This book brings together contributions from leading figures in legal studies on analogy and related forms of reasoning in the law. Analogical reasoning-which relies on the concept of two different things being in some way like each other-is hugely important not just in the practice of law, but it is nonetheless strongly contested. This volume raises key questions like: What is the logical, argumentative, rhetorical, or just heuristic force of analogy in law? Is analogy really different from extensive interpretation, reasoning by precedent and appeal to paradigm?

Hendrik Kaptein is associate professor of jurisprudence at Leiden University. He published widely on legal argumentation, see for example Legal evidence and proof: statistics, stories, logic (Ashgate, 2009, with H. Prakken & B. Verheij)

IntroductionA. Amaya, Imitation and analogyS. Brewer, Indefeasible analogical argumentB. Bro?ek, Is analogy a form of legal reasoning? D. Canale & G. Tuzet, Analogical reasoning and extensive interpretationD. Duarte, Analogy and balancing: the partial reducibility thesis and its problemsB. Bro?ek, Analogy and balancing: a reply to David DuarteD. Duarte, Analogy and balancing once again: a reply to Bartosz Bro?ekM. Golding, Argument by analogy in the lawH.J.R. Kaptein, Undoing damage by analogy: as if (almost) nothing happened, with notes on the meaning of everythingB.D. van der Velden, Analogy in the strict liability rules in the Dutch Civil CodeBibliographyIndex