Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality (Volume 69)

by Jean-Pierre Dupuy (Editor), Donald Davidson (Contributor), Alfred R. Mele (Contributor)

Self-deception is one of the topics that lends itself best to the task of exploring the possibilities of cross-fertilization between 'continental philosophy' and 'analytic philosophy'. Fifty years ago, in Being and Nothingness, Sartre defined the core notion of 'Bad Faith' as lying to oneself. On the other side of the Atlantic, self-deception has become one of the most exciting puzzles in the philosophy of mind, and a number of paradoxes encountered by the theory of rational choice involve that very same notion. One of the objectives is to show that bridges can be thrown over the gap between the two traditions, but also that both of them make self-deception too intrapsychic and suffer from a serious individualistic bias. The conference was intended to explore the intersubjective and social dimensions of self-deception.

Genres: Philosophy

208 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is Professor Emeritus of Social and Political Philosophy at the École Polytechnique, Paris. He is the Director of research at the C.N.R.S. (Philosophy) and the Director of C.R.E.A. (Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée), the philosophical research group of the École Polytechnique, which he founded in 1982. At Stanford University, he is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (C.S.L.I.) and Professor of Political Science. Dupuy also has served as chair of the Ethics Committee of the French High Authority on Nuclear Safety and Security, and was inducted as an Academician into the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences.