Analogy as a basic function of thinking

Abstract

We present an analytical study that puts forward a hypothesis about the role of analogy in thinking. The article presents a critique of the structural mapping hypothesis in analogy as an explanation of the analogical argument and will offer an alternative explanation — the functional hypothesis of the analogical argument. It will also be shown how such functions of thinking as recognition and memory, metaphor and syllogism, generalization and ontology, deduction and induction can be realized with the help of the analogy method developed by the author. The article puts forward a hypothesis that these different functions are nothing more than different manifestations of one mechanism for the dissemination of thinking patterns through analogy.
In the previous article [1] we described the results of experiments on obtaining analogs of words based on the statistics of predicates extracted from texts by a simple parser. In this article, continuing the topic of analogy, we will analyze two aspects:
- how similar expressions (analogous argument) are found when solving problems and learning;
- what is the role of analogy in thinking, namely, what thinking processes are realized with the help of analogy.
The article critically examines the most well-known approaches to explaining and attempting to implement analogy. The authors propose another hypothesis, called functional analogy, which is distinguished by the simplicity of explaining the analogical argument, greater correspondence to examples of analogy, in the authors’ opinion, and the possibility of programmatic implementation.