Favorite philisophical analogies

[alliop]

So what is your favorite philisophical analogy?

Was it the waiter that acts in bad faith?

The pair or rose tinted glass used by Hume to explain his skepticism?

Plato's cave?

The paper knife?

Which is your favorite analogy used by any philosopher? It doesn't have to be one of the ones I listed but it can be.  

[Fae Yin]

I take my favorite from Eastern philosophy; Buddhism

It's a parable, really. Called "The parable of Enyadatta."

Quote:

Once, a man named Enyadatta had an experience that caused him to believe that he had lost his head!

So he ran to his friends asking if they had seen it. Would they help him find it.

Needless to say, everyone gave him puzzled glances.

Finally,after much work.. he finally gained the wisdom needed to be able to see his head again. He was so ecstatic that he ran all over the place again, proclaiming to everyone that would hear him that he had found his head!

His friend just laughed and laughed at him, "Silly man! It was there all along!"

 

[Amenubis]

I don't know if it's necessarily an analogy, but I catch myself using Jean Baudrillards analysis of simulation often throughout the day.  

[AbrAbraxas]

i dont know if this is what you are asking for but it comes to mind, i will have proper one later.

a fool looks at the hand which points to the sky.  

[whynaut]

Here is one I always liked that is a little out of place for me because it is actually religious rather than having to do with any of the postmodernist philosophers. It goes:

Chang Tzu

There was a giant bird named P'eng who was many thousands of li* across. His wings shadowed the earth like clouds and each beat of his wing beat whirlwinds. In one whirlwind, P'eng rises 90,000 li into the air.

P'eng rides on the many piles of air. If the wind did not pile up deep enough it would not have the strength to bear up the great wings. Therefore when P'eng rises 90,000 li he must have the wind under him like that.

The little quail laughs at this saying, "Where does he think he's going? I give a great leap and fly up, but never get more than ten or twelve yards before I come down fluttering. And that's the best kind of flying anyway! Where does he think he's going?"
Such is the difference between the big and small.

The moral of the story: There are things outside of us that are so big that we think that they are impossible, but they too are only based on the "piles of wind" that carry everyone.


*according to my research, 1 li is about somewhere between 400 and 600 meters. It has changed over time throughout the history of China.