sophistic

See also: Sophistic

English

Alternative forms

• Sophistic

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin sophisticus, borrowing of Ancient Greek σοφιστικός (sophistikós). Equivalent to sophist +‎ -ic and sophism +‎ -istic.

Adjective

sophistic (comparative more sophistic, superlative most sophistic)

1. Synonym of sophistical, of or related to the ancient Sophists, characterized by fallacious reasoning.
   • 2004, Brian Leiter, “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud”, in Brian Leiter, editor, The Future for Philosophy, →ISBN, page 84:

     […] he is simply translating into Marxian terms the Sophistic view “that the more powerful will always take advantage of the weaker, and will give the name of law and justice to whatever they lay down in their own interests.”

Derived terms

• philosophistic
• unsophistic

Noun

sophistic

1. (historical, philosophy) The supposed beliefs and methods of the Sophists, taken as a kind of school of thought.

   Synonym: sophism

   • 1896, Wilmer Cave Wright, The Emperor Julian’s Relation to the New Sophistic and Neo-Platonism: With a Study of His Style, page 19:

     But when we consider his wish to reconcile Philosophy and Rhetoric, it must be remembered that, if the new Sophistic differed in most of its essential features from the Sophistic of Plato’s contemporaries, it was Philosophy as conceived by Isocrates rather than Plato that Themistius had in mind.

   • 1995, Peter W. Rose, Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth: Ideology and Literary Form in Ancient Greece, →ISBN, page 272:

     Rather, to use Whitman’s phrase, Sophokles “thought through” a great deal more of the sophistic than their attacks on religion or their fascination with religion.

   • 2005, Tim Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic, →ISBN, page 4:

     The luminaries of the ‘first sophistic’—Philostratus cites Gorgias, Critias, and others—treated, we are told, abstract philosophical themes.