paradox is a statement contrary to the prevailing opinion or to a principle accepted as valid. The term also means lack of nexus or logic.
For example, when writer Oscar Wilde asserts that “Nature imitates art,” he is heralding a paradox, as this runs counter to the common view that it is art that imitates nature. However, Wilde's statement also makes sense, as he wants to draw attention to the way our view of nature is influenced by works of art.
In literary studies, the paradox, also called the oxymoron, is a figure of speech which consists of the approximation of contradictory ideas, so that the expression seems completely illogical, absurd or meaningless.
Thus, when Luís Vaz de Camões writes in his famous sonnet “it is pain that goes crazy without hurting”, we are facing a paradox, since two absolutely opposite ideas are brought together in the same thought (“pain” and “dead without hurting”) to define the same thing: o love.
Paradox comes from the Latin (paradox) and from the Greek (
paradoxes). The prefix “para” means “contrary to” or “opposite to”, and the suffix “doxa” means “opinion”.It is, therefore, a logical idea that conveys a message that contradicts its structure. The paradox exposes words that, despite having different meanings, are listed in the same text. For example: "The more we give, the more we receive", "Laughter is a serious thing", "The best improvisation is the one that is better prepared".
The identification of paradoxes has helped the progress of science, mathematics and philosophy. In philosophy, paradox is a term used by Stoic philosophers to designate what is apparently contradictory, but which nevertheless makes sense.
Paradox as a figure of speech
Related to the antithesis, paradox is a figure of speech that consists in the use of words that, even opposite in meaning, will merge in the same utterance. It is an apparently true statement, but one that leads to a logical contradiction or that contradicts common intuition. Some examples of paradox as a figure of speech are: "Nothing is everything", "I am full of feeling empty", "Silence is the best speech".
Examples of paradox in literature
So much of my state I find myself uncertain,
that in alive burning trembling I'm cold
(Luís Vaz de Camões)
I have enough to have nothing
(Fernando Pessoa)
Which I don't see, but I see,
That I don't hear, but I hear,
I don't dream, but dream,
That it's not me, but another...
(Fernando Pessoa)
I know that death, which is everything, is nothing
(Fernando Pessoa)
Love is fire that burns without being seen,
it's a wound that hurts, and you don't feel it;
it's a discontented contentment,
it's pain that freaks out without hurting.
(Luís Vaz de Camões)
I'm blind and I see. I tear my eyes out and see.
(Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
Who thinks lives getting lost
(Noel Rosa)
I'm fed up with feeling empty
My body is hot I'm feeling cold
(Urban Legion)
The greatest paradox of desire is not always looking for something else: it is looking for the same thing, after having found it. (Vergílio Ferreira)
What is never within our reach is to have what we are looking for, after we have achieved it.
(Vergílio Ferreira)
being your freedom
it was their slavery
(Vinicius de Moraes)
There are only couple of windows leaning against each other because of the heat that is no longer there,
And the backyard full of light without light…
(Fernando Pessoa)
Read more about speech figures.
examples of paradox
Zeno's Paradox
The philosopher Zeno's paradoxes consist of arguments that aim to prove the inconsistency of some concepts such as divisibility, motion and multiplicity.
One of the best known examples is the race between Achilles and a turtle. In this paradox, the tortoise has an advance in relation to Achilles, and Achilles never manages to catch up with the tortoise, because when Achilles reaches the point from which the tortoise started, the tortoise is already ahead. For example, the turtle starts the race 100 meters early. When Achilles reaches the point where the turtle started, it has already advanced another 10 meters. When Achilles advances these 10 meters, the tortoise has already advanced 1 meter, and so infinitely in infinitely shorter distances. This paradox was intended to discredit the concept of continuous motion.
temporal paradox
The temporal paradox is related to science fiction, more specifically with the theme of time travel. In the specific case of the grandfather paradox, an individual travels to the past and kills the grandfather before he conceives his father. In this way, as the time traveler's father was not born, the traveler himself would not have been born. But if the time traveler wasn't born, how could he have gone back in time to kill his grandfather? Therein lies the paradox of this situation.
Learn more about meaning of temporal paradox.
twins paradox
Also known as the clock paradox, it is a conclusion of the theory of relativity, according to which, considering twins A and B, if one of them takes a space trip, on his return he will be younger than the other. This conclusion, which seems contrary to common sense, has been verified in several experiments.
Epicurus' Paradox
Epicurus' paradox is based on three characteristics that are attributed to God: omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence (unlimited benevolence). Epicurus states that, given the existence of Evil, God cannot present all three characteristics simultaneously, because the presence of two of them automatically excludes the third.
If God is omnipotent and omniscient, He has power to eliminate Evil and knowledge about it, but if it still exists, it is because God is not omnibenevolent. In case God is omniscient and omnibenevolent, He knows all about Evil and is willing to extinguish it, but as He is not omnipotent, He cannot eliminate it. In the last scenario, God being omnipotent and omnibenevolent. He has the power to destroy evil and he wants to do it, but he can't because he has no knowledge of it.
See also the paradoxical meaning.
