Should you answer fools according to their folly?

One of the most obvious contradictions in the Bible happens in Proverbs 26 because it appears to place two contradictory statements right next to each other.

Proverbs 26:4 Do not answer fools according to their folly;
or you will be a fool yourself.

Proverbs 26:5 Answer fools according to their folly;
or they will be wise in their own eyes.

I don't know for sure what the resolution is, but let me throw out a few possibilities, and you can tell me what you think in the comment section.

1. This is a genuine contradiction. That seems unlikely to me because I doubt whoever compiled Proverbs was just an idiot. What was he thinking putting these two statements right next to each other? Surely if they were actually saying opposite things, he would've noticed.

2. One is an observation and the other is a recommendation. This would reconcile the two statements because they would not be talking about the same thing at the same time and in the same sense. I've looked at several translations to see if I could get a feel for whether these were observations or recommendations. In English it's a little ambiguous, but it mostly looks like a recommendation the way it's worded. However, even in English, we sometimes make statements that sound like recommendations but are actually just observations. Instead of saying, "If you do this, that will happen," we'll say, "Do this, and that will happen." We merely assume that if "that happening" is a good thing, then there's an implicit recommendation to do it. That brings me to the next possibility.

3. Both could be recommendations, or both could be observations, and there's still no contradiction. Consider when you make a list of pros and cons to make a decision. You would say that on the one hand, if you do this, that will happen, but on the other hand, if you do this, this other thing will happen. So it could be there's pros and cons about answering a fool according to his folly, and these two statements are just listing each of them. Whether these are observations or recommendations, the outcome wouldn't be guaranteed in either case. Proverbs are just general statements about how things are. They aren't guarantees. Answering a fool according to his folly might result in you stooping to his level, or it might result in the fool being cured of his foolishness. Either could happen, so there's a risk, but there's also a potential benefit.

4. "Answering a fool according to their folly," could mean slightly different things in each statement, in which case there's no contradiction because they are speaking of answering a fool according to his folly in two different senses. On the one hand, it might mean, "Speaking or behaving like the fool." On the other hand, it could mean "Giving an answer that is appropriate to the fool." If you were stooping to the fool's level and responding in kind, it's easy to see how that would make you a fool. But if you were giving an answer appropriate for the occasion, that might be just what the fool needs to hear in order to recognize their foolishness and cure them of it.

Those are about the only possibilities I can think of right now. Tell me what you think in the comments. What do you think it even means to answer a fool according to his folly?