sorites

• Were there no limit to such sorites, proof would always involve a regressus ad infinitum_, for which life is too short; but, in fact, prosyllogisms soon fail us Clearly, the form of the Syllogism must itself be misleading if the universal proposition is so: if we think that premises prove the conclusion because they themselves have been established by detailed observation, we are mistaken. —  Logic Deductive and Inductive
• It knows nothing of the rules of the dialecticians,--of the syllogism, the dilemma, the enthymeme, or the sorites,--but it recurs to the homely implements of its operative parent for its methods of instruction, and with the plumb-line it inculcates rectitude of conduct, and draws lessons of morality from the workman's square. —  The Symbolism of Freemasonry
• The whole must needs follow by a sorites or induction. —  The Anatomy of Melancholy
• Nor shall I go about to prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of logicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it were with my finger And now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the vices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not at least the next degree to folly? —  The Praise of Folly
• The usual form is the progressive; so that the sorites is commonly described as a series of propositions in which the predicate of each becomes the subject of the next, while in the conclusion the last predicate is affirmed or denied of the first subject. —  Deductive Logic

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms