Sophistry

n.	1.	The art or process of reasoning; logic.
	2.	The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only. The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in usig a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. - Coleridge.

Noun

1.

sophistry - a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone Synonyms: sophism, sophistication

Italian hand, acuteness, aesthetics, ambiguity, argument, argument by analogy, argumentum ad baculum, argumentum ad captandum, argumentum ad hominem, art, artfulness, artifice, astuteness, axiology, bad case, begging the question, cageyness, callidity, canniness, casuistry, circular argument, claptrap, cleverness, college of Laputa, corruption, cosmology, craft, craftiness, crossed fingers, crowd-pleasing argument, cunning, cunningness, deception, deceptiveness, deduction, deductive reasoning, delusion, demonstration, discourse, discourse of reason, discursive reason, disingenuousness, emptiness, empty words, epistemology, equivocation, ethics, fallacy, fine Italian hand, finesse, first philosophy, formal fallacy, foxiness, gamesmanship, gnosiology, guile, hollow mockery, hollowness, hysteron proteron, induction, inductive reasoning, ingeniousness, insidiousness, insincere argument, insincerity, inventiveness, jesuitry, logic, logical fallacy, logical thought, material fallacy, mental philosophy, mere rhetoric, metaphysics, misdirection, misguidance, misinformation, misinstruction, misknowledge, misleading, misteaching, mockery, moonshine, moral philosophy, mystification, non sequitur, obfuscation, obscurantism, obscuration, one-upmanship, ontology, paralogism, perversion, petitio principii, phenomenology, philosophastry, philosophic doctrine, philosophic system, philosophic theory, philosophical inquiry, philosophical speculation, philosophism, philosophy, proof, pseudosyllogism, ratiocination, rationalism, rationality, rationalization, rationalizing, readiness, reason, reasonableness, reasoning, resourcefulness, satanic cunning, school of philosophy, school of thought, science of being, sharpness, shiftiness, shrewdness, slipperiness, slyness, sneakiness, solecism, sophism, specious reasoning, speciousness, spuriousness, stealth, stealthiness, subtilty, subtleness, subtlety, suppleness, sweet reason, tergiversation, theory of beauty, theory of knowledge, tongue in cheek, trickiness, uncandidness, uncandor, unfrankness, value theory, verbal fallacy, wariness, weak point, wiles, wiliness, wit