Sophistry is a productive art, human, of the imitation kind, copy-making, of the appearance-making kind, uninformed and insincere in the form of contrary-speech-producing art.
Gross sophistry has scarce ever had any influence upon the opinions of mankind, except in matters of philosophy and speculation; and in these it has frequently had the greatest.
Consider Socrates' conclusion about the nature of true or artful speech, which allows an interesting and possibly troubling question to be raised about the relation between philosophy and sophistry.
It would be very unfortunate, indeed, if sophistry could not be avoided, for then no honest or morally scrupulous person could, in good conscience, have anything to do with the process of persuasion.
She knew it for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of equivocal actions, and that the motive ennobled the evil, had never had much real weight with her.
The Common Reader Volume 1 26 Essays on Jane Austen, George Eliot, Conrad, Montaigne and Others
Already he had been exhorted to " wield the sure lance of your brawny logic against the sophistries" of the authors of Essays and Reviews, and had responded in a work called Aids to Faith.