In antonymics (a branch of linguistics) 'antonyms' are words of so-called 'opposite' meaning. For example, antipathy is the antonym of sympathy. As words, antonyms form part of a series to which also belong synonyms (with the same meaning), homonyms (alike but with a different meaning) and paronyms (with the same stem). Apart from the fact that antonymics treats of words, it differs considerably from the catenical approach in that it lacks any methodical conception of oppositeness. The great discrepancy between catenical and antonymical theory can be illustrated by means of a few examples of pairs of antonyms: larger/smaller but also equal/different, and starting/finishing but also continuing/finishing (catenically only the former ones may be opposites); motion/rest (they are not opposites: rest limits motion); concrete/abstract (the first term refers to a kind of space-time catenality, the second one to noncatenality); yes/no and masculine/feminine and mental or spiritual/corporeal (there is no catenary relationship between these entities); artistic painter/house-painter (either both are 'painters' in the same sense, and then the words are not antonyms, or the word painter is used in two different senses, but then they are homonyms and not antonyms either). If antonymics is to be a scientific study at all, then only of what the speakers of a certain speech community believe to be opposites, or of the different ways in which they employ the term opposite itself, however inconsistently or superficially. But such (social) science is not more than a descriptive or statistical enterprise which will not lead to conceptual insight by itself. It may just turn out to be a mere survey of the common lack of insight in traditional language and thought. (The semantic differential used in psychological research is an antonymical device of the same nature.)

The most famous (if not notorious) pair of antonyms is masculine/feminine, male/female or man/woman. In other words: yang and yin, or lingam and yoni. In yang-yin cosmology 'yang' is an active principle in nature which happens to be masculine, and 'yin' a passive principle in nature which happens to be feminine. When they combine, they produce all that comes to be: 'the phallic and the yonic united for both procreation and production' -- and solely for procreation and production. For some reason the masculine pillar, represented by the sunny side of a mountain, supports the heavenly realm of lightness, heat, dryness, consciousness and many other commodities (the sunny side of life), whereas the feminine pillar, represented by the shady side of a mountain, supports the 'opposite', earthly realm of darkness, cold, wetness, unconsciousness and suchlike incommodities (the seamy side of life). In other antonymical cosmologies there may be a right side which is associated with the masculine, the civilized world, culture and heaven, whereas the left side is associated with the feminine, the uncivilized world, nature and the earth.

The yang, lingam or right side is 'positive'; the yin, yoni or left side is 'negative' in all these beliefs which were, or still are, espoused by peoples and people of very different racial or ethnic backgrounds. All of them may believe in some union of the positive and the negative but there is no neutrality as a limit element between catenated positivities and catenated negativities. (It should not go unnoticed that we can be quite sure that what emerges from the juxtaposition of the 'positive lingam' on the right and the 'negative yoni' on the left in yang-yin and similar, metaphysical or ideological, systems has been actively assembled and consciously propagated by masculine figures, albeit on Earth and not in heaven.)

Of course, it is repugnant androcentrism to exclusively associate being-a-woman or the feminine with what is evil, uncivilized, passive or emotional and with matter, earth and death, while associating being-a-man or the masculine with what is good, civilized, active or rational and with mind, heaven and life. This is a moral evil of yang-yin-based and similar doctrines -- an evil which seems to be more of a man's evil than a woman's evil. What is objectionable in these doctrines from an ontological and scientific point of view in particular is, firstly, that conceptually entirely different relationships between predicates and between nonpredicative things or propositions are all lumped together; secondly, that predicates are created which serve only an exclusivist purpose, while other predicates or classes are ignored altogether; and thirdly, that the juxtaposition of the entities collected is arbitrary, both with respect to the choice of pairs put on the list and with respect to the side on which the members of these pairs are put.

The predicates hypostatized are attributes like 'masculinity' and 'femininity' which are linked to 'being-a-man' and 'being-a-woman'; in general all predicates of belonging to a certain class of things. The things themselves, however, should be distinguished on the basis of certain component parts or qualities they necessarily have, and which nonmembers do not have. Instead of sticking to the (improper) attribute of having these parts, or to the typical qualities or combination of parts and qualities every member of the class in question must have in order to belong to it, an attribute is produced which not only comprises all aspects with respect to which members of this class are catenal, but which also determines which predicate of this aspect these members are supposed to have. For example, a man may be active or passive, good or bad, 'conscious' or 'unconscious', and a woman may be active or passive, good or bad, 'conscious' or 'unconscious'. There are only a few parts (organs, chromosomes and/or hormones), and perhaps some proper attributes, a human being must have to be a man or to be a woman. In spite of this men are harnassed with an overall property of masculinity in yang-yin and other antonymical ideologies and must be, or are supposed to be, active, good, 'conscious', strong, rational and so on, whereas women are dressed up with an overall property of femininity and 'are' passive, bad, 'unconscious', weak, emotional and so forth. (The choice of attributes may vary.) To deny that any such special connection is assumed or suggested in these metaphysics and ideologies is tantamount to removing the very pillars which support the whole sex-based establishment.

The predicate which is ignored or neglected in this tragicomic cosmos of deep superficiality is usually the neutrality or perineutrality of the catena. Where a metaphysical system wholly revolves about 'starting' or 'increase' and 'finishing' or 'decrease' it denies the existence of continuation; where it wholly revolves about active, light or hot and passive, dark or cold it denies the existence of the concatenate perineutralities; and most obviously, where it is exclusively expressive of 'positive' and 'negative symbolism' it forgoes catenated neutrality altogether.

Closely related to yang-yin and lingam-yoni systems is dialectic, the so-called 'critical' investigation of the process of change in which an entity passes over into its 'opposite', or of the development thru stages of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Underlying this theory is the same antonymical metaphysic. Only the spirit of the dialectical mechanism is quite different: the physical and the mental, for instance, may not be looked upon as moments to be united, but rather as moments to be sublated. This need not concern us here. It is the problem of the yang-yin metaphysician to solve the 'conflict' between war and peace, or between diarrhea and constipation; it is the problem of the dialectician that he or she has to await a 'synthesis' between these opposites. All these antonymical, metaphysical doctrines suffer from the same lack of catenical discernment and from the same lack of scientific prudence, especially with regard to empirical statements. While the yang-yin cosmology is dialectical, the essence of dialectic rests on yang-yin dualism. The pairs of opposites emphasized may only be different. What is the opposition between man and beast in the one, for instance, may have been superseded by that between man and machine in the other.

Let us, finally, list the most important, catenical and other relations which are all lumped together under the common denominator of 'oppositeness' in antonymical metaphysics and ideologies. They are:

catenical relations:

1. opposition or contrariness; for example, between lightness and darkness (this always requires a third predicate, namely a neutral or perineutral one);
2. limitation and supplementation; for example, between rest and motion (in these cases one member of the pair comprises another pair itself);
3. aspect negation; for example, between concreteness and abstractness, and between life and death (dependent on the definitions);

noncatenical relations:

4. inversion or isorelativity; for example, between honor and being-honored, and between parent and child (there are only two 'classes' if the relation is binary but there are three or more if it is three- or more-place);
5. difference in class membership in a system of (supposedly) two classes; for example, between man or masculinity and woman or femininity, and between man and beast or machine;
6. contradistinction; for example, between painting and sculpture (this is a distinction on the basis of 'opposite' qualities of the entities selected, not on the basis of their own inherent oppositeness);
7. contradiction between propositions in terms of logical incongruity; for example, between (A is) human and (A is) not human.