The Access Paradox in Analogical Reasoning and Transfer: Whither Invariance?

Abstract

Despite the burgeoning research in recent years on what is called analogical reasoning and transfer, the problem of how invariant or similarity relations are fundamentally accessed is typically either unrecognized, or ignored in computational cognitive science and artificial intelligence. This problematic is not a new one, being outlined by the epistemological learning paradox found in Plato's Meno. In order to understand the analogical-access problematic, it is suggested that the concept of analogical reasoning needs to be reconceptualized as a subset of a higher order domain including the lexical concept metaphor, isomorphic relation in mathematics, the concept of homology in biology, stimulus generalization in psychology, transfer of learning in education, and transposition phenomena in perception, as all share the problem of how invariance relations are generated and accessed. A solution is suggested based on two specific evolutionary and neurological models, coupled with findings regarding the cognitive importance of knowledge-base. The paper constitutes a reciprocal complementarity theory to a previous paper on metaphor, suggesting the neurological origins and a reconceptualization of what are commonly called analogical and metaphorical reasoning. The paper also introduces a higher order form of analogical reasoning called analogical progression. Implications for research on analogical reasoning are discussed indicating the need for a paradigm shift in analogical reasoning research. The paper concludes with a four-stage model of analogical access.Analogy, and its sister concept metaphor, has disenjoyed a long and controversial history. Indeed, the history and analysis of analogy and metaphor have been traced by authors in virtually every discipline:

Claude Lévi-Strauss Reconsidered: Cognitive science, epistemology, and the (not so savage) algebraic mind

“…The problem of establishing invariance, then, is an endemic one in everyday settings, cognitive science, and natural science (see Haskell 2000Haskell , 2004a. That Levi-Strauss is aware of this problem can be seen in the tides of his chapters in The Savage Mind (1966: 161): "Elements, Species, Numbers"; and "Universalization and Particularization", in which he lays before the reader the very problem of categorization just discussed.…”