Sophist
['sɒfɪst] or ['sɑfɪst]
Definition
(noun.) any of a group of Greek philosophers and teachers in the 5th century BC who speculated on a wide range of subjects.
Editor: Ozzie--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) 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.
(n.) Hence, an impostor in argument; a captious or fallacious reasoner.
Editor: Maynard
Examples
- Such is the Sophist's wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. Plato. The Republic.
- Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. Plato. The Republic.
- They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. Plato. The Republic.
- Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of tragedy. Plato. The Republic.
- Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (Protag. Plato. The Republic.
- What principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Plato. The Republic.
- Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? Plato. The Republic.
- Later the traveling teachers, known as the Sophists, began to apply the results and the methods of the natural philosophers to human conduct. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. Plato. The Republic.
- Isocrates, in what is called his discourse against the sophists, reproaches the teachers of his own times with inconsistency. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- The poets, as he says in the Protagoras, were the Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the other. Plato. The Republic.
Inputed by Allen