 This prioritizing of semantics over formal logic had the effect of encouraging a rather different conception of argumentation based mainly on patterns of analogical reasoning, which the Mohists referred to as bian. Fraser 2013 argues that bian is understood in classical Chinese texts with an assortment of meanings of different levels of generality. Broadly speaking, it refers to processes of reasoning and disputation, basic operations of cognition, and the means by which we acquire knowledge. But in its more specific use it involves correlating things based on their similarities and differences, and drawing conclusions from the distinctions thus established. Given that objects are found to resemble one another in different ways, we correlate them consistently only in virtue of a model or standard (fa), which the Mohists define in A70 of the Canons as “that in being like which something is so”. By ascertaining the resemblance relation between other objects and the standard, we apply the name consistently and identify a class. Thus, to answer the question of whether or not we should predicate of something x the name G, the Mohists would typically identify a model m (a particular object) for G, and then inquire whether x resembles the model. If it does, then they would assert “x is G” as a consequence.