Legal Commentary

Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes

By Kenneth Anderson

As I mentioned analogies the other day, I thought this XKCD comic would be a good accompaniment.  Cass Sunstein wrote about analogical reasoning a number of years ago.  Lloyd Weinreb, in what I think is the most intellectually compelling take on this ? careful and venturesome at the same time ? developed several articles into a 2005 book from Cambridge UP (delighted to say the $75 or so book is available on Kindle for $12.95!).  But, truly, the most important intellectual on the topic of analogies has to be Scott Adams, who has made a career and, I trust, a reasonable fortune attacking bad analogies from every angle.  (XKCD provides on the site for this kind of embedding, so I think it?s copyright ok.)

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on July 06, 2010 (boomark / email).