In Literature
In his book Alice in Puzzleland, the logician Raymond Smullyan had the character Humpty Dumpty explain the apparent paradox to Alice. Smullyan argues that the paradox is akin to the statement "I know a man who is both five feet tall and six feet tall," in effect claiming that the "paradox" is merely a contradiction, not a true paradox at all, as the two axioms above are mutually exclusive.
A paradox is supposed to arise from plausible and apparently consistent statements; Smullyan suggests that the "rule" the barber is supposed to be following is too absurd to seem plausible.
The paradox is also mentioned several times in David Foster Wallace's first novel, The Broom of the System as well as The Information, by James Gleick.
Read more about this topic: Barber Paradox
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