While it is one thing that there are abundant examples of self-deception in our common daily life, it is quite another to explain its possibility. This thesis is an attempt to give an analysis of the conceptual, in contradistinction to the psychological, possibility of self-deception, first by analyzing the conceptual structure of self-deception, then by examining four proposed solutions, concluding that they are discardable on various grounds. It is then that the fifth proposed solution is introduced that the core assumption that gives rise to the appearance of a conceptual paradox of self-deception rests on a failure to distinguish between belief and acceptance. The last chapter, in the belief that self-deception is interweaved with desire, endeavors to explicate the conceptual links...[ Read more ]

While it is one thing that there are abundant examples of self-deception in our common daily life, it is quite another to explain its possibility. This thesis is an attempt to give an analysis of the conceptual, in contradistinction to the psychological, possibility of self-deception, first by analyzing the conceptual structure of self-deception, then by examining four proposed solutions, concluding that they are discardable on various grounds. It is then that the fifth proposed solution is introduced that the core assumption that gives rise to the appearance of a conceptual paradox of self-deception rests on a failure to distinguish between belief and acceptance. The last chapter, in the belief that self-deception is interweaved with desire, endeavors to explicate the conceptual links between the two, hinting at possibility that it is the identification a self-deceiver has with what he values that engenders such irrationality, of which self-deception is one of the most important species.