Sophist

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sophist \Soph"ist\, n. [F. sophiste, L. sophistes, fr. Gr. ?.
     See {Sophism}.]
     1. 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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Hence, an impostor in argument; a captious or fallacious
        reasoner.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Sophist
       n 1: any of a group of Greek philosophers and teachers in the 5th
            century BC who speculated on a wide range of subjects
       2: someone whose reasoning is subtle and often specious [syn: {casuist}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  23 Moby Thesaurus words for "sophist":
     Jesuit, casuist, choplogic, cosmologist, dialectician, logicaster,
     logician, logistician, metaphysician, paralogist, philosophaster,
     philosophe, philosopher, philosophizer, ratiocinator, rationalist,
     rationalizer, reasoner, sophister, speculator, syllogist,
     syllogizer, thinker