Paradox (literature)
Paradox, however, is essential to the structure and being of the poem. In "The Well Wrought Urn" Brooks shows that paradox was so essential to poetic meaning that paradox was almost identical to poetry. According to literary theorist Leroy Searle, Brooks' use of paradox emphasized the indeterminate lines between form and content. "The form of the poem uniquely embodies its meaning," and the language of the poem "affects the reconciliation of opposites or contraries." While irony functions within the poem, paradox often refers to the meaning and structure of the poem and is thus inclusive of irony. This existence of opposites or contraries and the reconciliation thereof is poetry and the meaning of the poem.
No-no paradox
Generally speaking, the paradox instantiates the problem of determining the status of ungrounded sentences that are not inconsistent. More in particular, the paradox presents the challenge of expanding one’s favourite theory of truth with further principles which either express the symmetry intuition against possibilities 3. and 4. or make them acceptable in spite of their intuitive repugnancy. Because (N) and (N) do not lead to inconsistency, a certain strand in the discussion of the paradox has been willing to assume both the relevant instances of (T) and classical logic, thereby deriving the conclusion that either possibility 3. or possibility 4. holds. Such conclusion has in turn been taken to have momentous consequences for certain influential philosophical theses. Consider, for example, the thesis of truthmaker maximalism: