ABSTRACT
Intellectual generation occurs through the imagination. The imagination is a cognitive faculty. During the eighteenth century, the theory of paradox found an application in the understanding of the nature of modern economy and society. Antinomies are statements that are contradictory yet equally true, such as ‘the world begins in time’ and ‘the world has no beginning in time’ or ‘everything occurs in a law-like and causal manner’ and ‘everything is spontaneous’. In the noumenal world, human beings tussle with antinomies. The ambidexterity syndrome appears at all levels of modern societies. All societies have to deal with it. Successful societies are more proficient by degrees in mastering the challenges of ambidexterity. The fact that Immanuel Kant goes on to propose that the noumenal world is an unknowable ‘thing in itself’ as opposed to the rationally knowable phenomenal world implies that, at a certain point, Kant gives up his struggle with the problem of antinomies.
