sophist

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Related to sophist: Socrates, Plato, Protagoras

soph·ist

(sŏf′ĭst)

a. One skilled in elaborate and devious argumentation.

b. A scholar or thinker.

2. Sophist Any of a group of professional fifth-century bc Greek philosophers and teachers who speculated on theology, metaphysics, and the sciences, and who were later characterized by Plato as superficial manipulators of rhetoric and dialectic.

[Middle English sophiste, from Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs, from sophizesthai, to become wise, from sophos, clever.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sophist

(ˈsɒfɪst)

1. (Philosophy) (often capital) one of the pre-Socratic philosophers who were itinerant professional teachers of oratory and argument and who were prepared to enter into debate on any matter however specious

2. a person who uses clever or quibbling arguments that are fundamentally unsound

[C16: from Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs a wise man, from sophizesthai to act craftily]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

soph•ist

(ˈsɒf ɪst)

n.

1. (often cap.) any of a class of ancient Greek teachers of philosophy, rhetoric, etc., noted esp. for their ingenuity and speciousness in argumentation.

2. a person who reasons adroitly and speciously.

[1535–45; < Latin sophista < Greek sophistḗs sage]

sophist

1. Ancient Greece. a teacher of rhetoric, philosophy, etc.; hence, a learned person.
2. one who is given to the specious arguments often used by the sophists.

1. Ancient Greece. a teacher of rhetoric, philosophy, etc; hence, a learned person.
2. one who is given to the specious arguments often used by the sophists.

sophist

[ˈsɒfɪst] N → sofista mf

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

sophist

n → Sophist(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

References in classic literature ?

Like Alcibiades he is inspired with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn of Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in the same relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other great Sophist.

He is asked 'whether Meno shall go to the Sophists and be taught.' The suggestion throws him into a rage.

Socrates returns to the consideration of the question 'whether virtue is teachable,' which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the rest of the world do not profess to teach).

The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general terms.

View in context

He will not say or do anything that might pervert the course of justice; he cannot have his tongue bound even 'in the throat of death.' With his accusers he will only fence and play, as he had fenced with other 'improvers of youth,' answering the Sophist according to his sophistry all his life long.

In the representations of the Comic poets, and in the opinion of the multitude, he had been identified with the teachers of physical science and with the Sophists. But this was an error.

View in context

Thus in the Choephori: 'Some one resembling me has come: no one resembles me but Orestes: therefore Orestes has come.' Such too is the discovery made by Iphigenia in the play of Polyidus the Sophist. It was a natural reflection for Orestes to make, 'So I too must die at the altar like my sister.' So, again, in the Tydeus of Theodectes, the father says, 'I came to find my son, and I lose my own life.' So too in the Phineidae: the women, on seeing the place, inferred their fate:--'Here we are doomed to die, for here we were cast forth.' Again, there is a composite kind of recognition involving false inference on the part of one of the characters, as in the Odysseus Disguised as a Messenger.

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There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence.

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When the sophist would supplant, with the wild theories of his worldly wisdom, the positive mandates of inspiration, let him remember the expansion of his own feeble intellects, and pause—let him feel the wisdom of God in what is partially concealed.

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This curious work dates in its present form from the lifetime or shortly after the death of Hadrian, but seems to be based in part on an earlier version by the sophist Alcidamas (c.

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In a passage of the Republic (492 b) Plato repudiates the notion that the sophists have a corrupting moral influence upon young men.

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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.

Noun	1.	Sophist - any of a group of Greek philosophers and teachers in the 5th century BC who speculated on a wide range of subjects philosopher - a specialist in philosophy
	2.	sophist - someone whose reasoning is subtle and often specious casuist ratiocinator, reasoner - someone who reasons logically