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(2014) Systematic approaches to argument by analogy, Dordrecht, Springer.
Clinical reasoning combines a wide range of strategies: deduction, induction and mainly different kinds of abductive reasoning (analogy, case studies, causal reasoning, etc.). This paper will focus on analogical reasoning, although it will be examined in comparison and combination with other methods, mainly inductive and causal reasoning. Analogy, induction and other kinds of reasoning play different roles in each phase. Analogy is one of the most powerful tools in everyday clinical practice, since physicians must compare their patients' symptoms with their past professional experience and their theoretical knowledge of medicine, and analogical reasoning plays a central role in this task. Young doctors and experimented physicians tend to reason differently, so this point will be explored. However, it is not the only way of reaching a diagnosis and confirming/rejecting hypotheses. Since physicians want to know the possible cause of their patients' symptoms, analogy combines well with causal models, and therefore the relation between these two methods will be examined. Induction and the relevant connections with analogy will be considered too since it plays a decisive role both in the generation and the confirmation of hypotheses.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-06334-8_15
Full citation:
Guallart, N. (2014)., Analogical reasoning in clinical practice, in H. Jales ribeiro (ed.), Systematic approaches to argument by analogy, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 257-273.
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