OPPOSITION

The relationship of opposition between (opposite) words is roughly equivalent to the lexical relationship of antonymy. These terms cover a number of classical lexical oppositions such as:

Male / female: terms in a two-dimensional opposition (classical gender regime).
Obligatory / permissible / forbidden: terms in a multidimensional opposition.
Sight / blindness: terms in a possession / deprivation relation.
Mother / son: correlative terms.

These relations of opposition are exploited in various argumentative maneuvers, involving negation,and/or terms and propositions containing opposite terms:

– Negation, see denying.
– Rhetorical figures of opposition, see opposition (in French).
– Opposition between terms, see correlative terms.
– Opposition between propositions: see contradiction; contrary and contradictory
– The argument scheme of the opposites predicates a contrary predicate upon a contrary subject, see argumentative scale.
— The refutation by the observation of the opposite rejects the predication “A is P” based on the constatation that the opposite predicate, Q, is actually true of A, see refutation.

Refutation and destruction by an opposite

A statement of fact admitting an opposite can be refuted by establishing that its opposite is true, see opposite, opposition.

A statement can be invalidated by the use of a misleading opposite.
It only makes sense to attribute a quality to an entity if it also makes sense to attribute  the opposite quality to the same entity.

If entity A cannot receive the predicate O1, then it cannot receive its opposite O2, Friendly and unfriendly are opposites.
L1: – Peter acted in a friendly way (so you should be grateful to him.
L2: – To say he acted in a friendly way, he must have had  the possibility of acting in an unfriendly way.

It is ironic to praise poor people for their sobriety because to be praised for sobriety, they must first have enough to eat.
Who can say that he’s brave if he’s never had the chance to prove it?
He can’t say otherwise, so what he says isn’t relevant.

This can be generalized. For a statement to provide meaningful information in a given situation, the opposite statement must also be meaningful.

In today’s Le Figaro , the CEO of EDF claims that the French nuclear power plants are in very good condition. It’s hard to imagine him saying  he could have said the opposite. (France Culture Radio News, 04/18/2011; the CEO of EDF is in charge of the French nuclear park).

This is a very powerful tool for destroying discourse. An entire argument can be dismissed on this basis. He cannot speak otherwise because of his position: “As a teacher, you have to speak in this way.”