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This chapter provides a defense of analogical reasoning by linking it to standard pragmatic virtues that guide us in the choice of scientific theories. The idea is based on a high‐level analogy between science and the law. In case law, the basic justification for stare decisis (following precedent) is that it promotes consistency and predictability while still permitting the evolution of the legal system. We seek an analogous balance when we turn to plausibility arguments in science. It is argued that analogical arguments that satisfy the general principles of the articulation model strike an excellent balance between conservative epistemic values (such as simplicity and coherence with existing theory) and progressive epistemic values (such as fruitfulness and theoretical unification).

Frege's theory of definition is the subject of this chapter. The chapter focuses on the apparent conflict between two of its central tenets. The first is the requirement of fruitfulness which suggests the idea that definitions should make it possible to prove things that we could not have proved otherwise. However, in interpreting Frege's notion of fruitfulness, the focus has been on a weak, psychological reading. The second tenet of discussion is the requirement of eliminability which proposes the idea that an expression containing defined symbols should share its sense with the expression that results when those symbols have been eliminated.

This chapter addresses the question of when one concept or definition is properly regarded as more ‘natural’ than another with reference to the principle that a mark of good definitions is their theoretical fruitfulness, especially as incorporated in the methodology implicit in the work of Riemann and Dedekind. It explores the suggestion that the objectivity of imputations of ‘naturalness’ of concepts/definitions/properties can be underwritten at least in part by quasi-empirical mathematical practices of conjecture and verification, in a mathematical analogue of Goodman's ‘New Riddle of Induction’.

The Consciousness Hypothesis is an application of the Central Thesis that lifts experiencing up to full-fledged consciousness. This chapter evaluates several issues raised from the previous chapters in part 1 and demonstrates how the proposal presented here permits Liberal Naturalism to evade the explanatory failings of pure physicalism. Its explanatory success, however, is exemplified by solving the puzzles, paradoxes, and tensions confronting Liberal Naturalism. If the preeminent virtue guiding construction of the Theory of Causal Significance was simplicity while the Carrier Theory of Causation raised intelligibility and uniformity into position as equal partners, the Conscious Hypothesis is an attempt to show fruitfulness. In the latter part of this chapter, the author demonstrates how this fruitfulness supplements the philosophical reasons introduced earlier for accepting the existence of receptive connections and attempts to provide additional support to the model.

A further challenge to the realist is represented by the underdetermination, not only of theory by evidence, but of ontology by the relevant science. In particular, if the realist cannot say, on the basis of our best physics, whether the objects of her ontology are individuals or not, how can she maintain her realist stance? The answer is to step back from an object-oriented ontology and adopt a structuralist one. A range of possible responses to this underdetermination are considered before concluding that OSR offers the best way forward.