paradoxology

From paradox +‎ -ology, first use appears c. 1646, in the writings of Thomas Browne.

paradoxology (usually uncountable, plural paradoxologies)

1. (obsolete) The use of paradoxes.
   • 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: , 2nd edition, London: A Miller, for Edw Dod and Nath Ekins, , →OCLC:

     the obscurity of the subject or unavoidable paradoxology must often put upon the attemptor […]

   • 1875, William Evans Burton, The Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor, page xi:

     Our Smith again indulges in paradoxology. He repudiates laughing at a well-dressed philosopher sprawling in the mud, but says that the most laughable scene he ever saw in his life was the complete overturning of a very large table with all the dinner upon it.

   • 1899, Thomas Love Peacock, Richard Garnett, Nightmare Abbey, page 75:

     I am sorry to find you participating in the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.

   • 1916, The Unpartizan Review - Volume 6, page 369:

     This manner of wit—to define and illustrate at once—prefers the paradoxology to any plainsong , is a second classroom facetiousness, a spot-lighter vein of hypercriticism, devoted to splitting hairs on the temples of truth, and putting the sob in sobriety.

   • 1916, Israel Zangwill, The War for the World, page 236:

     It is the moral taught by the novelist Æsop in his story of the trial of strength 'twixt the wind and the sun to divest the traveller of his cloak— the finest political fable ever written; it is the teaching of those still more famous Christmas stories, likewise in Greek, whose paradoxology proclaims that the meek shall inherit the earth .

2. The study or contemplation of paradoxes.
   • 1873, H. E. Robinson, The Atomic Hypothesis from Its Inception Until the Present Time:

     Although whoever shall indifferently perpend the exceeding difficulty, which either the obscurity of the subject or unavoidable paradoxology must often put upon the attemptor, he will easily discern a work of this nature is not to be performed upon one legg; and should smell of oyle, if duly and deservedly handled .

   • 1951, Frederick Mayer, Essentialism, page 172:

     The study of space and times involves a consideration of paradoxology.

   • 1953, Heinrich Gomperz, Philosophical Studies, page 75:

     The problems of cosmology were definitely felt to be less urgent than those of cosmogony and paradoxology .

   • 1963 ·, Journal of the History of Ideas- Volume 24, page 435:

     The fuller study of paradoxology which she promises us in a footnote is a work I shall look forward to.

   • 1987, Russell - Volumes 7-8, page 238:

     Yes, the antinomies are part of "paradoxology ". It has to do with numerology and things like that . Paradoxology is not part of logic either.

   • 2002, Hiroko Mikami, Frank McGuinness and His Theatre of Paradox, page 65:

     The great sinner is the great awakener of God to compassion. This idea is an essential one in relation to the paradoxology of morality and the values of life.

3. The embrace of a paradox, especially as it involves matters of faith.
   • 1880 February, “Gleanings”, in The Hahnemannian Monthly, volume 2, number 2, page 125:

     This report excites the Medical Tribune to the profound remark that "the use of a sudorific to check sweating may seem paradoxical." If the Tribune and the Lancet could only recognize the existence of a principle in nature under which all disordered actions can be similarly relieved, their patients would have cause to sing a paradoxology.

   • 2014, Krish Kandiah, Paradoxology: Why Christianity was never meant to be simple:

     Paradoxology will help our faith to grow stronger by daring to flag up some of the paradoxes about God that challenge us, rather than covering them up.

   • 2015, Miriam Therese Winter, Paradoxology: Spirituality in a Quantum Universe:

     It took a series of paradigm shifts in religion and society to liberate my spirit so that I might publicly proclaim that paradoxology is praise of the Divine in a quantum universe, where paradox is paradigm. Paradoxology permeates life with a unifying spirit, even where paradox interrupts, overturning our expectations, messing up our plans.