Aporetic truths. A more radical view of aporia regards it as sometimes inspiring speechlessness because you have arrived at a truth that can’t be spoken. The idea goes: there are unspeakable truths—that is, truths that defy language, and so can be called ineffable.5 Perhaps they are verbal analogues of irrational numbers. But they sometimes can be perceived without words. It may be that justice, for example, can’t be captured by a definition. But it can be encircled by the close failure of many efforts at definition. Instead of that result seeming to be a mess and therefore a failure, the mess
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