Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations
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In rhetoric, antithesis is the figure that sets contrasting ideas against each other in parallel grammatical form, so the opposition is sharpened by the symmetry, as in "many are called, but few are chosen." Quintilian's The Orator's Education treats it under contrapositum or antitheton, and Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms gives the modern definition. The referent is a balanced verbal contrast within a sentence; it is a device of style, not a stage in an argument's logic.[1][2]
In philosophy, especially the dialectic associated with Hegel, the antithesis is the moment that negates or opposes an initial position (the thesis), with the tension between them resolved in a higher synthesis. Inwood's A Hegel Dictionary explains the dialectical movement while noting that the tidy thesis–antithesis–synthesis triad is a later schoolbook label, not Hegel's own habitual terminology. The referent is a conceptual stage in the development of an argument or a system, which is a different construct from the sentence-level figure of balanced contrast.[3]
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