Comparison Paper

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Learning Outcomes

• Chapter first explains comparative reasoning and how it impacts our understanding of novel situations.
• It then applies correctly the five criteria for the evaluation of comparative reasoning.
• The chapter finally describes the uses, benefits, and risks of comparative reasoning.

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Chapter Opening Video

• The video talks about comparative reasoning.
• It shows the importance of identifying and evaluating the comparative reasoning and the analogies.

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This is Like That—Recognizing Comparative Reasoning

• Comparative reasoning: Process of using what is more familiar to make interpretations, explanations, or inferences about what is less familiar.
• Our minds crave patterns
• Pattern recognition is fundamental to human learning.
• Comparative, ideological, and empirical inferences
• Comparative, ideological and empirical reasoning are fundamental reasoning strategies.
• Gardens of comparatives
• Comparative reasoning relies on images, comparisons, parables, allegories, fables, models, metaphors, and similes.
• Powerful comparisons connect intellect and emotion
• Speech and songwriters, and poets associate their ideas with memorable comparisons as they are capable of influencing people.

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Our Minds Crave Patterns

• Pattern recognition was inherited as the human species evolved.
• People crave patterns and impose them on natural phenomena.
• Individuals have the ability to recognise when a familiar pattern is not followed.
• Human minds can impose any number of different patterns.
• Pattern recognition is fundamental to human learning.
• People try to understand novel experiences by integrating them with what they already know.

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Our Minds Crave Patterns

• Comparative reasoning
• Projecting the familiar on to the unfamiliar as a way of seeking understanding.
• Example - An employer asks a job applicant about prior work experience as he believes that it will make it easier for the new hire to learn the new job.
• Involves potential risks and problems.

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Comparative, Ideological, and Empirical Inferences - Fundamental reasoning strategies.

• Each strategy offers advantages and disadvantages.
• Comparative reasoning
• Enables one to make interpretations, draw inferences, or offer explanations.
• Relies on something more familiar to understand something that is less familiar.
• Helps explain abstract ideas and offer advice.
• Ideological reasoning
• Top-down from core beliefs.
• Empirical reasoning
• Bottom-up from observations to generalizations.

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Breaking Down Comparative Reasoning

• Comparative reasoning can be interpreted using different features of interest.
• Above table describes the features and assertion of similarities involved in the two examples.

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Gardens of Comparatives

• People cultivate a variety of ways to express comparative reasoning.
• Most comparative reasoning does not appear as fully developed argument with reasons and claims.
• Comparisons shape judgments of what to believe or do.
• Judicious critical thinkers must be alert to the ways people use comparisons to express their thinking.
• Comparative reasoning relies on images, comparisons, parables, allegories, fables, models, metaphors, and similes.

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Gardens of Comparatives

• Comparative reasoning is used to:
• Illustrate ideas.
• Offer interpretations.
• Make arguments
• Give reasons.
• Explain our thinking.
• Simplify concepts.
• Comparisons have the power to persuade people, shape expectations, alter attitudes, and evoke emotions.

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Powerful Comparisons Connect Intellect and Emotion

• Comparisons communicate at both emotional and intellectual level.
• Speech and songwriters, and poets associate their ideas with memorable comparisons as they are capable of influencing people.
• Can dispose one’s opinion for or against people, and points of view even before one engages in System-2 reflective judgment.

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Discussion Question

• Provide a powerful example of comparative reasoning.
• The example should connect intellect and emotion, and complete the sentence “Being a college student is like …”
• This discussion question aims to show how comparisons connect to a person’s intellect and emotions.

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Evaluating Comparative Inferences

• Knowledge of comparisons is essential for its usage.
• Several factors contribute to the merit of a comparison.
• Four tests of acceptability
• Evaluates the acceptability of a comparison.
• Five criteria for evaluating comparative reasoning
• The value of comparative reasoning lies in the possibility that it could lead to new insights, hypotheses, and dimensions.

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Four Tests of Acceptability

• First test
• Are the premises all true?
• Words true and false are not optimal for evaluating a sentence that asserts a comparison.
• Words like apt, insightful, vivid, silly, and superficial are better words for evaluation.
• Second test
• Are there counterexamples and how difficult is it to imagine them?
• Helps gauge the logical strength of the analogy.
• Comparisons can be categorized as more or less plausible.
• Comparative reasoning reveals points of dissimilarity and similarity.

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Four Tests of Acceptability

• Third test
• Are the premises relevant to the truth of the conclusion?
• Conclusion is the assertion about the characteristics of the unfamiliar object.
• Maker of the analogy must show that the comparison is relevant.
• Fourth test
• Does the truth of any premise depend on the truth of the conclusion?
• Comparative inferences should flow from what one knows about the premises and what one can project to be true.
• Purpose of comparative reasoning
• To illustrate, illuminate, suggest, or hypothesize.

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Five Criteria for Evaluating Comparative Reasoning

• The value of comparative reasoning lies in the possibility that it could lead to new insights, hypotheses, and dimensions.
• Familiarity
• Degree of knowledge the listener has about the object to which the unknown is being compared.
• Successful comparisons direct listener’s attention to a more familiar object.
• Lack of familiarity with the object of the comparison can suppress the analogy.

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Five Criteria for Evaluating Comparative Reasoning

• The value of comparative reasoning lies in the possibility that it could lead to new insights, hypotheses, and dimensions.
• Simplicity: Measure of the relative complexity of the comparison.
• Simpler comparisons are readily understood and remembered.
• Comprehensiveness
• A comparison is more comprehensive than the other based on the number of central or essential features it captures.
• Example - A counsellor says to a camper,”Hold the handle like you would a tennis racket. Set your feet apart like you would if you were getting ready to push something heavy. And swing like you would if you were going to hit a nail with a heavy hammer.”
• Instead he could say, “Swing an axe like you swing a baseball bat.”

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Five Criteria for Evaluating Comparative Reasoning

• The value of comparative reasoning lies in the possibility that it could lead to new insights, hypotheses, and dimensions.
• Productivity
• Capacity to suggest ideas beyond those mentioned in the initial comparison.
• Exploring productive comparisons can reveal additional possible implications.
• Testability
• Capacity to project consequences that have potential to be shown to be false, inapplicable, or unacceptable.
• Criterion of testability allows to evaluate the acceptability of a proposed comparison.

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Models and Metaphors Shape Expectations

• Creative suggestions vs. solid proofs
• Comparative inferences are inadequate to serve as proofs of ideas.
• Uses of comparative inferences
• Comparative inferences help suggest approaches to understand unfamiliar things.

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Creative Suggestions Vs. Solid Proofs

• Comparative inferences are used to:
• Explore assumptions.
• Shape expectations about new situations.
• Creative comparisons are suggestive of new ideas.
• Analogies suggest alternatives, possible explanations, and hypotheses.
• Comparative inferences are inadequate to serve as proofs of ideas.

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Uses of Comparative Inferences

• Comparative reasoning is used in:
• Legal argumentation.
• Discussions of ethics.
• Comparative reasoning is powerfully persuasive.
• Persuasive power depends heavily on the suggested parallelism.
• Comparisons are built into language.
• Example - Standard household electric current flows through the wiring in our homes and businesses.
• Help suggest approaches to understand unfamiliar things.
• Memorable and compelling.
• Shape individual and group decisions.
• Humorous, emotionally evocative, and powerfully motivating.
• Strong critical thinkers will be cautious when comparisons and metaphors are used as substitutes for solid explanations.

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Sketchnote Video

• The video summarizes the benefits of comparative reasoning when it is done in a thoughtful and logical manner.

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