In this essay, I defend the following two claims: (1) reflective, critical reasoning is essential to the process of self‐deception; and (2), the process of self‐deception involves a certain characteristic error of self‐knowledge. By appeal to (1) and (2). I hope to show that we can adjudicate the current dispute about the nature of self‐deception between those we might term “traditionalists,” and those we might term “deflationists.”
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.