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ANTINOMY (Gr. avri, against, v6uos, law)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 130 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ANTINOMY (Gr. avri, against, v6uos, See also:law)  , literally, the mutual incompatibility, real or apparent, of two See also:laws . The See also:term acquired a See also:special significance in the See also:philosophy of See also:Kant, who used it to describe the contradictory results of applying to the universe of pure thought the categories or criteria proper to the universe of sensible See also:perception (phenomena) . These antinomies are four—two mathematical, two dynamical—connected with (i) the See also:limitation of the universe in respect of space and See also:time, (2) the theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms (whereas, in fact, none such exist), (3) the problem-of freedom in relation to universal causality, (4) the existence of a universal being—about each of which pure See also:reason contradicts the empirical, as thesis and See also:antithesis . Kant claimed to solve these contradictions by saying, that in no See also:case is the See also:contradiction real, however really it has been intended by the opposing partisans, or must appear to the mind without See also:critical enlightenment . It is wrong, therefore, to impute to Kant, as is often done, the view that human reason is, on ultimate subjects, at See also:war with itself, in the sense of being impelled by equally strong arguments towards alternatives contradictory of each other . The difficulty arises from a confusion between the See also:spheres of phenomena and noumena . In fact no rational cosmology is possible . See See also:John See also:Watson, Selections from Kant (trans . See also:Glasgow, 1897), pp . 155 See also:foil.; W . Windelband, See also:History of Philosophy, (Eng. trans . 1893) ; H .

See also:

Sidgwick, Philos. of Kant, lectures x. and xi . (Lond., 1905) ; F . See also:Paulsen, I . Kant (Eng. trans . 1902), pp . 216 foll .

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