Comment by threethirtytwo
25 days ago
Anything that can be compared or is comparable can be an analogy. That means any two things in existence can form an analogy. From a practical standpoint only things with at least one similar attribute needs to be picked as what is the point of comparison with no similar attributes?
Discarding practicality, the next line of demarcation is a good analogy versus a bad analogy. This is a very subjective thing but humans tend to agree on what this is. Typically it’s two things that on the surface sounds dissimilar but upon examinations reveals that that they are intricately connected. AKA: not obvious.
You would have to have next level brain damage if you can’t see why the analogies I presented analogies are too obvious. You obviously don’t have brain damage, so it’s more likely you’re just unaware of certain terminology and definitions related to the concept.
“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know which one you’re gonna get” is a famous analogy that fits what it means to be a “good analogy”.
Listen I appreciate you taking the time. And Ok, if we must treat "analogy" as a kind of formal linguistic unit like this, then sure, I guess I was dumb about this.
I will say, it does seem to lose all meaning in this definition. Or just, your argument makes it seem redundant as a concept to simply a "comparison". Maybe it's the brain damage, but I come from a world of shared, natural language where an analogy is somewhat defined by the actual bearing on the two terms, or how as you say, how "good" it is. Also lost in your concept here to me is that analogies are also definitionally asymmetrical: you're using one concept to explain another. It is why we are called to make analogies at all. It's a synthetic intellectual act bringing disparate things together. That's why we say that we "make" analogies. It's also why none of your "analogies" to me are really that good or obvious, save maybe the wagon one.
But hey, you do sound like you know what you're talking about, so maybe I should just learn from this!