Abstract: The Ciceronian notion of repugnantia and the medieval concept of repugnantia appeared progressively throughout the course of the Renaissance, beginning principally with Rudolf Agricola, but beyond the Agricola-Ramus current, as a way of generalising opposition. This study shows how the preoccupations of rhetoric, in the work of the Ramistes, but also in the work of Melanchthon and many others, sought to prevail over those of dialectics, seeking to embrace literary opposition in all its manifestations.