On the Role of Premises in Assessing the Strength of Analogical Arguments

Abstract

An analogical argument is a special type of argument in which premises express perceived similarities that serve as a basis for inferring an additional, unobserved similarity. This paper highlights that, in such arguments, premises play a distinctive role that motivates the need for premise-sensitive semantics.In particular, these semantics should account for the dispersion of attackers across premises, rather than relying solely on their number or aggregated strength. We take a first step in this direction by introducing a set of principles that formalize these requirements and by defining a novel gradual semantics that satisfies them.</div