Noun

Singular sophist

Plural sophists

sophist (plural sophists)

1. One of a class of teachers of rhetoric, philosophy, and politics in ancient Greece, especially one who used fallacious but plausible reasoning.
2. (by extension) One who is captious, fallacious, or deceptive in argument.

Sophism can mean two very different things: In the modern definition (from Plato), a sophism is a specious argument used for deceiving someone. In Ancient Greece, the sophists were a category of teachers who specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching aretê — excellence, or virtue — predominately to young statesmen and nobility. The practice of charging money for education, and providing wisdom only to those who can pay, led to the condemnations made by Plato in regard to their profession itself being 'specious' or 'deceptive', hence the modern usage of the term.

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