Rhetoric and Analogies

25 Pages Posted: 10 Jul 2013

See all articles by Enriqueta Aragones

Enriqueta Aragones

Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Insitute for Economic Analysis

Itzhak Gilboa

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics; HEC Paris - Economics & Decision Sciences

Andrew Postlewaite

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics

David Schmeidler

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics; Ohio State University (OSU)

Date Written: July 10, 2013

Abstract

The art of rhetoric may be defined as changing other people’s minds (opinions, beliefs) without providing them new information. One technique heavily used by rhetoric employs analogies. Using analogies, one may draw the listener’s attention to similarities between cases and to re-organize existing information in a way that highlights certain regularities. In this paper we offer two models of analogies, discuss their theoretical equivalence, and show that finding good analogies is a computationally hard problem.

Keywords: Methodology, Case-based reasoning

JEL Classification: B40, B41

Suggested Citation

Aragonés, Enriqueta and Gilboa, Itzhak and Postlewaite, Andrew and Schmeidler, David, Rhetoric and Analogies (July 10, 2013). PIER Working Paper No. 13-039, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2292003 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2292003

Enriqueta Aragonés

Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Insitute for Economic Analysis ( email )

08193 Bellaterra
Spain
34-93-580-6612 (Phone)
34-93-580-1452 (Fax)

Itzhak Gilboa

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 39040
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978
Israel
972-3-640-6423 (Phone)
972-3-640-9908 (Fax)

HEC Paris - Economics & Decision Sciences

Paris
France

Andrew Postlewaite (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics ( email )

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science
133 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
United States
215-898-7350 (Phone)
215-573-2057 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.econ.upenn.edu/~apostlew

David Schmeidler

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 39040
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978
Israel
+972-3-640-9643 (Phone)
+972-3-640-9357 (Fax)

Ohio State University (OSU) ( email )

Blankenship Hall-2010
901 Woody Hayes Drive
Columbus, OH OH 43210
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
123
Abstract Views
1,638
Rank
410,240
PlumX Metrics