The Formal Structure(s) of Analogical Inference

Recently, Dardashti et al. (Stud Hist Philos Sci Part B Stud Hist Philos Mod Phys 67:1–11, 2019) proposed a Bayesian model for establishing Hawking radiation by analogical inference. In this paper we investigate whether their model would work as a general model for analogical inference. We study how it performs when varying the believed degree of similarity between the source and the target system. We show that there are circumstances in which the degree of confirmation for the hypothesis about the target system obtained by collecting evidence from the source system goes down when increasing the believed degree of similarity between the two systems. We then develop an alternative model in which the direction of the variation of the degree of confirmation always coincides with the direction of the believed degree of similarity. Finally, we argue that the two models capture different types of analogical inference