Paradox. The term, from the Greek paradoxon, meaning "contrary to expectation" (para, "beside"; dokein, "to think"), has several meanings in common usage today; but fundamentally it is used of a statement that appears to be either self-contradictory or at least contrary to common sense--for example, "a well-known secret agent." Logicalparadoxes were known to the ancients (e.g., "I am lying" is false if true and true if false), but interest in mathematical paradoxes was much stirred in modern times by the publication in 1897 by Burali-Forti of the paradox of the greatest ordinal number, followed by Russell's publication in 1903 of the paradox of the greatest cardinal number. Mathematical and logical paradoxes are generally offered as a challenge to find their solution; that is, however puzzling they may seem, they are presumed to be soluble. The immense importance that paradox has assumed in the philosophical study of religion today is due in put to its role in the thought of Pascal and Kierkegaard and its very different function in Zen, but also to the peculiar interest that religious utterances can evoke in light of the attention that contemporary philosophers pay to the analysis of language.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989

paradox : (m.) sammutiviruddhavāda.

A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera, Concise Pali-English and English-Pali Dictionary [available as digital version from Metta Net, Sri Lanka]