by seeing a comparison to something that is more visceral, or that we already know.
- tpoacher 6y agoThis is because an analogy is in fact a form of fallacious thinking. Except in the case where your analogy is effectively an argument to generalisation, attacked via a specialised example (but arguing only over the generalisable properties). Any other type of analogy immediately falls flat as soon as someone calls out specialised property x that does not hold for oroginal argument y.
- Veen 6y agoIt’s probably a bad idea to use analogies in a combative argument where participants are more interested in winning than establishing the truth. But analogies are useful cognitive ratchets; they help people to begin to understand difficult abstract concepts, so they are useful when participants are more cooperative than competitive.
- casion 6y agoI don't think this is necessarily true. Analogies are useful to help build bridges when two parties have differing corpuses of knowledge. If I want to discuss the merits of different woods in cavaquinho construction with someone that's spent all of their life in an office, then it is almost always easier to work in an analogistic manner that spend hours upon hundreds of hours building up their knowledge. If it's a _debate_ with two parties trying to convince the other of a point, then analogies begin to fall short. You did say _conversation_ though. Not all conversations are debates.
- koheripbal 6y agoAnalogies can help be instructive when parties are looking for understanding or inspiration. They are distracting when parties are arguing logic/reasoning.