DOCSLIB.ORG

Analogical Processes and College Developmental Reading

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Analogical Processes and College Developmental Reading Analogical Processes and College Developmental Reading By Eric J. Paulson Abstract: Although a solid body of research is analogical. An analogical process involves concerning the role of analogies in reading processes the identification of partial similarities between has emerged at a variety of age groups and reading different objects or situations to support further proficiencies, few of those studies have focused on inferences and is used to explain new concepts, analogy use by readers enrolled in college develop- solve problems, and understand new areas and mental reading courses. The current study explores ideas (Gentner, & Colhoun, 2010; Gentner & Smith, whether 232 students enrolled in mandatory (by 2012). For example, when a biology teacher relates placement test) developmental reading courses the functions of a cell to the activities in a factory in in a postsecondary educational context utilize order to introduce and explain the cell to students, analogical processes while engaged in specific this is an analogical process designed to use what reading activities. This is explored through two is already familiar to illuminate and explain a separate investigations that focus on two different new concept. A process of mapping similarities ends of the reading spectrum: the word-decoding between a source (what is known) and a target Analogy appears to be a key level and the overall text-comprehension level. (what is needed to be known) in order to better element of human thinking. The two investigations reported here build on understand the target (Holyoak & Thagard, 1997), comparable studies of analogy use with proficient analogies are commonly used to make sense of readers. Results indicate clear use of analogy at the new information in general. Scholars in cogni- decoding level of reading with trends toward some tive psychology have argued that many aspects types of analogy use facilitating comprehension at of thinking are analogical in nature, with some whole-text levels of reading. concluding that analogical processes form a core aspect of human cognition (e.g., Hofstader, 2001; Developmental reading courses are typically Kurtz, Miao, & Gentner, 2001). Supporting this designed to increase the reading proficiency of view of the integral nature of analogy to cognition college students who are underprepared for college- is its use by even very young children. Holyoak and level reading. Existing at U.S. higher education Thagard (1995) report that infants are able to use institutions since the beginning of the 20th century basic analogical processes, and by the time children (Kingston, 2003), developmental reading has his- are 5 or 6 years old, they are able to use complex torically been a core part of developmental educa- analogies for many purposes. In short, analogy tion offerings in two- and four-year colleges (Stahl appears to be a key element of human thinking. & King, 2009). Reading difficulties have been judged Reading is a sociocognitive process of making to be “the most serious” developmental proficiency sense of information presented through text, and issue (Adelman, 2004, p. 87) for college students. difficulties in reading can be intensified when the With recent analyses of ACT college entrance test text involves unfamiliar content and new words. scores indicating that fewer than half of incoming Because of the core nature of analogy in human college students nation-wide were prepared for the learning, its role in a sociocognitive process like reading requirements of a typical first-year college reading warrants exploration. This article inves- course (ACT, 2013), developmental reading sup- tigates analogical processes in reading, at a basic port at the postsecondary level is prevalent and an word decoding level and at a higher, whole-text important part of a college education for a significant comprehension level. number of students. Research that allows for a fuller understanding of developmental reading processes, Research on Analogical Processes and with implications for instruction, is important. This Reading study investigates the role of analogical processing Eric J. Paulson Professor, Doctoral Program in Developmental during the reading process for students who place From a theoretical standpoint, analogy use in Education into developmental reading courses. reading can be directly related to schema-theoretic Texas State University Analogical Processes explanations for reading comprehension. Hofstader 601 University Drive (2001, p. 504) described any “triggering of prior San Marcos, TX 78666-4684 In a general educational sense, one key process mental categories by some kind of input—whether [email protected] by which people make sense of new information sensory or more abstract” as a process of analogy 2 JOURNAL of DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION construction. Schemata are those “mental catego- of relating the new word to a known word in order Hammadou (2000) took a similar approach ries”—as well as concepts and structures—that to read aloud the new word. For example, reading in examining analogy use during reading, look- help us make sense of the world. Schema theory the unfamiliar word “tepherd” by a letter-sound ing at reading in a second language as well as first notes that new information is processed through rule application would result in /teferd/, where language in college students (the first-language interaction with old information, resulting in what the “ph” digraph would be pronounced /f/ as in aspects of her study are of interest here). Four pas- is known as comprehension (Anderson & Pearson, “phone.” Alternatively, reading “tepherd” by anal- sages were used with two versions each. Students 1984). Specific to reading, this means that a reader’s ogy strategy would result in /teperd/ by analogy to read either a baseline text or a version of that text ability to comprehend a text is directly related to the known word “shepherd.” Marsh et al. (1977) with an analogy embedded within it, similar to the reader having the appropriate schemata (see reported