Sophism

Quick meaning: Sophism is a noun meaning (uncountable, historical) The school of the sophists in antiquity; their beliefs and method of teaching philosophy and rhetoric.

Meaning

(uncountable, historical) The school of the sophists in antiquity; their beliefs and method of teaching philosophy and rhetoric.

More Meanings

1. (countable) A flawed argument, superficially correct in its reasoning, usually designed to deceive.
2. (countable) An intentional fallacy.
3. (uncountable) Sophistic, fallacious reasoning or argumentation.
4. (countable, rare) Wisdom and knowledge.
5. Archaic spelling of Sufism.

Example Sentences

Empiricism has its roots in Greek and Roman sophism and skepticism, and continues through Kant and American pragmatism.

Within the framework of democracy a new ideology, born of sophism, took root and proclaimed the rights of the individual in all spheres, political as well as moral.

The hope of improvement is a quality at once so strong and so excellent in the human mind, that I, for one, disapprove of any sophism—or, if you will, argument—that tends to repress it.

Sophistic teachers did not, in general, consciously aim at corrupting the young or turning them against their parents, but the radical skepticism and moral relativism of later sophism indirectly achieved something like this.

Word Forms

• sophisms

Synonyms for sophism

Depending on context, synonyms include sophistic, sophistry, quibbling, pilpul, pilpulism.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include sophistry, sophistic, sophisticism, philosophism, sophocracy, sophy.

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