ANTITHESIS

The rhetoric of figures defines the antithesis as an opposition between two terms (words or phrases) of opposite meanings, that enter into parallel syntactic constructions.
The argument scheme of opposites is discursively materialized as antithesis.

1. Antithesis as Argumentative Diptych

An argumentative situation emerges with the appearance of a point of confrontation ratified as such, a stasis. It develops into a diptych, characterized by the confrontation of two schematizations, that is to say two sets of descriptions, narratives and arguments that support two opposing conclusions. At this stage, the two discourses develop in opposition to each other, without explicitly taking this opposition into account, S. Stasis. This elementary argumentative situation corresponds to a discursive antithesis.

Such a confrontation could be taken up in a structured monologue that juxtaposes the two sides of the question. Such a monologic diptych features an “antiphony”, that is two voices making incompatible arguments (antioriented arguments) about the same issue. This is typically seen when an individual with a vested interest in an issue engages in internal deliberation, and oscillates between two points of view, acting effectively as a third party. This situation is elaborated as a dilemma whose opposing (anti-oriented) horns are articulated by an and:

I admire your courage and I pity your youth.
Corneille, Le Cid 2, 2, verse 43. Quoted by Lausberg [1960], §796

When the speaker clearly identifies with one of the two voices, the balance of the two voices is broken in favor of one of the positions. The and-dilemma transforms into a but-opposition, which overcomes the antithesis:

… but I pity your youth; so I won’t accept your challenge to a duel.

2. Antithesis, Figure of Speech and Argument

The following argument is structured by the scheme of the opposite:

(D1) He is submissive to the privileged; I do not want to confront him in a weak position.

Exactly like the self-argued description:

(D2) He is submissive to the privileged and powerful, and tough with the weak.

While in (D1), the second member of the scheme “he must be tought with the weak”, remains implicit, (D2) corresponds to a complete expression of the topos. But the two discourses are based on the same mechanisms, the argumentation is “valid” or acceptable insofar as the portrait sounds “true”; both are “convincing”. Description and argument are rooted in the same figure of speech or argument scheme, the antithesis.