It doesn't follow from the successes of post-Galilean science, he suggests, that our attributions of value are merely arbitrary.
If species were merely arbitrary groupings adopted to make naming possible, this would not be so.
A program note can provide a clue, but more often than not the deliberately illogical can look merely arbitrary.
Kant's schemata of pure concepts are entirely undemonstrable and are a merely arbitrary assumption.
Here the apparent depth of thought and the difficulty of the discussion merely serve to conceal from the reader the fact that its content remains an entirely undemonstrable and merely arbitrary assumption.
As a result, the comings and goings of the other members of the cast, though mysterious, seemed merely arbitrary.
The reuse principle: The design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember.
The first question we must answer about them is whether they are categorical categories at all, or merely arbitrary points along a continuum.
Although he surely set out to demonstrate that life in the country can be crude as well as refreshing, Mr. Feld's juxtapositions of lyricism and low comedy sometimes look merely arbitrary.
They were merely arbitrary categories, little more than names.