A conflict between principles that each appear valid within their own logic, especially a contradiction between laws, duties, or rational conclusions that cannot easily be reconciled. Where paradox can be a clever twist, antinomy points to a genuine collision of norms.

From Greek antinomia "conflict of laws," from anti- "against" + nomos "law." The term gained special philosophical resonance in discussions of reason's self-contradictions, but its core image remains juridical: two statutes, both binding, pulling in opposite directions.