Crossword clues for sophist
sophist
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sophist \Soph"ist\, n. [F. sophiste, L. sophistes, fr. Gr. ?. See Sophism.]
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One of a class of men who taught eloquence, philosophy, and politics in ancient Greece; especially, one of those who, by their fallacious but plausible reasoning, puzzled inquirers after truth, weakened the faith of the people, and drew upon themselves general hatred and contempt.
Many of the Sophists doubdtless card not for truth or morality, and merely professed to teach how to make the worse appear the better reason; but there scems no reason to hold that they were a special class, teaching special opinions; even Socrates and Plato were sometimes styled Sophists.
--Liddell & Scott. Hence, an impostor in argument; a captious or fallacious reasoner.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"one who makes use of fallacious arguments," mid-15c., earlier sophister (late 14c.), from Latin sophista, sophistes, from Greek sophistes "a master of one's craft; a wise or prudent man, one clever in matters of daily life," from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "skilled in a handicraft, cunning in one's craft; clever in matters of everyday life, shrewd; skilled in the sciences, learned; clever; too clever," of unknown origin. Greek sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and at Athens, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt.\n\nSophists taught before the development of logic and grammar, when skill in reasoning and in disputation could not be accurately distinguished, and thus they came to attach great value to quibbles, which soon brought them into contempt.
[Century Dictionary]
Wiktionary
n. 1 One of a class of teachers of rhetoric, philosophy, and politics in ancient Greece. 2 (cx loosely English) A teacher who used plausible but fallacious reasoning. 3 (cx loosely by extension English) One who is captious, fallacious, or deceptive in argument.
Wikipedia
A sophist or sophister (, ) was a specific kind of teacher in both Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire. Many sophists specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric, though other sophists taught subjects such as music, athletics, and mathematics. In general, they claimed to teach arete ("excellence" or "virtue," applied to various subject areas), predominantly to young statesmen and nobility. There are not many writings from and about the first sophists. The early sophists' practice of charging money for education and providing wisdom only to those who could pay resulted in the condemnations made by Socrates through Plato in his Dialogues, as well as by Xenophon in Memorabilia and, somewhat controversially, by Aristotle who, being paid to tutor Alexander the Great, could be accused of being a Sophist. Author of The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction James A. Herrick wrote, “In De Oratore, Cicero blames Plato for separating wisdom and eloquence in the philosopher’s famous attack on the Sophists in Gorgias.” The classical tradition of rhetoric and composition refers more to philosophers like Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian than to the sophists. Despite these criticisms, however, many sophists flourished in later periods, especially during the era of Roman history known as the Second Sophistic.
The Sophist (; ) is a Platonic dialogue from the philosopher's late period, most likely written in 360 BC. Its main theme is to identify what a sophist is and how a sophist differs from a philosopher and statesman. Because each seems distinguished by a particular form of knowledge, the dialogue continues some of the lines of inquiry pursued in the epistemological dialogue, Theaetetus, which is said to have taken place the day before. Because the Sophist treats these matters, it is often taken to shed light on Plato's Theory of Forms and is compared with the Parmenides, which criticized what is often taken to be the theory of forms.
The dialogue is unusual in being one of three that do not feature Socrates, although as in its sequel, the Statesman, he is present to play a minor role (the other dialogue is the Laws). Instead, the Eleatic Stranger takes the lead in the discussion. The fact that Socrates is present but silent makes it difficult to attribute the views put forward by the Eleatic Stranger to Plato, beyond the difficulty inherent in taking any character to be an author's "mouthpiece."
Usage examples of "sophist".
The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so plentifully endowed.
Because they travelled around, and had many different pupils, in differing circumstances, the sophists became adept at arguing different points of view, and in time this bred a scepticism about their approach.
Be you sorcerer or slave, beggar or baron, sophist or simpleton, prepare you to receive justice from Aufcash, Haggaday of the Hodgepoker.
The image returned to him, by way of contrast, of Dorsenne, alert and foppish, the dandy of literature, so gayly a scoffer and a sophist, to whom antique and venerable Rome was only a city of pleasure, a cosmopolis more paradoxical than Florence, Nice, Biarritz, St.
The truth of history may disclaim some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle: but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch.
University, sophist or questionist, bachelor or master, was entitled to a share of the benefit.
Born a Jew, he had renounced his religion and became a Greek Sophist, practised law at Scio, and heard Paul at Mars Hill, where, with Dionysius the Areopagite, with whom he was visiting, he was converted.
His life-drama was interwoven into the lives of all classes of people: men, women and children, Judaists and heathen, King Herod and the proconsul Pilate, priests and soldiers, merchants and beggars, learned sophists and ignorant fools, the sick and the healthy, the righteous and the sinful, Jews and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and all others who could be met in Palestine, the very market of races and creeds.
By way of preparation for his examination the sophist was required to be diligent in attending disputations in the parvise, and when he presented himself for his own ordeal he had to make oath that these exercises had been duly performed.
Thus it was among the Greeks the sophists, then among the Christians the mystics, gnostics, scholastics, among the Hebrews the Talmudists and Cabalists, and so on everywhere, down to our own times.
Why is there nothing left of those sciences, and sophists, and Cabalists, and Talmudists, but words, while we are so exceptionally happy?
Thus, there are the Sophists, who doubt everything, and the followers of Plato, who believe that only archetypes are real, the mystical Pythagoreans and the Aristotelian logicians.
I thought this reply worthy of a thorough sophist, and laughed heartily.
To these two last-named authors, one a humanitarian sophist, the other a Catholic priest, and certainly one of the profoundest philosophical writers of this century, I am much indebted, though I have followed the political system of neither.
The office of president was exercised by the venerable praefect of the East, a second Sallust, ^60 whose virtues conciliated the esteem of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops.