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5.2f. Self-Deception

See also:
Audi, Robert N. (1976). Epistemic disavowals and self-deception. Personalist 57:378-385.   (Google | Edit)
Audi, Robert N. (1982). Self-deception, action, and will. Erkenntnis 18 (September):133-158.   (Cited by 11 | Google | More links | Edit)
Bach, Kent (1981). An analysis of self-deception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 41 (March):351-370.   (Cited by 51 | Google | More links | Edit)
Bach, Kent (1985). More on self-deception: Reply to Hellman. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (June):611-614.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Baier, Annette C. (1996). The vital but dangerous art of ignoring: Selective attention and self-deception. In Roger T. Ames & Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Self and Deception: A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry. Albany: SUNY Press.   (Cited by 3 | Google | Edit)
Barnes, Annette (1997). Seeing Through Self-Deception. New York: Cambridge University Press.   (Cited by 15 | Google | More links | Edit)
Bermudez, Jose Luis (2000). Self-deception, intentions and contradictory beliefs. Analysis 60 (4):309-319.   (Cited by 2 | Google | More links | Edit)
Bird, Alexander (1994). Rationality and the structure of self-deception. In European Review of Philosophy, Volume 1: Philosophy of Mind. Stanford: CSLI Publications.   (Google | Edit)
Bortolotti, Lisa & Mameli, Matteo (2006). Deception in psychology : Moral costs and benefits of unsought self-knowledge. Accountability in Research 13:259-275.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)
Borge, Steffen (2003). The myth of self-deception. Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 (1):1-28.   (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)
Brown, Rachel (2004). The emplotted self: Self-deception and self-knowledge. Philosophical Papers 32 (3):279-300.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Campbell, J. (1999). Immunity to error through misidentification and the meaning of a referring term. Philosophical Topics 26:89-104.   (Cited by 10 | Google | Edit)
Canfield, John V. & Mcnally, Patrick (1961). Paradoxes of self-deception. Analysis 21 (June):140-144.   (Google | Edit)
Canfield, John V. & Gustavson, Don F. (1962). Self-deception. Analysis 23 (December):32-36.   (Cited by 6 | Google | Edit)
Champlin, T. Stephen (1976). Double deception. Mind 85 (January):100-102.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Champlin, T. Stephen (1994). Deceit, deception and the self-deceiver. Philosophical Investigations 17 (1):53-58.   (Google | Edit)
Champlin, T. Stephen (1979). Self-deception: A problem about autobiography. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 77:77-94.   (Google | Edit)
Christofidou, Andrea (1995). First person: The demand for identification-free self-reference. Journal of Philosophy 92 (4):223-234.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)
Cook, J. Thomas (1987). Deciding to believe without self-deception. Journal of Philosophy 84 (August):441-446.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links | Edit)
Cosentino, Dante A. (1980). Self-deception without paradox. Philosophy Research Archives 1388.   (Google | Edit)
Daniels, Charles B. (1974). Self-deception and interpersonal deception. Personalist 55:244-252.   (Google | Edit)
Factor, R. Lance (1977). Self-deception and the functionalist theory of mental processes. Personalist 58 (April):115-123.   (Google | Edit)
Fairbanks, Rick (1995). Knowing more than we can tell: Resolving the dynamic paradox of self-deception. Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (4):431-459.   (Google | Edit)
Fairbanks, Rick (1999). The availability of self-deception. Philosophical Investigations 22 (4):335-340.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Fingarette, Herbert (1969). Self-Deception. Humanities Press.   (Cited by 95 | Google | More links | Edit)
Fingarette, Herbert (1998). Self-deception needs no explaining. Philosophical Quarterly 48 (192):289-301.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links | Edit)
Foss, Jeffrey E. (1980). Rethinking self-deception. American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (July):237-242.   (Cited by 5 | Google | Edit)
Funkhouser, Eric (2005). Do the self-deceived get what they want? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (3):295-312.   (Cited by 3 | Google | More links | Edit)
Gardiner, P. L. (1970). Error, faith and self-deception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70:197-220.   (Cited by 34 | Google | Edit)
Gendler, Tamar (online). Self-deception as pretense.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: Forthcoming, Philosophical Perspectives: Mind [uncorrected proofs]
Gozzano, Simone (1999). Davidson on rationality and irrationality. In Interpretations and Causes: New Perspectives on Donald Davidson's Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub.   (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)
Graham, George (1986). Russell's deceptive desires. Philosophical Quarterly 36 (April):223-229.   (Cited by 5 | Google | More links | Edit)
Haight, M. R. (1980). A Study Of Self-Deception. Sussex: Harvester Press.   (Cited by 19 | Google | Edit)
Hales, Steven D. (1994). Self-deception and belief attribution. Synthese 101 (2):273-289.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract:   One of the most common views about self-deception ascribes contradictory beliefs to the self-deceiver. In this paper it is argued that this view (the contradiction strategy) is inconsistent with plausible common-sense principles of belief attribution. Other dubious assumptions made by contradiction strategists are also examined. It is concluded that the contradiction strategy is an inadequate account of self-deception. Two other well-known views — those of Robert Audi and Alfred Mele — are investigated and found wanting. A new theory of self-deception relying on an extension of Mark Johnston's subintentional mental tropisms is proposed and defended
Hamlyn, David W. (1971). Self-deception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 45:45-60.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)
