Table Of ContentSelf-Awareness and Self-Deception
Maiya Jordan
Department of Philosophy
McGill University, Montreal
April 2017
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
© Maiya Jordan, 2017
Abstract
This thesis examines the relation between self-deception and self-consciousness. It has been argued
that, if we follow the literalist and take self-deception at face value – as a deception that is intended
by, and imposed on, one and the same self-conscious subject – then self-deception is impossible.
It will incur the Dynamic Problem that, being aware of my intention to self-deceive, I shall see
through my projected self-deceit from the outset, thereby precluding its possibility. And it will
incur the following Static Problem. Qua self-deceiver, I shall believe not-P, but – qua self-deceived
– I shall believe P. We shall then have to explain how I can sustain contradictory beliefs in full
self-awareness.
I argue that this rejection of literalism about self-deception rests on error. First, it
misunderstands what literalism holds. Properly understood, literalism does not require the
simultaneous commitment to contradictory beliefs. Second, it misunderstands the relation between
self-deception and self-consciousness – and that is my primary focus.
The phenomenology of self-deception reveals that the self-deceiver experiences the following
tension. She is somehow aware of her self-deception as such. Yet also, she misrepresents that self-
deception to herself as being a sincere commitment to the truth – so, in that sense, she is not aware
of her self-deceit as such. To capture this tension, we require a theory of self-consciousness –
independently defensible in its own right – that will meet this twofold requirement, of permitting
the self-deceiver not to see what is right before her gaze. The rejection of literalism presupposes
that no theory of self-consciousness can meet this twofold requirement.
I argue that this twofold requirement can be met. The first part of this thesis offers a detailed
defence of a theory of self-consciousness. The second part shows how this theory of self-
consciousness can faithfully capture the tension of self-deception, while eschewing the Dynamic
and Static Problems. It thereby claims to vindicate the literalist’s position.
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Résumé
Cette thèse se penche sur la relation entre duperie de soi et conscience de soi. On a fait valoir que,
si l’on adopte une position littéraliste en prenant la duperie de soi au pied de la lettre – c’est-à-dire
en la comprenant comme duperie élaborée par et imposée à un même sujet conscient de lui-même
– alors la duperie de soi est impossible. Elle entraîne en effet le problème suivant (connu sous le
nom de « problème dynamique ») : étant consciente de mon intention de me duper moi-même, je
ne pourrai d’emblée être dupe de la tromperie projetée, éliminant par là sa possibilité même. La
duperie de soi soulèverait également le problème suivant (appelé « problème statique »). En tant
que je me dupe, je crois non-P, mais – en tant que dupée – je crois P. Il nous faut donc expliquer
ensuite comment on peut entretenir des croyances contradictoires en toute conscience de soi.
Je soutiens que le rejet de la position littéraliste sur la duperie de soi repose sur deux erreurs.
Premièrement, ce rejet résulte d’une mauvaise compréhension du littéralisme. Un littéralisme bien
compris ne requiert pas l’adhésion simultanée à des croyances contradictoires. Deuxièmement, il
fausse la relation entre duperie de soi et conscience de soi – ce sur quoi je m’attarderai tout
particulièrement.
La phénoménologie de la duperie de soi montre qu’une personne qui se dupe elle-même
expérimente la tension suivante. Elle est d’une certaine façon consciente de sa duperie en tant que
telle. Mais elle se représente également (à tort) cette duperie comme pleinement conforme à la
vérité – et, en ce sens, elle n’est pas consciente qu’il s’agit d’une duperie. Afin de prendre en
compte cette tension, il nous faut une théorie de la conscience de soi – théorie à part entière – qui
satisfasse cette double exigence ; c’est-à-dire, qui permette à la personne se dupant elle-même de
ne pas voir clair dans son propre jeu. Le rejet du littéralisme présuppose qu’aucune théorie de la
conscience de soi ne peut satisfaire cette double exigence.
Je soutiens que cette double exigence peut pourtant être satisfaite. La première partie de cette
thèse élabore une théorie détaillée de la conscience de soi. La seconde partie montre que cette
théorie de la conscience de soi explique la tension inhérente à la duperie de soi tout en évitant les
problèmes dynamique et statique mentionnés plus haut. Cette seconde partie constitue par le fait
même une tentative de défendre la position littéraliste.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude, first and foremost, to my supervisors, Alia Al-Saji, David
Davies, and Ian Gold. Their support, positivity, and constructive input have been invaluable during
my time at McGill. Thanks are also due to Emily Carson and Andrew Reisner for their help and
encouragement on earlier projects, and to Mylissa Falkner, Angela Fotopoulos and Andrew Stoten
for their help in navigating the program and the University. I also gratefully acknowledge the
assistance received from the Department of Philosophy at McGill, the Richard H. Tomlinson
Fellowship, and the David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton Foundation.
