Concept

Antithesis

Overview

Antithesis (pl.: antitheses; Greek for "setting opposite", from ἀντι- "against" and θέσις "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect.

As a rhetorical device, antithesis is a figure of speech involving seeming contradictory ideas, phrases, or clauses are introduced using a balanced grammatical structure. An antithesis must always contain two ideas within one statement. The ideas may not be structurally opposite, but they serve to be functionally opposite when comparing two ideas for emphasis.

According to Aristotle, the use of an antithesis makes the audience better understand the point the speaker is trying to make. Further explained, the comparison of two situations or ideas makes choosing the correct one simpler. Aristotle states that antithesis in rhetoric is similar to syllogism due to the presentation of two conclusions within a statement.

Antitheses are used to strengthen an argument by using either exact opposites or simply contrasting ideas, but can also include both. They typically make a sentence more memorable for the reader or listener through balance and emphasis of the words.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Antithesis is discussed.

For that very reason from the idea of "Being"--of which the _essentia_ precisely is only the "Being"--cannot be inferred an _existentia_ of the "Being" at all. The logical content of that antithesis "Being" and "Not-Being" is perfectly nil, if the object lying at the bottom of it, if the precept cannot be given from which this antithesis has been deduced by abstraction; without this going back to the precept the…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Collected Works, Volume Two
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
Such thought, which--- can produce only limited and partial categories and I proceed by their means; is what in the stricter sense of the word is termed Understanding. The finitude, further, of these categories lies in two points. Firstly, they are only subjective, and the antithesis of an objective permanently clings to them. Secondly, they are always of restricted content, and so persist in antithesis to one…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
That which is affirmed or denied is not itself affirmation or denial. By 'affirmation' we mean an affirmative proposition, by 'denial' a negative. Now, those facts which form the matter of the affirmation or denial are not propositions; yet these two are said to be opposed in the same sense as the affirmation and denial, for in this case also the type of antithesis is the same. For as the affirmation is opposed to…
Aristotle, The Categories
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
But the propositions of the antithesis are of a character which renders the completion of an edifice of cognitions impossible. According to these, beyond one state or epoch of the world there is always to be found one more ancient; in every part always other parts themselves divisible; preceding every event another, the origin of which must…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
The former is of a certain use in dealing, say, with questions of practical ethics and education: the latter is of more strictly scientific interest. Both of these distinctions—that between a speculative and an empirical, and that between a scientific and a popular treatment—affect the subsequent history of the study. Psychology is sometimes understood to mean the results of casual observation of our own minds by…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
states what it is; author linked in the graph; names the idea
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Antithesis

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Antithesis

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition