Category: Analogies
-
The Reichstag Fire and the January 6th ‘Insurrection’
How close is the analogy? And what could the analogy be taken to show? Is there an historian in the house?
-
Token, Type, Proposition: Write-Up of Some of Yesterday’s Dialog
I am enjoying the pleasure of a three-day visit from Dr. Elliot Crozat who drove out yesterday from San Diego. The following expands upon one of the topics we discussed yesterday. How many sentences immediately below, two or one? Snow is white Snow is white. Both answers are plausible, and indeed equally plausible; but they…
-
Water Analogies for the Trinity
T.O. suggests the following: ‘Divine’ is a mass term, and so when we say “the father the son and the spirit are God”, we are really saying that all three are equally divine or participate in divinity. I don't quite know what my reader is driving at, but perhaps he has a water analogy in…
-
A Curious Extrapolation
The old man's libido on the wane, he thinks more clearly and more truly about sexual matters. And when the waning of all his physical forces and endowments reaches its term — will he then think best of all, or not at all? The dove soars through the air and imagines it could soar higher…
-
The Household Analogy
I saw someone on TV who claimed that comparing a deeply indebted household with the deeply indebted U.S. government is a false analogy. Why? Because the government, unlike the citizen, has the power legally to print money. No doubt that is true and a point of disanalogy, but what surprised me was that neither the speaker nor…
-
Property Dualism, the Red Ball Analogy, and Emergence
This post advances the discussion in the ComBox attached to Could Brains Have Mental Properties? It would be very easy to be a property dualist in the philosophy of mind if one were also a substance dualist. What I am having trouble understanding is how a property dualist can be a substance monist. In contemporary discussions, the…
-
Richard Feynman on How Science is Like Chess
An excellent analogy. (HT: Ron Brinegar) But every analogy limps. There is no such thing as a perfect analogy. A perfect analogy would be an identity, and one cannot (usefully) compare a thing to itself. So, after enjoying Feynman's fine analogy, you should ask yourself what the points of disanalogy are.
-
Some Water Analogies for the Trinity
The following is based partially on H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, Volume One: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Harvard University Press, 1956), pp. 359-363. Hippolytus: The Logos comes from the Father as water from a fountain. Tertullian: The Father is to the Logos as fountain is to river. One substance assumes two forms.…
-
Analogies, Souls, Harm to Souls, and Murder
Peter Lupu comments: Bill has argued that my murder-argument relies upon a faulty analogy. I have a very general response to this charge: while the murder-argument indeed relies upon an analogy, the analogy upon which it relies is one employed by the soul-theorists themselves. Thus, I contend that if the soul-theorists are entitled to a…
-
The Use of the Body
There is such a thing as excessive concern with the body's health and excessive fear of its destruction. The body is to be used — and used up. It is your vehicle here below; it is not you. It is an experience mill, so grind away. If thinking raises blood pressure, am I going to give up…
-
Augustine on an Analogy for the Incarnation
On this, the Feast of St. Augustine, it is fitting to meditate on an Augustinian passage. There is an interesting passage in On Christian Doctrine that suggests a way to think about the Incarnation. Commenting on the NT text, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," Augustine writes: In order that what we are…