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The important question about analogy, so far as theistic metaphysics is concerned, is whether the distinction between literal (nonsymbolic) and symbolic (nonliteral) kinds ofmeaning is exhaustive, or whether there is yet a third, analogical kind of meaning that certain terms may have that cannot be simply identified with, or reduced to, either ofthe other kinds. My position is that the distinction is exhaustive, and that any supposedly third, analogical kind of meaning that terms may have can be simply identified with, or reduced to, either the literal or the symbolic kind, depending on the sense in which "analogy" and its cognates are understood. Ifthey are understood in the broad, general sense in which they are ordinarily used, the kind ofmeaning so-called analogical terms have can be reduced to, ifnot if not simply identified with, the symbolic kind. If, on the contrary, "analogy" and its cognates are understood in the stricter, more specific sense explicated by a theory ofanalogy, i.e., in terms ofthe threefold distinction between "univocal," "equivocal," and "analogical," the kind of meaning so-called analogical terms have can be reduced to, ifnot simply identified with, the literal kind. 

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