Hausman, Carl R. (1967). Creativity and self-deception. Journal of Existentialism 7:295-308.   (Google | Edit)
Hellman, Nathan (1983). Bach on self-deception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44 (September):113-120.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Hirstein, William (2000). Self-deception and confabulation. Philosophy of Science 67 (3):S418-S429.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)
Holton, Richard (2001). What is the role of the self in self-deception? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 101 (1):53-69.   (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: The orthodox answer to my question is this: in a case of self-deception, the self acts to deceive itself. That is, the self is the author of its own deception. I want to explore an opposing idea here: that the self is rather the subject matter of the deception. That is, I want to explore the idea that self-deception is more concerned with the self’s deception about the self, than with the self’s deception by the self. The expression would thus be semantically comparable to expressions like ‘self-knowledge’ (which involves knowledge about the self) rather than to expressions like ‘self-control’ (which involves control by the self).1 On this approach, what goes wrong, when we are self-deceived, is that we lack self-knowledge; or, more accurately, since one can lack knowledge without falling into error, what goes wrong is that we have false beliefs about ourselves. Not any kind of false belief about oneself; I am not self-deceived when I mistake my shoe size. Rather, self-deception requires false beliefs about the kind of subject matter that, were one to get it right, would constitute self-knowledge. It is an interesting fact about current English that, though we talk freely of self-knowledge, we have no common term to designate its absence. Seventeenth century writers talked of self-ignorance; but the term has fallen from use. I suggest that ‘self-deception’ is the nearest we have
Hsieh, Diana M. (2004). Dursley duplicity: The morality and psychology of self-deception. In David Baggett, Shawn E. Klein & William Irwin (eds.), Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts. Chicago: Open Court.   (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)
Johnston, Mark (1995). Self-deception and the nature of mind. In C. Macdonald (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation. Cambridge: Blackwell.   (Cited by 35 | Google | Edit)
Jones, David H. (1989). Pervasive self-deception. Southern Journal of Philosophy 27:217-237.   (Google | Edit)
Keil, Geert (2000). Indexikalitat und infallibilitat. In Indexicality and Idealism: The Self in Philosophical Perspective. Paderborn: Mentis Verlag.   (Google | Edit)
King-Farlow, John (1963). Self-deceivers and sartrian seducers. Analysis 23 (June):131-136.   (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)
Kipp, David (1980). On self-deception. Philosophical Quarterly 30 (October):305-317.   (Cited by 6 | Google | More links | Edit)
Kirsch, Julie (online). Ethics and self-deception. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.   (Google | Edit)
Knight, Martha L. (1988). Cognitive and motivational bases of self-deception: Commentary on Mele's irrationality. Philosophical Psychology 1:179-188.   (Cited by 5 | Google | Edit)
Lazar, Ariela (1999). Deceiving oneself or self-deceived? On the formation of beliefs under the influence. Mind 108 (430):265-290.   (Cited by 20 | Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: How does a subject who is competent to detect the irrationality of a belief that p, form her belief against weighty or even conclusive evidence to the contrary? The phenomenon of self-deception threatens a widely shared view of beliefs according to which they do not regularly correspond to emotions and evaluative attitudes. Accordingly, the most popular answer to this question is that the belief formed in self-deception is caused by an intention to form that belief. On this view, the state of self-deception is taken to be a calculated outcome involving a person's intentional manipulation of her own thoughts. I argue that this answer is false and forms an impediment towards making sense of self-deception. I show that, contrary to philosophical prejudice, emotions and desires exert vast and systematic effects on the formation of beliefs. In this, and other, sections of the article, the results of experimental work are brought forward. Self-deception is portrayed here as resembling numerous instances of belief formation which are regularly affected by motivational factors. I argue that self-deceptive beliefs are direct expressions of the subject's wishes, fears and hopes. Qua beliefs which mostly correspond to such factors (rather than to evidence), self-deceptive states are a kind of fantasy
Lee, Byeong D. (2002). Shoemaker on second-order belief and self-deception. Dialogue 41 (2):279-289.   (Google | Edit)
Levy, Neil (2004). Self-deception and moral responsibility. Ratio 17 (3):294-311.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)
Levy, Neil (forthcoming). Self-deception without thought experiments. In J. Fernandez & T. Bayne (eds.), Delusions, Self-Deception and Affective Influences on Belief-Formation. Psychology Press.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: Theories of self-deception divide into those that hold that the state is characterized by some kind of synchronic tension or conflict between propositional attitudes and those that deny this. Proponents of the latter like Al Mele claim that their theories are more parsimonious, because they do not require us to postulate any psychological mechanisms beyond those which have been independently verified. But if we can show that there are real cases of motivated believing which are characterized by conflicting propositional attitudes, however, the parsimony argument against incongruent mental state accounts is undermined. I argue that anosognosia presents us with a real-life example of motivated belief together with (sub)-doxastic conflict
