Analogy as a logical form
Scientists are used to blaming analogies as a non-scientific way
of reasoning, though analogy forms the very foundation of science,
which has been clear ever after Hegel's "Science of Logic".
V.I.Lenin even wrote that all the achievements of natural
sciences should be attributed to analogy. However, Hegel
distinguished two kinds of analogy, depending on whethere the
essential or superficial properties of things are compared;
in the following, only analytical analogies were considered
as "truly scientific", while "superficial" analogies were
contemptuously dismissed. Since most analogies in the arts
appear to be "superficial" in that categorization, art was
though of as a second-rate occupation incapable of providing
true knowledge of the world and only fit to entertain. In Unism,
the balance between science and art gets restored, since the two
kinds of analogy are treated as complementary aspects of
the integral view of the world, and neither of them can exist
without its opposite. A closer examination of Hegel's treatment
of the issue shows that the two levels of analogy he described
should better be called "associative" and "inductive", and they
may equally be either sound or superficial, depending on the
current cultural context, rather than their logical function.
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