sophistical

Hamilton is described as sophistical and disingenuous, whose object is to deceive rather than to instruct, to mislead rather than enlighten, and whose motives are partisan rather than patriotic.

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

The 'sophistical' interest of Phaedrus, the little touch about the two versions of the story, the ironical manner in which these explanations are set aside -- 'the common opinion about them is enough for me' -- the allusion to the serpent Typho may be noted in passing; also the general agreement between the tone of this speech and the remark of Socrates which follows afterwards, 'I am a diviner, but a poor one.'

Phaedrus 427? BC-347? BC Plato 1855

Finally, according to the third kind of sophistical argument, I conclude, from the totality of the conditions of thinking objects in general, in so far as they can be given, the absolute synthetical unity of all conditions of the possibility of things in general; that is, from things which I do not know in their mere transcendental conception, I conclude a being of all beings which I know still less by means of a transcendental conception, and of whose unconditioned necessity I can form no conception whatever.

The Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

Burke's proposed conciliation with America, as opposed to economically "sophistical" imperialism, "is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people — gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as

Notes on 'The Allure of the Same: Robert Southey's Welsh Indians and the Rhetoric of Good Colonialism' 2006

He out-sophisticates the most sophistical of them.

Chapter 17 2010

Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled the sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes.

The Other Animals 2010

And it is not clear what they are complaining about in respect of an alleged monopoly in farming, sophistical legalities, the sale of privacy of the public as a "commodity", "colonialism at home and abroad," and "misinformation through control of the media."

Conrad Black: My Manifesto For the Occupy Movement Conrad Black 2011

He was known by his peers for his excellent mind, though few could have said what for, and given to perusing sophistical tomes by Moldy Fried Ham, Ants Rant, and Friedrich von Hiccup, which still infected the imagination of the drug-addled leadership class.

Eddie's Story TimChambers 2011

The other problem is that sophistical conceptual twisting in politics is now taken as a clear sign of totalitarian intentions, which is really an unserious way of thinking.

Matthew Yglesias » George Orwell Was a Socialist 2010

The power of this class is verbal, semiotic, rhetorical, sophistical – and theory annihilates sophistry.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Telos Returns to ‘New Class’ Analysis and the Critique of the ‘Wholly-Administered Society” 2010