I greatly benefitted from summer meetings with the department writing group: Josephine
Nielsen, Joey van Weelden and Michel Xhignesse. They gave me generous, critical feedback and
good company during the early stages of writing. Thanks too to Charlotte Sabourin for her patience
and care in helping with translations.
I feel lucky to have had the encouragement and companionship of many friends and fellow
graduate students over the past six years. A lot of the ideas I develop here were worked out in
conversation with them. Thanks are due especially to Bruno Guindon, Reza Hadisi, Hikje Haenel,
Sylvie Ong, Martina Orlandi, Charlotte Sabourin, Steven Sych, Joey van Weelden, and Michel
Xhignesse. Finally, I would like to thank Julie Michaud, whose love, support and humour have
made my time working on this project a joyful one.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ii
Résumé iii
Acknowledgements iv
Chapter 1 Introduction: Self-Awareness and Self-Deception 1
1. Self-Deception 1
2. Self-Awareness 7
3. Self-Awareness and Self-Deception 10
Chapter 2 Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness (I): Rejecting the Higher-Order 15
Reflection Model
1. Necessary Self-Awareness 16
2. The Higher-Order Reflection Model of Self-Awareness 28
Chapter 3 Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness (II): Rejecting the Brentanian 42
Reflection Model
1. Brentano and the Gurwitsch Regress 43
2. Kriegel’s Strategy 46
3. Two Suggestions from Williford 49
(i) Williford’s Layering Solution 50
(ii) Williford’s Quantificational Solution 53
4. Enhancing the Formal Argument from Mine-ness 57
5. Consequences of the Argument from Mine-ness 62
9. Concluding Remarks: Iterative versus Non-Iterative Pre-
6. Conscious Parts and Conscious Wholes 65
Reflection
7. Lived-Experience and Lived-Subjectivity 70
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8. Defusing the Dilemma of Subjectivity 83
9. Concluding Remarks: Iterative Versus Non-Iterative Pre- 85
Reflection
Chapter 4 Iterative Self-Consciousness (I): The Argument from Discrimination 87
1. Iteration Versus Non-Iteration: Husserl Versus Sartre 90
(i) Husserl’s Three-Level Model of Inner Time-Consciousness 90
as an Example of an Iterative Theory of Pre-Reflection
(ii) Sartre’s Account of the For-Itself as a Non-Iterative 97
Account of Self-Consciousness
2. The Argument from Discrimination 116
Chapter 5 Iterative Self-Consciousness (II): The Argument from Reflection and 125
the Argument from Colouring
1. The Argument from Reflection 126
(i) Husserl’s Analogical Explanation of the Passage from Pre- 126
Reflection to Reflection
(ii) Zahavi’s Attack on the Notion of Object-(for)-Me 130
2. The Argument from Colouring 140
3. Concluding Remarks 152
Chapter 6 Self-Deception and Intentionality: On the Shared Error of 154
Intentionalism and Deflationism
1. The Problems of Self-Deception 154
(i) My Account of Self-Deception is a Literalist Account 157
(ii) Regarding an Apparent Limitation of my Discussion 162
(iii) A Summary of the Central Argument for the Reflective 165
Theory of Self-Deception – and Why the Reflective Theory is
Holistic
(iv) Regarding the Debt my Account Owes to Sartre’s Account 169
2. On Resisting the Deflation of the Unwelcome Belief 170
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3. Intentionalism and Deflationism 184
(i) Self-Deceiving Intentions and [SD-Intentionality] 184
(ii) Self-Deceiving Intentions and [Assumption A] 186
(iii) Rejecting [Assumption A] 196
Chapter 7 The Reflective Theory of Self-Deception 205
1. Approaching an Alternative Intentionalist Account 206
2. Self-Deceiving Intentions and Professed Beliefs: A Solution to 214
the Static Problem
3. Self-Deception and Self-Awareness: A Solution to the Dynamic 224
Problem
4. An Objection to the Simple Solution: The Non-Iterative Account 243
of Self-Deception
5. Self-Deception and Representationalism 253
Chapter 8 Conclusion: Self-Awareness and Self-Deception 257
Bibliography 261
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1
Introduction: Self-Awareness and Self-Deception
The idea that is articulated and defended in this thesis is relatively simple. It may be expressed, in
two parts, as follows. First, if we eschew deflationary accounts of self-deception and accept that
self-deception properly so-called exists, then we must accept that self-deception exists for a subject
who is reflectively aware of her self-deceit. And second, this ‘reflective theory’ of self-deception
is defensible. In this chapter, I shall try to introduce this idea in a manner that is as informal as my
subject-matter will allow.
