Sophistry

Definition: Sophistry

Sophistry

Noun

1. A deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.

Date "sophistry" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Etymology: Sophistry \Soph"ist*ry\, noun. [from Old English expression sophistrie, Old French sophisterie.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definition: Sophistry

Domain	Definition
Satire	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. Source: Devil's Dictionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Sophistry

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Please note that “Sophistry” is a modern derogatory term for Rhetoric applied in a particular manner, and is not necessarily representative of the beliefs of all Sophists, except that they generally taught Rhetoric.

In traditional argument a set of premises are connected together according to the rules of logic and lead therefore to some conclusion. When someone criticizes the argument, they do so by pointing out falsehoods among the premises or flaws in the logical scaffolding. Generally some judge or audience concurs with or rejects the criticisms, and thus the truth is eventually arrived at.

The essential insight of Sophistry is that it is not the solidity of the argument but the rulings of the judges which ultimately determine whether a conclusion is considered true or not. By appealing to the prejudices of the judges, one can garner favorable treatment for one's side of the argument and cause a factually false position to be ruled true.

The philosophical Sophist goes one step beyond that and points out that since it was traditionally accepted that the position ruled valid by the judges was literally true, any position ruled true by the judges must be considered literally true, even if it was arrived at by naked pandering to the judges' prejudices — or even by bribery.

Sophistry is central to the problem of modern Academia, as illustrated by the Sokal Affair.

The modern peer-reviewed Journal is exactly reflective of the traditional model of argumentation. Alan Sokal demonstrated both with the Sokal Affair and at length in his book Fashionable Nonsense that peer-review is not necessarily protection against falsehood entering the canon of accepted truths.

Sophistry (Rhetoric) is a perfect example of a disease meme. It is successful because its core insight is literally true: if truth is determined by the rulings of corruptible humans, then truth can be changed by corrupting them. Any society or individual that searches for truth must be on guard against the influence of flattery, comfortable assumptions, and pretty phrases. It is a disease meme because once it has achieved dominance in an organization the organization can no longer function effectively, and fails.

There is no sense in which phrasing an argument well makes it more true; therefore there is no sense in which Rhetoric brings us closer to truth. Instead the purpose of Rhetoric is to make things appear to be more true (acceptable) than they actually are: and so it leads inexorably to the acceptance of falsehood.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Sophistry."

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Synonym: Sophistry

Synonym: sophism (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Sophistry

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Dissuasion	Pretense; (untruth); put off, dust thrown in the eyes; blind; moonshine; mere pretext, shallow pretext; lame excuse, lame apology; tub to a whale; false plea, sour grapes; makeshift, shift, white lie; special pleading; (sophistry); soft sawder; (flattery).
Imbecility Folly	Folly, frivolity, irrationality, trifling, ineptitude, nugacity, inconsistency, lip wisdom, conceit; sophistry; giddiness; (inattention); eccentricity; extravagance; (absurdity); rashness.
Misteaching	Noun: misteaching, misinformaton, misintelligence, misguidance, misdirection, mispersuasion, misinstruction, misleading;Verb: perversion, false teaching; sophistry; college of Laputa; the blind leading the blind.
Reasoning,	Sophistry, paralogy, perversion, casuistry, jesuitry, equivocation, evasion; chicane, chicanery; quiddet, quiddity; mystification; special pleading; speciousness; Adjective: nonsense; word sense, tongue sense.
	Meshes of sophistry, cobwebs of sophistry; flaw in an argument; weak point, bad case.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Sophistry

English words defined with "sophistry": Philosophism, Philosophistical ♦ Sophister. (references)

Specialty definitions using "sophistry": Sophist, Sophistry, Sophism, Sophisticator. (references)

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Commercial Usage: Sophistry

Domain	Title
Books	Philosophy History Sophistry.(Value Inquiry Book Series 43) (reference) Plato's Dream of Sophistry (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication) (reference) Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism (reference) Seduction, Sophistry, and the Woman With the Rhetorical Figure (Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory) (reference) Sophistry -- A Romantic Comedy: True Stories of Preachers' and Christian and Muslim Presidents' Wives, Teachers, Lawyers, Medical Doctors, and Student (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Sophistry

Author	Quotation
John Adams	Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Usage Frequency: Sophistry

"Sophistry" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Sophistry" is used about 12 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	12	101,599

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expression: Sophistry

Expression using "sophistry": equivocate sophistry. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Sophistry

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
sophistry	13
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Sophistry

