Explanation
Analogy is an inferred correspondence between relational structures: because elements in a familiar domain stand in a certain relation, a comparable organisation is proposed for another domain. Its force lies not in surface resemblance alone but in mapping relevant relations. An electrical grid may help us think about routes of information without making electricity and meaning identical. Analogies enable discovery, modelling, and explanation, yet always transfer selected features only. When limits remain unstated, heuristic assistance can become fallacy. The concept therefore moves twice, from the familiar toward the unknown and back toward examination: what supports the transfer, where does it break, and which new question becomes visible precisely through that break?
Movement of thought
1. A poorly understood target domain first presents a structural question for which direct concepts or observations remain insufficient. 2. A familiar source domain is selected because certain relations are clearer or better studied within it. 3. Selected relations are mapped onto the target, opening hypotheses, models, or accessible explanations. 4. A counter-test systematically seeks properties that do not transfer and compares alternative analogies with different consequences. 5. The target returns in greater differentiation: analogy has opened a path while its limit prevents conflation of the domains.
Scientific use case
Philosophy of science, cognitive research, and argumentation analysis specify source, target, mappings, and limits. Experiments test which inferences an analogy enables and which erroneous transfers it invites.
Example
A teacher compares grammatical valency to occupied and unoccupied attachment points in a construction set. The model displays combinability but not the meanings of the words involved.
Counterexample
Two terms sound similar but exhibit no corresponding relational structure. Such surface resemblance is neither a robust analogy nor evidence that they share further properties.
Distinction
Distinguish analogy from resemblance alone, comparison, simile, example, induction, and identity. Analogy proposes a relevant structural correspondence whose scope and limits must be explicitly tested.
Effect on thought and perception
Analogy makes unfamiliar structures accessible through familiar relations and supports hypotheses and explanation, but uncontrolled transfer can create false necessities.
Resonance
One organisation answers within another without becoming identical to it; the strongest insight often occurs where correspondence holds and then audibly breaks.
Etymology
Technical core term; individual etymological review pending
Provenance
Unresolved relation network → core-concept review → Metzler/HWRh cross-check → ATLAS 238
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Analogy“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-238-029. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-238-029The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Locke treats analogy in the Essay as a rule of probable reasoning about objects and causes beyond direct sensory observation. Observed effects and established relations provide proportions against which conjectures about the unseen may be assessed. His examples range from natural processes to the cosmological and theological assumptions of his period; they document his scope for the method, not the truth of every inference. He links wary analogical reasoning with hypotheses and experiments. Analogy can therefore guide inquiry without proving that all relevant properties correspond.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Specify the source and target domains, the relation that genuinely corresponds and the limits of transfer. An analogy generates a testable conjecture; it does not by itself prove identity between the cases.
References for the historical section
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (first published with the date 1690), Books III–IV; Gutenberg transcription identified as based on the second edition · IV.xvi.12, reasoning about causes and objects beyond direct observation
Selected original-English passages read; not collated against first-edition page images. Modern profile labels are explicitly distinguished from the terminology used by Locke. His account of ideas is a historical philosophical position, not a verified contemporary model of language or cognition.