Enantiosis (e-nan-ti-o’-sis): Using opposing or contrary descriptions together, typically in a somewhat paradoxical manner.
What is soft? What is loud? Soft you can hardly hear. Loud may rupture your eardrums. What about everything else? Must sound be loud or soft, or, soft or loud? Goldilocks was looking for the answer to this question as she staged a home invasion of the Three Bears’ den.
She was studying philosophy at Black Forest College. They had been studying Aristotle’s “Primary Axiom,” the first principle of all reasoning; the principle of non-contradiction: “it is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect”.
The night before her foray she had gone on a date with Hans Growler at a seafood restaurant. She had trouble choosing what to order, when she saw “jumbo shrimp” on the menu. Given her recent study of Aristotle’s primary axiom, she was perplexed. How could there be such a thing as jumbo shrimp? She ordered it. She ate it. It was delicious. It was “just right.” That gave her an idea for her final research project: “just right.”
Goldilocks had hit the Bears’ den because they were at their winter hibernation cave. It was quite some distance away. Although spring was close, she thought she had enough time to gather the information she needed. The den was loaded with artifacts she could use to test her “just right” thesis. She believed that things that were “just right” violated the Primary Axiom by being “both.” She tested her hypothesis around the den: porridge not too hot and not too cold, a chair not too high and not too short, and the clincher: a bed not too soft and not too hard. All of these things were “just right.”
Goldilocks wrote up her findings: “Just Right: Between the Contradictories.” She submitted her findings to her Professor. Professor Pinkhauser was notoriously crazy and morally suspect. He tried to get Goldilocks to try out the Bears’ bed with him so they could verify her findings. She hit him in the face and changed her thesis advisor to Professor Schoenbubers. She read Goldilocks’ thesis project and declared it “drivel” and had Goldilocks arrested for the Bears’ home invasion.
POSTSCRIPT
Goldilocks escaped arrest and fled Germany. She settled in Argentina. She enrolled in an online university located in Cambodia. Her research was welcomed. She graduated with a PhD, with honors. Currently, Goldilocks holds a tenure-track appointment as an Assistant Professor at Ward Bond University in Reno, Nevada, USA. Her “just right” thesis has become foundational in the field of logic studies. Also, as a “middle way” it has become central to combatting extremism of all kinds and integral to the field of “Peace Studies.”
Goldilocks has been pardoned for home invasion by the German authorities. She has been offered a tenured chair in logic studies at Heidelberg University.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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