1. Self-Deception
To begin with, I need to clarify the expression used above: ‘self-deception properly so-called’. In
the usual sense of the term ‘deception’, the deceiver must intend to deceive the deceived. She must
deceive on purpose. I may mislead you into believing that the safe is locked by misremembering,
through tiredness, that I locked the safe, but I do not thereby deceive you. My misleading you is a
mistake on my part, nothing more. To deceive you, I must intend to deceive you. Furthermore, at
least in the typical case, in my deceiving you I shall have some further end in view. For example,
I shall tell you that the safe is locked in order that I may later return to steal its contents.
Hence, by parity, to self-deceive I must do so purposefully. I must intend to self-deceive. But
also, to self-deceive I must be both deceiver and deceived. And it is with these two putative facts,
prima facie simple and uncontentious, that the problems begin. As a means to introducing some of
these problems, consider the following example.
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Richard, an interviewee, confidently enters the interview room to meet the hiring committee.
However, he emerges with a very different perspective. Meeting his partner’s expectant gaze, he
disarms it: the job would, he says, require too much time away from home and too much driving.
To the objection that he had already agreed these were minor problems, Richard suddenly cites
new evidence (his not liking early mornings, etc.) and new interpretations of old evidence which
purportedly increase its evidential weight. He might sustain this behaviour for some time, or
quickly see it for what it is beneath his partner’s knowing look. For his partner knows only too well
(what he, more soberly, later acknowledges) that he is ‘self-deceiving’. In truth, he has given a
poor interview, and knows it.
Here two factors are central. First, Richard’s behaviour is, seemingly, purposeful. Seemingly,
he does not accidentally stumble upon this new ‘evidence’. He embraces it in order to avoid an
unpleasant truth. Seemingly, then, his self-deceit is intended. Second, he is not engaged in pretence.
At least seemingly, he presents himself – to himself and his partner – as believing what he later
acknowledges is a ‘lie’. A mere pretence does not bring with it such apparent conviction.
I take it as a given that the existence of such and similar phenomena cannot credibly be denied.
What is problematic is describing them as cases of self-deception. Philosophers have been
motivated to ‘deflate’ examples of this kind – that is, to reject descriptions which posit the act as
being either an intended act, or an act that is literally performed by the agent on herself, or both,
and to insist on some other description of the act that will be free from the problems of the initial
description. As to what these problems are, two puzzles are typically singled out as forming the
core.
First, it is hard to get past the fact that, if I intend to self-deceive, then I must surely be aware of
the contents of my intention. In that case, is not the game already up? If I have access to the contents
of my intention, then I must surely see through my projected self-deceit from the outset. The
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situation seems analogous to my telling you, in the above example, that the safe is locked and that
my saying so is a lie. Clearly, if I want to deceive you, that would be self-defeating. To deceive
you, I must mask my lie; I must present it to you as truthful. It is, then, at least problematic to see
how a lie to myself could get off the ground, because it is hard to see how I could mask this lie
from myself. Following Mele (1997, 2001), it is common to term this problem the Dynamic
Problem of self-deception.
A second, related difficulty is this. If self-deception is modelled on other-deception, then it
seems that we shall have to explain how a subject can sustain contradictory beliefs. Seemingly, in
his capacity as the deceiver, he believes not-P; yet in his capacity as the deceived, he believes P.
In terms of the above example: seemingly, in his capacity as the deceiver, Richard believes that he
wants the job; yet in his capacity as the deceived, he believes that he does not want the job. Granting
that the deceiver is the deceived, we face the problem of explaining how Richard can
simultaneously believe that he wants the job while believing that he does not want the job. If we
accept that the self-deceiver does believe P, while believing not-P, we must explain why he acts on
P (rather than not-P), when he does, and conversely. We must also explain why he does not put
those beliefs together. For he cannot believe the contradiction, ‘P and not-P’. Following Mele
(1997, 2001), it is common to term this problem the Static Problem of self-deception.
Within analytical philosophy, I do not think that there is such a thing as an entrenched position
that most accept as by-and-large solving the problems of self-deception. There are many distinct
positions, and the problem itself is often treated in a piecemeal way – markedly, I stress, with many
contributions either paying scant attention, or no attention at all, to the problems of self-awareness
that I raise in the opening chapters.
Having said that, I think it is fair to say that, within analytic philosophy, deflationism in some
form or other has been the preferred route to follow. Philosophers have largely agreed that the
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