more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Giving examples most commonly damages the insight of the understanding, since they only seldom fulfil the condition of the rule under consideration, ..and in the end accustom us to use those rules more like formulas than like principles.
Gist of Idea
Philosophical examples rarely fit rules properly, and lead to inflexibility
Source
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B173/A134)
Book Ref
Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.269
A Reaction
This is directly contrary to the belief of most people who study or teach philosophy in the English-speaking world, but it is an interesting challenge. Philosophy is mainly concerned with abstract ideas. Maybe we need many examples, or none.
| 15770 | Some things cannot be defined, and only an analogy can be given [Aristotle] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 6961 | An analogy begins to break down as soon as the two cases differ [Hume] |
| 5555 | Philosophical examples rarely fit rules properly, and lead to inflexibility [Kant] |
| 5331 | You can't infer that because you have a hidden birth-mark, everybody else does [Ayer] |
| 6574 | Legal reasoning is analogical, not deductive [Fogelin] |
| 7465 | Babylonian thinking used analogy, rather than deduction or induction [Watson] |
| 16307 | Don't trust analogies; they are no more than a guideline [Halbach] |