ABSTRACT
As against every oppositional relation, the search for synthesis is spontaneous and inheres in the essence of the valuational consciousness. Valuational contrast is more complex than existential contrast. The new factor in the realm of values is the pervasive plus-minus relation, which is peculiar to them all. The oppositional complex manifests an open antinomy; it is precisely that the Aristotelian virtues, on the other hand, exhibit unity, a synthesis of values. In the positive contrast both members have their special disvalues over against themselves—but over against in a different dimension—although the conceptual expression for the disvalue as distinguished from the opposing value is by no means always at command. So the contrast between the two disvalues emerges as something indirectly involved in the contrast of the two values, that is, implied through the value-disvalue oppositions. Purity and fulness of life stand in an antinomic relation; but impurity and moral poverty may quite well be compatible.