that when knowledge of the analog source the approach taken by Bean et al. (1990). Students Anderson, 2013; Faris & Smeltzer, 1997). Reading was accounted for—that is, in order to use the word read the version they were assigned, then wrote involves a constant, albeit many times implicit and “shepherd” as an analog to read the unfamiliar everything they could recall from the passage on nondeliberate, comparison of the new informa- word “tepherd,” the reader would have to know a separate sheet of paper. The written recalls were tion in the text to what the reader already knows the word “shepherd”—they found that the 5th scored using Meyer’s (1985) idea-units analysis about the topic of the text in order to make sense grade group used an analogy strategy 39.5% of the protocol. Results indicated a trend toward better of what is being read. This is an analogical process. time, the 11th grade group used an analogy strategy recall of the nonanalogy versions of the text; for Because reading is not a monolithic entity, this 41.12% of the time, and the college group used an one pair of analogy/no-analogy versions, it was article addresses analogical processing in reading analogy strategy 56% of the time. a nonstatistically significant trend and for the in terms of more than a single measure of reading. other pair of text versions there was a statistically Specifically, a focus on decoding words and on Experienced Readers’ Use of Analogy significant difference of better comprehension on more holistic comprehension of whole texts are in Whole-Text Reading the no-analogy version. both included. Clement and Yanowitz (2003) investigated reading Purpose of the Current Study Experienced Readers’ Use of Analogy processes at a more holistic, whole-text level and Despite the amount of attention that the role of to Decode Words analogies in reading processes has received at a variety of age groups and reading proficiencies, Using analogical processes to assimilate and Verbally producing a there has been little research that focuses on anal- accommodate new information during reading ogy use by students enrolled in developmental is an important aspect of reading at a variety of early word accurately does reading classes at the postsecondary level. As such, reading levels (e.g., Farrington-Flint & Wood, 2007; of interest here is whether—and if so, how—read- Goswami, 2013; Wang & Gaffney, 1998). The use not necessarily imply ers at this level utilize analogical processes during of analogical processes appears to be an important comprehension of that word. reading. aspect of more experienced and proficient reading As noted, two “levels” of reading processes as well, though research at this higher level is not have been focused on in studies that have investi- nearly as widespread as research at the emergent- found that college students were able to analogically gated analogical processes. One level is described reading level. relate the information in a source text to that of an here as the “decoding” level. At this level, readers Kay and Marcel’s (1981) early research dem- unfamiliar, target text in order to problem-solve utilize knowledge of sound-symbol correspon- onstrated how older readers’ reading of nonsense in the target text. That is, where the source text dence to verbally produce combinations of letters words that had multiple acceptable pronunciations explicitly modeled a solution to a problem in one according to accepted convention, which can be was affected by the real words that immediately arena, readers were able to use that text to bet- thought of as “reading a word aloud.” Although a preceded the nonsense word. For example, when ter understand the target text in another arena. general indicator of comprehension and correlate presented with a list of words, readers were likely Bean, Searles, and Cowen (1990) also investigated of reading ability, verbally producing a word accu- analogy use at the whole-text comprehension level rately does not necessarily imply comprehension to read the nonsense word “yead” as /yɛd/ (rhymes with a study designed to “explore the impact of of that word or its use.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Using Analogy to Learn About Phenomena at Scales Outside Human Perception Ilyse Resnick1*, Alexandra Davatzes2, Nora S
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Springer - Publisher Connector Resnick et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2017) 2:21 Cognitive Research: Principles DOI 10.1186/s41235-017-0054-7 and Implications ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access Using analogy to learn about phenomena at scales outside human perception Ilyse Resnick1*, Alexandra Davatzes2, Nora S. Newcombe3 and Thomas F. Shipley3 Abstract Understanding and reasoning about phenomena at scales outside human perception (for example, geologic time) is critical across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Thus, devising strong methods to support acquisition of reasoning at such scales is an important goal in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In two experiments, we examine the use of analogical principles in learning about geologic time. Across both experiments we find that using a spatial analogy (for example, a time line) to make multiple alignments, and keeping all unrelated components of the analogy held constant (for example, keep the time line the same length), leads to better understanding of the magnitude of geologic time. Effective approaches also include hierarchically and progressively aligning scale information (Experiment 1) and active prediction in making alignments paired with immediate feedback (Experiments 1 and 2). Keywords: Analogy, Magnitude, Progressive alignment, Corrective feedback, STEM education Significance statement alignment and having multiple opportunities to make Many fundamental science, technology, engineering, and alignments are critical in supporting reasoning about mathematic (STEM) phenomena occur at extreme scales scale, and that the progressive and hierarchical that cannot be directly perceived. For example, the Geo- organization of scale information may provide salient logic Time Scale, discovery of the atom, size of the landmarks for estimation.
