The role of Analogy in Commonsense

 The role of Analogy in Commonsense -

What is an analogy? There are 2 pairs. And the relationship the entities of the first pair bear with each other is the same relationship which the entities of the second pair bear with each other.

Now, how does analogical thinking work in the everyday world? If something is known about the related first pair, then it applies to the second pair. This is clearly not logical. This is commonsense.

For example, suppose a kid sees a TV with the name Samsung written on it. And the kid asks what is this Samsung written on it? You say that it is the maker's name. Now, if the kid goes to a Chemistry lab and sees a bottle with 'Hydrochloric acid' written on it, it is going to infer than the maker of the bottle plus the liquid inside it, is 'Hydrochloric acid!

Many of the times this can be right also. For example, suppose a laptop rests on the table. The pair is laptop and table. There is another pair - book and oven when the book is on top of the oven. The relationship which the first pair-entities bear with each other (laptop and table) is the same as that between the book and oven (one on top of another). So if someone says that the table exerts a reaction force on the laptop, one infers that the oven too exerts a reaction force on the book. This is how we understand concepts in everyday life.