Analogy as prerequisite for understanding: A hypothesis and its implications

Abstract

Alongside spectacular achievements evident in natural, social, and formal sciences, there are severe and ceaseless debates concerning our understanding of some fundamental phenomena. Among the most prominent of those are consciousness in cognitive science and quantum mechanics in physics, topics where ultimate comprehension is generally recognized as lacking despite remarkable knowledge of technical details. While attempts to confront these challenges have supplied a plethora of ingenious theories presumably helping us understand the issues at stake, the question of what exactly would count as understanding is asked in these domains less often. This paper suggests exploring this question carefully and offers a hypothesis according to which analogy may comprise indispensable component of understanding, so that wherever no generally accepted analogy seems to be available, a controversy is likely to persist despite most impressive technical accomplishments. If there is a truth to this view, the persistence of some basic problems may ultimately be due to the way the mind works. The hypothesis is supported by a review of relevant literature and its major premises and implications are discussed.