    [Show full text]
  • Demonstrative and Non-Demonstrative Reasoning by Analogy
    Demonstrative and non-demonstrative reasoning by analogy Emiliano Ippoliti Analogy and analogical reasoning have more and more become an important subject of inquiry in logic and philosophy of science, especially in virtue of its fruitfulness and variety: in fact analogy «may occur in many contexts, serve many purposes, and take on many forms»1. Moreover, analogy compels us to consider material aspects and dependent-on-domain kinds of reasoning that are at the basis of the lack of well- established and accepted theory of analogy: a standard theory of analogy, in the sense of a theory as classical logic, is therefore an impossible target. However, a detailed discussion of these aspects is not the aim of this paper and I will focus only on a small set of questions related to analogy and analogical reasoning, namely: 1) The problem of analogy and its duplicity; 2) The role of analogy in demonstrative reasoning; 3) The role of analogy in non-demonstrative reasoning; 4) The limits of analogy; 5) The convergence, particularly in multiple analogical reasoning, of these two apparently distinct aspects and its philosophical and methodological consequences; § 1 The problem of analogy and its duplicity: the controversial nature of analogical reasoning One of the most interesting aspects of analogical reasoning is its intrinsic duplicity: in fact analogy belongs to, and takes part in, both demonstrative and non-demonstrative processes. That is, it can be used respectively as a means to prove and justify knowledge (e.g. in automated theorem proving or in confirmation patterns of plausible inference), and as a means to obtain new knowledge, (i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • SKETCHING, ANALOGIES, and CREATIVITY on the Shared
    J. S. Gero, B. Tversky and T. Purcell (eds), 2001, Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design, II Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney, Australia, pp. SKETCHING, ANALOGIES, AND CREATIVITY On the shared research interests of psychologists and designers ILSE M. VERSTIJNEN, ANN HEYLIGHEN, JOHAN WAGEMANS AND HERMAN NEUCKERMANS K.U.Leuven Belgium Abstract. Paper and pencil sketching, visual analogies, and creativity are intuitively interconnected in design. This paper reports on previous and current research activities of a psychologist (the 1st author) and an architect/designer (the 2nd author) on issues concerning sketching and analogies, and analogies and creativity respectively. In this paper we tried to unite these findings into a combined theory on how sketching, analogies, and creativity interrelate. An appealing theory emerges. It is hypothesized that with no paper available or no expertise to use it, analogies can be used to support the creative process instead of sketches. This theory, however, is a tentative one that needs more research to be confirmed. 1. Sketching Within creative professions, mental imagery often interacts with paper and pencil sketching. Artists and designers (among others) frequently engage into sketching and, without any proper paper available, will often report frustration and resort to newspaper margins, back of envelops, beer mats or the like. Although anecdotally, this frustration seems to be quite common, and demonstrates the importance of paper and pencil sketching as a necessary aid to mental imagery. Paper and pencil sketches are one form of externalization of mental images, and therefore can inform us about characteristics of these images.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristotle's Concept of Analogy and Its Function in the Metaphysics By
    Aristotle’s Concept of Analogy and its Function in the Metaphysics by Alexander G. Edwards Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2016 © Copyright by Alexander G. Edwards, 2016 for my parents, Jeff and Allegra τὸ δυνατὸν γὰρ ἡ φιλία ἐπιζητεῖ, οὐ τὸ κατ’ ἀξίαν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐν πᾶσι, καθάπερ ἐν ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς τιμαῖς καὶ τοὺς γονεῖς· οὐδεὶς γὰρ τὴν ἀξίαν ποτ’ ἂν ἀποδοίη, εἰς δύναμιν δὲ ὁ θεραπεύων ἐπιεικὴς εἶναι δοκεῖ. – EN VIII.14 ii Table of Contents Abstract iv List of Abbreviations Used v Acknowledgements vi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Analogy, Focality, and Aristotle’s concept of the analogia entis 4 Chapter 3: The Function of Analogy within the Metaphysics 45 Chapter 4: Conclusion 71 Bibliography 74 iii Abstract This thesis aims to settle an old dispute concerning Aristotle’s concept of analogy and its function in the Metaphysics. The question is whether Aristotle’s theory of pros hen legomena, things predicated in reference to a single term, is implicitly a theory of analogy. In the Middle Ages, such unity of things said in reference to a single source, as the healthy is said in reference to health, was termed the analogy of attribution. Yet Aristotle never explicitly refers to pros hen unity as analogical unity. To arrive at an answer to this question, this thesis explores Aristotle’s concept of analogy with an eye to its actual function in the argument of the Metaphysics. As such, it offers an account of the place and role of analogy in Aristotelian first philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Analogical Thinking for Idea Generation to Some Extent, Everyone Uses Analogies As a Thinking Mechanism in Daily Life (Holyoak & Thagard, 1996)
    Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management Volume 11, 2016 Cite as: Kim, E., & Horii, H. (2016). Analogical thinking for generation of innovative ideas: An exploratory study of influential factors. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 11, 201-214. Retrieved from http://www.informingscience.org/Publications/3539 Analogical Thinking for Generation of Innovative Ideas: An Exploratory Study of Influential Factors Eunyoung Kim and Hideyuki Horii Center for Knowledge Structuring, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract Analogical thinking is one of the most effective tools to generate innovative ideas. It enables us to develop new ideas by transferring information from well-known domains and utilizing them in a novel domain. However, using analogical thinking does not always yield appropriate ideas, and there is a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the evaluation methods for assessing new ideas. Here, we define the appropriateness of generated ideas as having high structural and low superficial similarities with their source ideas. This study investigates the relationship be- tween thinking process and the appropriateness of ideas generated through analogical thinking. We conducted four workshops with 22 students in order to collect the data. All generated ideas were assessed based on the definition of appropriateness in this study. The results show that par- ticipants who deliberate more before reaching the creative leap stage and those who are engaged in more trial and error for deciding the final domain of a new idea have a greater possibility of generating appropriate ideas. The findings suggest new strategies of designing workshops to en- hance the appropriateness of new ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Resources for Research on Analogy: a Multi- Disciplinary Guide Marcello Guarini University of Windsor
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholarship at UWindsor University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Philosophy Publications Department of Philosophy 2009 Resources for Research on Analogy: A Multi- disciplinary Guide Marcello Guarini University of Windsor Amy Butchart Paul Smith Andrei Moldovan Follow this and additional works at: http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/philosophypub Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Guarini, Marcello; Butchart, Amy; Smith, Paul; and Moldovan, Andrei. (2009). Resources for Research on Analogy: A Multi- disciplinary Guide. Informal Logic, 29 (2), 84-197. http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/philosophypub/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at Scholarship at UWindsor. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship at UWindsor. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Resources for Research on Analogy: A Multi-disciplinary Guide MARCELLO GUARINI* Department of Philosophy University of Windsor Windsor, ON Canada [email protected] AMY BUTCHART Department of Philosophy Guelph University Gulph, ON Canada [email protected] PAUL SIMARD SMITH Department of Philosophy University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON Canada [email protected] ANDREI MOLDOVAN Faculty of Philosophy Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science University of Barcelona Barcelona, Spain [email protected] * The first author wishes to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support over the four years during which this project was completed. ©Marcello Guarini, Amy Butchart, Paul Simard Smith, Andrei Moldovan. Informal Logic, Vol. 29, No.2, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Textual Analogy Parsing: What’S Shared and What’S Compared Among Analogous Facts
    Textual Analogy Parsing: What’s Shared and What’s Compared among Analogous Facts Matthew Lamm1;3 Arun Tejasvi Chaganty2;3∗ Christopher D. Manning1;2;3 Dan Jurafsky1;2;3 Percy Liang2;3 1Stanford Linguistics 2Stanford Computer Science 3Stanford NLP Group mlamm,jurafsky @stanford.edu chaganty,manning,pliangf g @cs.stanford.edu f g Abstract mention According to the U.S. Census , almost 10.9 million African parsing Americans , or 28% , live To understand a sentence like “whereas at or below the poverty line , analogy frame only 10% of White Americans live at or compared with 15% of Lati- source U.S. Census nos and approximately 10% below the poverty line, 28% of African quant live at or below the povery line of White Americans . Americans do” it is important not only to whole African Americans value 28% identify individual facts, e.g., poverty rates visualization whole Latinos of distinct demographic groups, but also the value 15% higher-order relations between them, e.g., the 25 whole White Americans value 10% disparity between them. In this paper, we 20 15 propose the task of Textual Analogy Parsing plotting (TAP) to model this higher-order meaning. 10 The output of TAP is a frame-style meaning % at/below poverty line Wh. Lat. AA representation which explicitly specifies what Figure 1: In textual analogy parsing (TAP), one is shared (e.g., poverty rates) and what is maps analogous facts to semantic role represen- compared (e.g., White Americans vs. African tations and identifies analogical relations between Americans, 10% vs. 28%) between its com- them.