Lockie, Robert (2003). Depth psychology and self-deception. Philosophical Psychology 16 (1):127-148.   (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: This paper argues that self-deception cannot be explained without employing a depth-psychological ("psychodynamic") notion of the unconscious, and therefore that mainstream academic psychology must make space for such approaches. The paper begins by explicating the notion of a dynamic unconscious. Then a brief account is given of the "paradoxes" of self-deception. It is shown that a depth-psychological self of parts and subceptive agency removes any such paradoxes. Next, several competing accounts of self-deception are considered: an attentional account, a constructivist account, and a neo-Sartrean account. Such accounts are shown to face a general dilemma: either they are able only to explain unmotivated errors of self-perception--in which case they are inadequate for their intended purpose--or they are able to explain motivated self-deception, but do so only by being instantiation mechanisms for depth-psychological processes. The major challenge to this argument comes from the claim that self-deception has a "logic" different to other-deception--the position of Alfred Mele. In an extended discussion it is shown that any such account is explanatorily adequate only for some cases of self-deception--not by any means all. Concluding remarks leave open to further empirical work the scope and importance of depth-psychological approaches
Martin, Michael W. (1979). Factor's functionalist account of self-deception. Personalist 60 (July):336-342.   (Google | Edit)
Martin, Thomas (1998). Self-deception and intentional forgetting: A reply to Whisner. Philosophia 26 (1-2):181-194.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Martin, Michael W. (1979). Self-deception, self-pretence, and emotional detachment. Mind 88 (July):441-446.   (Google | More links | Edit)
McLaughlin, Brian P. (1996). On the very possibility of self-deception. In Self and Deception: A Cross-Cultural Philosophical Enquiry. Albany: SUNY Press.   (Cited by 4 | Google | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (2003). Emotion and desire in self-deception. Philosophy 52:163-179.   (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (1997). Real self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1):91-102.   (Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: Self-deception poses tantalizing conceptual conundrums and provides fertile ground for empirical research. Recent interdisciplinary volumes on the topic feature essays by biologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, and psychologists (Lockard & Paulhus 1988, Martin 1985). Self-deception's location at the intersection of these disciplines is explained by its significance for questions of abiding interdisciplinary interest. To what extent is our mental life present--or even accessible--to consciousness? How rational are we? How is motivated irrationality to be explained? To what extent are our beliefs subject to our control? What are the determinants of belief, and how does motivation bear upon belief? In what measure are widely shared psychological propensities products of evolution?
Mele, Alfred R. (1987). Recent work on self-deception. American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (January):1-17.   (Cited by 12 | Google | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (1983). Self-deception. Philosophical Quarterly 33 (October):366-377.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (1988). Self-deception and akratic belief: A rejoinder. Philosophical Psychology 1:201-206.   (Google | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (2000). Self-deception and emotion. Consciousness and Emotion 1 (1):115-137.   (Cited by 3 | Google | Edit)
Abstract: Drawing on recent empirical work, this philosophical paper explores some possible contributions of emotion to self-deception. Three hypotheses are considered: (1) the anxiety reduction hypothesis: the function of self-deception is to reduce present anxiety; (2) the solo emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute to instances of self-deception that have no desires among their significant causes; (3) the direct emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute directly to self-deception, in the sense that they make contributions that, at the time, are neither made by desires nor causally mediated by desires. It is argued that (1) is false and that (3) is defensible and more defensible than (2)
Mele, Alfred R. (2001). Self-Deception Unmasked. Princeton University Press.   (Cited by 90 | Google | Edit)
Mele, Alfred R. (1999). Twisted self-deception. Philosophical Psychology 12 (2):117-137.   (Cited by 10 | Google | More links | Edit)
Abstract: In instances of "twisted" self-deception, people deceive themselves into believing things that they do not want to be true. In this, twisted self-deception differs markedly from the "straight" variety that has dominated the philosophical and psychological literature on self-deception. Drawing partly upon empirical literature, I develop a trio of approaches to explaining twisted self-deception: a motivation-centered approach; an emotion-centered approach; and a hybrid approach featuring both motivation and emotion. My aim is to display our resources for exploring and explaining twisted self-deception and to show that promising approaches are consistent with a plausible position on straight self-deception
Mounce, H. O. (1971). Self-deception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61:61-72.   (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)
Nachson, Israel (1999). Self-deception in neurological syndromes. Journal of Mind and Behavior 20 (2):117-132.   (Google | Edit)
Neil Van Leeuwen, D. S. (2007). The product of self-deception. Erkenntnis 67 (3).   (Google | Edit)
Abstract: I raise the question of what cognitive attitude self-deception brings about. That is: what is the product of self-deception? Robert Audi and Georges Rey have argued that self-deception does not bring about belief in the usual sense, but rather “avowal” or “avowed belief.” That means a tendency to affirm verbally (both privately and publicly) that lacks normal belief-like connections to non-verbal actions. I contest their view by discussing cases in which the product of self-deception is implicated in action in a way that exempli