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Philosophical; dealing with causes, reasons, and effects, rather than with details and circumstances; -- said of literature. "Pragmatic history." Sir W. Hamilton. "Pragmatic poetry." M. Arnold. Pragmatic sanction, a solemn ordinance or decree issued by the head or legislature of a state upon weighty matters; -- a term…

The quality or state of being pragmatic; in literature, the pragmatic, or philosophical, method. The narration of this apparently trifling circumstance belongs to the pragmatism of the history. A. Murphy.

Delusion; illusion; trick. [Obs.] The sophisms of infidelity, and the prestiges of imposture. Bp. Warburton.

The doctrines of Pythagoras or the Pythagoreans. As a philosophic school Pythagoreanism became extinct in Greece about the middle of the 4th century [B. C.]. Encyc. Brit.

To refute; to disprove; as, to refel the tricks of a sophister. [Obs.] How he refelled me, and how I replied. Shak.

when trith would set them free. Milton. HIs clear intelligence revolted from the dominant sophisms of that time. J. Morley.

A teacher of rhetoric. The ancient sophists and rhetoricians, which ever had young auditors, lived till they were an hundred years old. Bacon.

d made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge. All this new science that men lere [teach]. Chaucer. Science is . . . a complement of cognitions, having, in point of form, the character of logical perfection, and in point of matter, the character of real tru…

e of a sect; a member or adherent of a special school, denomination, or religious or philosophical party; one of a party in religion which has separated itself from established church, or which holds tenets different from those of the prevailing denomination in a state.

Accustomed to sit much or long; as, a sedentary man. "Sedentary, scholastic sophists." Bp. Warburton.

r final year of his collegiate course at an American college; -- originally called senior sophister; also, one in the last year of the course at a professional schools or at a seminary.

An advocate of, or believer in, philosophical sensationalism.

d the morality of actions." (b) "The faculty of first principles." These two are the philosophical significations.

Pertaining or peculiar to the philosophical doctrine of sensualism.

A philosophical or theological opinion; a dogma; as, Summary of the Sentences; Book of the Sentences.

occasionally, a person who questions whether any truth or fact can be established on philosophical grounds; sometimes, a critical inquirer, in opposition to a dogmatist. All this criticism [of Hume] proceeds upon the erroneous hypothesis that he was a dogmatist. He was a skeptic; that is, he accepted the principles ass…

position that no fact or truth, however worthy of confidence, can be established on philosophical grounds; critical investigation or inquiry, as opposed to the positive assumption or assertion of certain principles.

A perennial herb (Gypsophila Struthium) the root of which is used in Spain as a substitute for soap.

tes, the Grecian sage and teacher. (b. c. 469-399), or to his manner of teaching and philosophizing.

four classes in an American college, or one next above a freshman. [Formerly written also sophimore.]