    [Show full text]
  • How to Use Analogies for Breakthrough Innovations
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Schild, Katharina; Herstatt, Cornelius; Lüthje, Christian Working Paper How to use analogies for breakthrough innovations Working Paper, No. 24 Provided in Cooperation with: Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute for Technology and Innovation Management Suggested Citation: Schild, Katharina; Herstatt, Cornelius; Lüthje, Christian (2004) : How to use analogies for breakthrough innovations, Working Paper, No. 24, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute for Technology and Innovation Management (TIM), Hamburg, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:830-opus-1332 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/55474 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu How to use analogies for breakthrough innovations Dipl.
    [Show full text]
  • High-Level Perception, Representation, and Analogy: a Critique of Artificial Intelligence Methodology
    High-Level Perception, Representation, and Analogy: A Critique of Artificial Intelligence Methodology David J. Chalmers, Robert M. French, Douglas R. Hofstadter Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47408 CRCC Technical Report 49 — March 1991 E-mail addresses: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] To appear in Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. High-Level Perception, Representation, and Analogy: A Critique of Artificial Intelligence Methodology Abstract High-level perception—the process of making sense of complex data at an abstract, conceptual level—is fundamental to human cognition. Through high-level perception, chaotic environmen- tal stimuli are organized into the mental representations that are used throughout cognitive pro- cessing. Much work in traditional artificial intelligence has ignored the process of high-level perception, by starting with hand-coded representations. In this paper, we argue that this dis- missal of perceptual processes leads to distorted models of human cognition. We examine some existing artificial-intelligence models—notably BACON, a model of scientific discovery, and the Structure-Mapping Engine, a model of analogical thought—and argue that these are flawed pre- cisely because they downplay the role of high-level perception. Further, we argue that perceptu- al processes cannot be separated from other cognitive processes even in principle, and therefore that traditional artificial-intelligence models cannot be defended by supposing the existence of a “representation module” that supplies representations ready-made. Finally, we describe a model of high-level perception and analogical thought in which perceptual processing is integrated with analogical mapping, leading to the flexible build-up of representations appropriate to a given context.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on the Growth and Development of Islamic Philosophy
    Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, (IJOURELS) Vol.3 No.2, 2013, Pp.169-190 REFLECTIONS ON THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY Abdulazeez Balogun SHITTU Department of Philosophy & Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Abuja, P. M. B. 117, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria. [email protected], [email protected] Phone Nos.: +2348072291640, +2347037774311 Abstract As a result of secular dimension that the Western philosophy inclines to, many see philosophy as a phenomenon that cannot be attributed to religion, which led to hasty conclusion in some quarters that philosophy is against religion and must be seen and treated as such. This paper looks at the concept of philosophy in general and Islamic philosophy in particular. It starts by examining Muslim philosophers’ understanding of philosophy, and the wider meanings it attained in their philosophical thought, which do not only reflect in their works but also manifest in their deeds and lifestyles. The paper also tackles the stereotypes about the so-called “replication of Greek philosophy in Islamic philosophy.” It further unveils a total transformation and a more befitting outlook of Islamic philosophy accorded the whole enterprise of philosophy. It also exposes the distinctions between the Islamic philosophy and Western philosophy. Keywords: Islam, Philosophy, Reason, Revelation Introduction From the onset of the growth of Islam as a religious and political movement, Muslim thinkers have sought to understand the theoretical aspects of their faith by using philosophical concepts. The discussion of the notion of meaning in Islamic philosophy is heavily influenced by theological and legal debates about the interpretation of Islam, and about who has the right to pronounce on interpretation.
