Abstract
This paper deals with the oxymoron, a particular rhetorical figure based on the neighbourhood of two elements with opposite signification. It examines the dynamics generated by this semantical conflict which defies the logics and the principle of non-contradiction, relating it at first with psychoanalysis and then with anthropology and phenomenology.
The oxymoron links to the absence, in the human inconscient, of sign of negation (Freud, Karl Abel) and, at the same time, presents parallelism with co-existence into the individual, of being and nothingness (Hegel, Kojève, Descombes). Through these analogies, we point out the ontological value of the oxymoron and that of the language, too.