A yojijukugo referring to sophistry or hair-splitting argumentation, originally from ancient Chinese philosophy. Used in formal or literary contexts to describe overly clever but fallacious reasoning.
His argument was mere sophistry and lacked any real substance.
詭弁 is a more common word for sophistry or fallacious argument, while 堅白同異 is a rare, classical yojijukugo with a similar meaning but a more literary and historical flavor.
A classical Chinese philosophical expression joining 堅白, the problem of whether hardness and whiteness are separable qualities, with 同異, questions of sameness and difference. These debates were associated especially with the School of Names and later became proverbial for sophistry.