    [Show full text]
  • Analogy As the Core of Cognition
    Analogy as the Core of Cognition by Douglas R. Hofstadter Once upon a time, I was invited to speak at an analogy workshop in the legendary city of Sofia in the far-off land of Bulgaria. Having accepted but wavering as to what to say, I finally chose to eschew technicalities and instead to convey a personal perspective on the importance and centrality of analogy-making in cognition. One way I could suggest this perspective is to rechant a refrain that I’ve chanted quite oft in the past, to wit: One should not think of analogy-making as a special variety of reasoning (as in the dull and uninspiring phrase “analogical reasoning and problem-solving,” a long-standing cliché in the cognitive-science world), for that is to do analogy a terrible disservice. After all, reasoning and problem-solving have (at least I dearly hope!) been at long last recognized as lying far indeed from the core of human thought. If analogy were merely a special variety of something that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then it would be but an itty- bitty blip in the broad blue sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything but a bitty blip — rather, it’s the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition — analogy is everything, or very nearly so, in my view. End of oft-chanted refrain. If you don’t like it, you won’t like what follows. The thrust of my chapter is to persuade readers of this unorthodox viewpoint, or failing that, at least to give them a strong whiff of it.
    [Show full text]
  • Greco-Islamic Philosophy and Islamic Jurisprudence in the Ottoman Empire (-): Aristotle’S Theory of Sciences in Works on Uŝūl Al-Fiqh Abdurrahman Atçıl*
    Greco-Islamic Philosophy and Islamic Jurisprudence in the Ottoman Empire (-): Aristotle’s Theory of Sciences in Works on Uŝūl al-Fiqh Abdurrahman Atçıl* Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Yunan-İslâm Felsefesi ve Fıkıh İlmi (1300-1600): Usûl-i Fıkıh Çalışmalarında Aristo’nun Bilimler Teorisi Öz Bu makale Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun merkezi topraklarında 1300-1600 yıl- ları arasında dini ilimlerdeki gelişmelerin özelliklerinin tespit edilmesi yolunda küçük bir katkı sunmayı hedeflemektedir. Bu makalede Osmanlı usûl-i fıkh yazarlarının bu ilmin tabiatı ve içeriğine dair düşünceleri incelenmektedir. Bu yazarlar Aristo mantı- ğını benimseyen ve bunu kitaplarında kullanan seleflerinin görüşlerini benimsediler ve geliştirdiler. Onlara göre usûl-i fıkh ve füru-ı fıkhı kapsayan fıkıh ilmi Aristo’nun bir araştırma dalının bilim olarak adlandırılabilmesi için gerekli gördüğü tüm şartları taşıyordu ve bu ispatlanabilirdi. Anahtar kelimeler: Fıkıh; usûl-i fıkh; felsefe; Aristo mantığı; bilimler teorisi; Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda hukuk çalışmaları. A. Introduction Until the eleventh century, Islamic religious scholars had a cool attitude to- ward philosophy and Aristotelian logic. They considered the first as the reflec- tion on issues related to religion on the basis of pure reason, and the second as its method.1 The point of departure for scholars was the scriptural texts, the Qur’an and ģadith (reports of the prophetic tradition). Thus, uŝūl al-fiqh (theo- * Queens College, City University of New York. I am grateful to Cornell H. Fleis- cher, Baber Johansen and Muzaffar Alam for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this study. Two anonymous readers offered helpful criticism and saved me from many errors. All remaining ones are mine.
    [Show full text]