Many philosophers present dispensability or indispensability arguments that presuppose a specific conception of dispensability. The present paper explores and critiques the reigning conception of dispensability. In particular, I argue that it entails that too many things are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This entailment is at odds with the purpose for which we seek a conception of dispensability. In light of my arguments, I present a positive proposal that radically shifts our understanding of how dispensability and indispensability arguments work. This new proposal demands a metaphysics of science that splits the difference between pure empiricism and pure rationalism.

I argue that thinking with good reason that a hypothesis $H$ is the best available explanation for some phenomenon does not entail that we are justified in believing $H$. Thus, inference to the best explanation does not in general give us justified belief. My argument is distinct from the so-called `bad lot' argument, revolving instead around the claim that the amount of evidence required for justifying belief in a hypothesis is typically greater than the amount of evidence required for making plausible that the hypotheses is the best of all available explanations.

Philosophical studies of complex scientific concepts are predominantly “adaptationist”, arguing that conceptual complexity serves important purposes. This is a historical artifact. Having had to defend their views against a monist presumption favoring simpler concepts, pluralists and patchwork theorists felt compelled to show that complexity can be beneficial. This has led to the neglect of an alternative possibility: that conceptual complexity is largely neutral, persisting simply because it does little harm. This paper defends the neutral theory of conceptual complexity in two ways: (a) as a plausible theory in its own right, and (b) as a useful foil for adaptationist arguments.

It has been suggested that particle physics has reached the "dawn of the post-naturalness era." I provide an explanation of the current shift in particle physicists' attitude towards naturalness. I argue that the naturalness principle was perceived to be supported by the theories it has inspired. The potential coherence between major beyond the Standard Model (BSM) proposals and the naturalness principle led to an increasing degree of credibility of the principle among particle physicists. The absence of new physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has undermined the potential coherence and has led to the principle's loss of significance.