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An oxymoron (plurals: oxymorons and oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox.
However, some of these paradoxes qualify to fit into the mainstream viewpoint of a paradox, which is a self-contradictory result gained even while properly applying accepted ways of reasoning. These paradoxes, often called antinomy , point out genuine problems in our understanding of the ideas of truth and description .
Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word when an objection is raised. [23] Often paired with moving the goalposts (see below), as when an argument is challenged using a common definition of a term in the argument, and the arguer presents a different definition of the term and thereby demands different evidence to debunk the argument.
This contradiction, as opposed to metaphysical thinking, is not an objectively impossible thing, because these contradicting forces exist in objective reality, not cancelling each other out, but actually defining each other's existence. According to Marxist theory, such a contradiction can be found, for example, in the fact that:
A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. [1] [2] It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true or apparently true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion.
For the first portion of the list, see List of words having different meanings in American and British English (A–L). Asterisked (*) meanings, though found chiefly in the specified region, also have some currency in the other dialect; other definitions may be recognised by the other as Briticisms or Americanisms respectively. Additional usage ...
Reductio ad absurdum, painting by John Pettie exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884. In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or apagogical argument, is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). [1] [2] In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter.