arbitrariness

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The quality or state of being arbitrary; the extent to which something is arbitrary.

   Passion, providence, and imitation are conventionally the respective ruling forces of these three processes. Yet to take them at face value, as an innocent reading of the poem might advise, would be to betray Garcilaso’s own efforts, in this sonnet and elsewhere, to expose the arbitrariness of grandiose idealist concepts such as Platonic love and providential history.

2. 2
   noun

   the trait of acting unpredictably and more from whim or caprice than from reason or judgment

From arbitrary + -ness.

Topics