Philosophy
Current Students: Undergraduates
Directed Independent Study
PHI9XA - Self-Deception
Electives
Electives are modules of Directed Independent Study. The work you do on such modules is ‘directed’ in the sense that guidance is provided by staff taking the module. However, the aim is that students should research independently on a topic or series of topics. The guidance is designed to encourage and assist you in this and provide you with feedback on your ideas.Self-Deception
It is easy to deceive others but how can we deceive ourselves when we are both the deceiver and the deceived? If self-deception, is conceived on the model of intentionally deceiving another, how is such deception possible? If it is not then what are we to make of the phenomenon that is, perhaps misleadingly, called self-deception. These and other questions lead on to wider considerations concerning rationality, belief, and self-knowledge.
Coordinator Alan Millar
Room A69, Phone: x7966,
Teaching
There will be five two-hour meetings (roughly fortnightly). Classes take the form of interactive group tutorials, rather than the usual diet of lectures and seminars.
Reading
A good starting point is the Alfred E. Mele’s entry ‘Self-deception’ in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Available on-line.)
This has a bibliography of key works.
Two useful collections of articles are:
Brian P. McLaughlin & Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception. (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1988).
Jean-Pierre Dupuy (ed.), Self-deception and Paradoxes of Rationality. (Stanford, CA.: CSLI Publications, 1998).
For a defence of the possibility of intentional self-deception see:
Sebastian Gardner, Irrationality and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Assessment
Coursework only - 2 assignments. Titles and submission dates to be discussed with, and approved by, the module coordinator.
For further information about this module please contact Alan Millar