Language		Translations for "sophistry"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		arsyetim i shtrembër. (various references)

Arabic		‏مغالطة (fallacy, paralogism, sophism), ‏سفسطة, ‏سوفسطائية (sophism). (various references)

Bulgarian		софистика (legerdemain). (various references)

Czech		sofistika. (various references)

Farsi		فریب (Abusive, Cheat, Deceit, Deception, Defraud, Delusion, Fiction, Humbug, Intake, Jazz, Lurch, Lure, Mace, Seducement, Swindle, Temptation, Wile), مغالطه (Chicanery, Sophism), سفسطه (Idol, Sophism, Sophistication), زبان بازی , برهان تراشی . (various references)

Finnish		viisastelu (hair-splitting). (various references)

French		sophistique (sophistical). (various references)

German		Sophisterei. (various references)

Greek		σοφιστική. (various references)

Hebrew		פלפל� ות (casuistry, hair splitting), �"תפלפלות (casuistry, hair splitting), �"תחכמות (casuistry, philosophing), �"טעי�" (deception, fallaciousness, feint, misleading). (various references)

Hungarian		szofisztika. (various references)

Italian		sofisma (fallacy, sophism). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		詭弁 (chicanery, play on words), 似非理屈 , 奇弁 (sophism). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		きべ�" (chicanery, play on words, sophism), えせりくつ. (various references)

Pig Latin		ophistrysay

Portuguese		sofisticação (sophistication), sofisma (cavil, chicanery, fallacy, fetch, quibble, quiddity, quip, quirk, sophism), sofística (word-splitting). (various references)

Romanian		sofisticãrie (sophistication), sofisticã (sophistication), sofism (fallacy, sophism). (various references)

Russian		софистика (chicanery, sophistication, word-splitting). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		sofistika. (various references)

Spanish		sofistería (hairsplitting). (various references)

Swedish		sofisteri. (various references)

Turkish		safsata (casuistry, fallacious, fallacy, flubdub, jesuitry, nonsense, quiddity, sophism). (various references)

Ukrainian		софістика (chicane, chicanery, sophism, sophistic). (various references)

Vietnamese		phép nguỵ biện. (various references)

Welsh		twyllresymiad. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Misspellings: Sophistry

Misspellings
	"Sophistry" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: shopistry, siphistry, sofistry, sophictry, sophisters, sophistrie, sophitry. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Sophistry"

Words rhyming with "sophistry" (pronounced 'Soph"ist*ry'): Abbreviatory, Abditory, Abjuratory, Ablutionary, Absolutory, Absolvatory, Acceleratory, Acclamatory, Accusatory, Accustomary, Acetary, Acetimetry, Acidimetry, Acoumetry, Actino-chemistry, Actinometry, Actuary, Additionary, Additory, Adhortatory, Adiaphory, Adjuratory, Adjutory, Admaxillary, Adminiculary, Admissory, Admonitory, Adry, Adstrictory, Adulatory, Advisory, Advocatory, Aerometry, Affirmatory, Alary, Alchemistry, Alcoholometry, Alcoometry, Aldermanry, Aleatory, Aleberry, Alimentary, Alkalimetry, Allegory, Alleviatory, Allodiary, Allusory, Almonry, Almry, Altimetry. (additional references)

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Anagrams: Sophistry

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "h-i-o-p-r-s-s-t-y"
	-2 letters: history, pyrosis, riposts, sophist.
	-3 letters: hoists, horsts, hyssop, physis, posits, prissy, prosit, ptosis, pyosis, ripost, shirts, shirty, shorts, shorty, spirts, sports, sporty, sprits, stirps, strips, stripy, strops, stroys, thorps, thrips, thyrsi, toyish, tripos, trophy, tsoris, yirths.
	-4 letters: hissy, hists, hoist, horst, horsy, hosts, hypos, phots, pisos, piths, pithy, ports, posit, posts, potsy, priss.
	Words containing the letters "h-i-o-p-r-s-s-t-y"
	+2 letters: dystrophies, polyhistors.
	+3 letters: astrophysics, hyperbolists, hyperostosis, xerophytisms.
	+4 letters: astrophysical, attorneyships, chymotrypsins, cryptorchisms, hydrotropisms, hypertensions, polygraphists, psychohistory, psychometrics, psychometries, psychotropics, pyrotechnists, stylographies.
	+5 letters: amphiprostyles, astrophysicist, erythropoieses, erythropoiesis, hyperkeratosis, hyperviscosity, psychrometries.
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