ZebraWords.com - The Definition of 'Sophistry', Synonyms of 'Sophistry' & More on 'Sophistry'

1. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

Italian hand, acuteness, aesthetics, ambiguity, argument, argument by analogy, argumentum ad baculum, argumentum ad captandum, argumentum ad hominem, art, artfulness, artifice, astuteness, axiology, bad case, begging the question, cageyness, callidity, canniness, casuistry, circular argument, claptrap, cleverness, college of Laputa, corruption, cosmology, craft, craftiness, crossed fingers, crowd-pleasing argument, cunning, cunningness, deception, deceptiveness, deduction, deductive reasoning, delusion, demonstration, discourse, discourse of reason, discursive reason, disingenuousness, emptiness, empty words, epistemology, equivocation, ethics, fallacy, fine Italian hand, finesse, first philosophy, formal fallacy, foxiness, gamesmanship, gnosiology, guile, hollow mockery, hollowness, hysteron proteron, induction, inductive reasoning, ingeniousness, insidiousness, insincere argument, insincerity, inventiveness, jesuitry, logic, logical fallacy, logical thought, material fallacy, mental philosophy, mere rhetoric, metaphysics, misdirection, misguidance, misinformation, misinstruction, misknowledge, misleading, misteaching, mockery, moonshine, moral philosophy, mystification, non sequitur, obfuscation, obscurantism, obscuration, one-upmanship, ontology, paralogism, perversion, petitio principii, phenomenology, philosophastry, philosophic doctrine, philosophic system, philosophic theory, philosophical inquiry, philosophical speculation, philosophism, philosophy, proof, pseudosyllogism, ratiocination, rationalism, rationality, rationalization, rationalizing, readiness, reason, reasonableness, reasoning, resourcefulness, satanic cunning, school of philosophy, school of thought, science of being, sharpness, shiftiness, shrewdness, slipperiness, slyness, sneakiness, solecism, sophism, specious reasoning, speciousness, spuriousness, stealth, stealthiness, subtilty, subtleness, subtlety, suppleness, sweet reason, tergiversation, theory of beauty, theory of knowledge, tongue in cheek, trickiness, uncandidness, uncandor, unfrankness, value theory, verbal fallacy, wariness, weak point, wiles, wiliness, wit

Dictionary Results for sophistry:

1. WordNet® 3.0 (2006)

sophistry
    n 1: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in
         reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone [syn: sophism,
         sophistry, sophistication]

2. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Sophistry \Soph"ist*ry\, n. [OE. sophistrie, OF. sophisterie.]
   1. The art or process of reasoning; logic. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

   2. The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning
      sound in appearance only.
      [1913 Webster]

            The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part,
            in usig a word in one sense in the premise, and in
            another sense in the conclusion.      --Coleridge.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: See Fallacy.
        [1913 Webster]

3. The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)

SOPHISTRY, n.  The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished
from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling.  This method is
that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began
by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men
ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of
words.

    His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
    And drags his sophistry to light of day;
    Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
    To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
    Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
    He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.
                                                        Polydore Smith

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