From your previous post:
Definitions of sophistry on the Web:
•Sophism: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone
•An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so; The art of using deceptive speech or writing; Cunning or trickery
•A seemingly plausible, but fallacious and devious, argumentation.
Until now, I wondered why you “argue” in the manner that you do. I now realize that you are indeed a sophist. Hell, you probably have a degree in Sophistry!
Besides its inherent deceitfulness, the flaw of sophism(philosophically speaking), is the presumption that one can know The Good; i.e., possess wisdom.
You sir, are no Socrates. Like all socialists, you are merely a sanctimonious fraud with the force of arms behind you.
Ah, another druggie weighs in, and, as usual, with nothing substantial.
As Thomas Sowell said, “It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”
“the flaw of sophism(philosophically speaking), is the presumption that one can know The Good; i.e., possess wisdom.”
1. No, the flaw of sophism is not the presumption that one can know The Good. Not even close. As a matter of fact, that statement is so bad, it’s not even wrong.
Since you have chosen to bring up the irrelevant matter of Sophism as a school of philosophy, even though it has been defunct for thousands of years, let’s just clear the air.
“Plato, the most illustrious student of Socrates, depicts Socrates as refuting the sophists in several Dialogues…”
“Plato is largely responsible for the modern view of the “sophist” as a greedy instructor who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning.”
“The Sophists certainly were not directly responsible for Athenian democracy, but their cultural and psychological contributions played an important role in its growth. They contributed to the new democracy in part by relativizing truth, which allowed and perhaps required a tolerance of the beliefs of others.”
The flaws in the ancient school of Sophism are many, but they do not include “the presumption that one can know The Good.” This is not a flaw because it most certainly is possible to know the Good. Oh, sure, our understanding is inadequate to know the totality of everything that there is, but some things are quite clearly one or the other, when viewed through the lens of a properly formed conscience.
Even those of us who lack wisdom need only determine which of the many voices that clamor for our attention represent wisdom. Luckily, there are ways to do that.
However, all that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. As is clear, I use the term in its modern sense, in which it refers to an argument that appears to be valid, but actually is not. The only “flaw” in that sort of sophism is that it is intentionally deceptive (except as parroted by the deceived, in which case it is unintentionally deceptive).
“Like all socialists”
Yeah, you try and sell that to people who know me.
The really ironic thing about this is that it was our socialist enemies who, seeing the spark of an opportunity, fanned the flames of a very minor drug problem into an epidemic. This was done through both propaganda and the actual supply of drugs.
A reasonable man would look back to the sixties, when the drug problem first exploded, and see that drugs were associated with the political left. As, indeed, they still are.