Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Contradiction or opposition, especially between two laws or rules.
  • noun A contradiction between principles or conclusions that seem equally necessary and reasonable; a paradox.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The opposition of one law, rule, or principle to another.
  • noun Any law, rule, or principle opposed to another.
  • noun In metaphysics, according to Kant, an unavoidable contradiction into which reason falls when it applies to the transcendent and absolute the a priori conceptions of the understanding (categories: see category, 1), which are valid only within the limits of possible experience.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Opposition of one law or rule to another law or rule.
  • noun An opposing law or rule of any kind.
  • noun (Metaph.) A contradiction or incompatibility of thought or language; -- in the Kantian philosophy, such a contradiction as arises from the attempt to apply to the ideas of the reason, relations or attributes which are appropriate only to the facts or the concepts of experience.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An apparent contradiction between valid conclusions; a paradox

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a contradiction between two statements that seem equally reasonable

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin antinomia, from Greek antinomiā : anti-, anti- + nomos, law; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἀντί (anti, "against") + νόμος (nomos, "custom, law"). Surface analysis anti- (“opposite”) + -nomy (“law”)

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word antinomy.

Examples

  • Kant calls the antinomy of pure reason “the most singular phenomenon of human reason” and praises it as “a very powerful agent to arouse philosophy from its dogmatic slumber and to stimulate it to the arduous task of undertaking a critique of reason itself”

    ANTINOMY OF PURE REASON LEWIS WHITE BECK 1968

  • The antinomy is the conflict inherent in the “cosmological idea” of the world as a whole; looked at historically, it is the conflict between opposing theories in rational cosmology (one of the four divisions of metaphysics in the Leibniz-Wolffian system then current in Germany).

    ANTINOMY OF PURE REASON LEWIS WHITE BECK 1968

  • While the outcome of the doctrine of the antinomy is the destruction of the dogmatic metaphysics of both the rationalistic and naturalistic schools, in the context of Kant's own philosophy the antinomy also has an important constructive function.

    ANTINOMY OF PURE REASON LEWIS WHITE BECK 1968

  • Hence what Kant called the antinomy of taste: Thesis -- the judgment of taste is not based on principles, for otherwise we would determine it by proofs; antithesis -- the judgment of taste is based on principles, for otherwise, despite our disagreements, we should not be quarreling about it.

    The Principles of Aesthetics Dewitt H. Parker

  • The condition of reason in these dialectical arguments, I shall term the antinomy of pure reason.

    The Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

  • Therefore, I find it curious that Chapman would employing the idea of antinomy when the very ones who argued for it have done so on completely different grounds and in completely different ways.

    Provocations & Pantings 2009

  • I. Packer seeks to reconcile the paradox by appealing to the notion of antinomy!

    ExChristian.Net -- encouraging ex-Christians 2008

  • I. Packer seeks to reconcile the paradox by appealing to the notion of antinomy!

    ExChristian.Net -- encouraging ex-Christians 2008

  • For the sake of historical accuracy, we should remark that Beppo Levi, the author of the 1902 paper “Intorno alla teoria degli aggregati” where the axiom of choice is first formulated as an independent principle of proof, outlined an antinomy which is essentially a variant of Berry's paradox in the context of discussing Richard's paradox (see Levi 1908).

    Paradoxes and Contemporary Logic Cantini, Andrea 2007

  • 'The normal climate of art is intelligence and knowledge', as Maritain wrote in the Mellon Lectures; and earlier he had spoken of the 'antinomy' of all art as a negotiating of the tension between an 'essential reality' and the actual facts of the world: art seeks to reshape the data of the world so as to make their fundamental structure and relation visible.

    Clark Lectures, Trinity College, Cambridge Grace, Necessity and Imagination: Catholic Philosophy and the Twentieth Century Artist Lecture 1: Modernism and the Scholastic Revival 2005

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • JM always and never, ever utters an antinomy.

    December 22, 2010