Sophistry (Word of the Day)

A lot of this going around. Beware. Be prepared.

Noun

1.

sophistry - a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone

• Sophistry, Logic, and Philosophy
  "There is in sophistry a similarity to precisely what some praise as the value of symbolic logic: in knowing logic a person in principle knows everything, because there is nothing that can't be argued in it. Plato has the Visitor in the Sophist make the same observation: 'In fact, take expertise in disputation as a whole. Doesn't it seem like a capacity that's sufficient for carrying on controversies about absolutely everything?'
  "The difference between philosophy and sophistry on this point could perhaps be summed up by saying that, while sophistry represents an abstract universality, philosophy's universality is essentially concrete. Sophistry is indifferent to content, and this indifference prevents it from integrating what it knows into a well-ordered and meaningful whole. . . . Sophistry can 'know' this or that, but it cannot see how these things hang together or how they fit into the cosmos, because to do so would require genuine knowledge of the good."
  
  (D. C. Schindler, Plato's Critique of Impure Reason: On Goodness and Truth in the Republic. Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2008)
• • "As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
    And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,
    So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
    Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects."
    (William Cowper, "The Progress of Error")

Sophism in the modern definition is a specious argument used for deceiving someone. In ancient Greece, sophists were a category of teachers who specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching arete—excellence, or virtue—predominantly to young statesmen and nobility. The practice of charging money for education and providing wisdom only to those who could pay led to the condemnations made by Socrates, through Plato in his dialogues, as well as Xenophon's Memorabilia. Through works such as these, Sophists were portrayed as "specious" or "deceptive", hence the modern meaning of the term.

 The term originated from Greek σόφισμα, sophisma, from σοφίζω, sophizo "I am wise"; confer σοφιστής, sophistēs, meaning "wise-ist, one who does wisdom," and σοφός, sophós means "wise man".