| Abstract: | A finite chain of valid arguments can never lead from truth to falsehood. Call this the concatenation principle, or CP. Some propose to reject CP in response to the sorites paradox. I offer a justification of a restricted version of CP based on intuitively-appealing principles, all of which are already assumed in mathematics. The restricted version excludes soritical cases, but covers intuitively correct applications of CP in mathematics and elsewhere. The upshot is that the cost of rejecting the unrestricted CP is much lower than is often assumed. |
