The absurdities and antinomies of the world are many, and included amongst them are such classical philosophical and theological problems as the opposition between the dictates of morality and the rewards that are obviously bestowed upon the wicked; the opposition between our experience of ourselves as possessing free will, and the scientific assumptions of determinism; the puzzles engendered by the observation that all we can really know is the data of our own senses, and our certainty regarding the existence of an objective, external world; and the absurdities associated with the ideas that we only have direct awareness of our own minds, and our certainty of the existence of the minds and inner experiences of others.
Findlay focuses upon several antinomies connected with space and time; where, for example, on the one hand these great “media” of experience appear to be the “containers” within which all events occur, but on the other hand are themselves nothing except insofar as they are defined by the events that transpire within and thus constitute them. A second antinomy arises from our consideration of the temporal “now”, the series of which seem to constitute the march of time, but none of which can be defined apart from reference to a past and a future. There are antinomies related to the opposition between efficient causality and teleology, and, according to Findlay, the consequent absurdities of bodies adjusting themselves to (future) happenings that never actually occur (27). There are antinomies that derive from a consideration of the fact that while we can appeal to the experience of others to prove something’s existence or an event’s occurrence, the very experience and testimony of the other is ultimately only apprehended through our own conscious awareness. Findlay also points to the paradoxical interdependence between the private and public criteria we utilize to comprehend our own and others’ mental states. On the one hand we can only come to label and describe ours and others inner states through the publicly observable manifestations of them, e.g. through the behavioral expressions of anger, grief, thoughtfulness, etc. On the other hand, our understanding of such outward expressions is itself dependent upon private “inner” states, both the “inner” states that serve as fulfillment of, and thus give sense to, our public behavior, and the inner states through which we become aware of our own observations (Discipline of the Cave, p. 204).