Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-9b74x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-09T09:49:41.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Self-Deception and Confabulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William Hirstein
William Hirstein*
Affiliation:
Elmhurst College
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Elmhurst College, 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, IL 60126.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cases in which people are self-deceived seem to require that the person hold two contradictory beliefs, something which appears to be impossible or implausible. A phenomenon seen in some brain-damaged patients known as confabulation (roughly, an ongoing tendency to make false utterances without intent to deceive) can shed light on the problem of self-deception. The conflict is not actually between two beliefs, but between two representations, a ‘conceptual’ one and an ‘analog’ one. In addition, confabulation yields valuable clues about the structure of normal human knowledge-gathering processes.

Information

Type
Philosophy of Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S418 - S429
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bear, David M. (1979), “Personality Changes Associated with Neurologic Lesions”, in Lazare, A. (ed.), Textbook of Outpatient Psychiatry. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.Google Scholar
Cabeza, Roberto, Kapur, Shitji, Craik, Fergus I. M., McIntosh, Anthony, Houle, Sylvain, and Tulving, Endel (1997), “Functional Neuroanatomy of Recall and Recognition: A PET Study of Episodic Memory”, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 9: 254–265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Churchland, Patricia S. and Ramachandran, V.S. (1993), “Filling In: Why Dennett is Wrong”, in Dahlbom, Bo (ed.), Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Press, 28–52.Google Scholar
Dalla Barba, Gianfranco (1993), “Different Patterns of Confabulation”, Cortex 29: 567–581.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1985), The Social Brain. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1995), “Principles of Human Brain Organization Derived From Split-Brain Studies”, Neuron 14: 217–228.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirstein, William S. and Ramachandran, V.S. (1997), “Capgras Syndrome: A Novel Probe for Understanding the Neural Representation of the Identity and Familiarity of Persons”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 264: 437–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joseph, Rhawn (1996), Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Clinical Neuroscience. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkens.Google Scholar
Mele, Alfred R. (1987), Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mercer, Brian, Wapner, W., Gardner, H., and Benson, Frank (1977), “A Study of Confabulation”, Archives of Neurology 34: 429–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pears, David (1984), Motivated Irrationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V.S. (1993), “Filling in Gaps in Logic: Some Comments on Dennett”, Consciousness and Cognition 2: 165–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramachandran, V.S. (1995), “Anosognosia in Parietal Lobe Syndrome”, Consciousness and Cognition 4: 22–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ramachandran, V.S. and Gregory, Richard L. (1991), “Perceptual Filling In of Artificially Induced Scotomas in Human Vision”, Nature 350: 699–702.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ramachandran, V.S. and Hirstein, Willam (1997), “Three Laws of Qualia: What Neurology Tells Us About the Biological Functions of Consciousness”, The Journal of Consciousness Studies 4: 429–457.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. (1983), Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperry, Roger W. (1985), “Consciousness, Personal Identity, and the Divided Brain”, in Benson, D. F. and Zaidel, Eran (eds.), The Dual Brain: Hemispheric Specialization in Humans. New York: Guilford, 11–25.Google Scholar
Sperry, Roger. W., Zaidel, Eran, and Zaidel, Dahlia (1979), “Self Recognition and Social Awareness in the Deconnected Minor Hemisphere”, Neuropsychologia 17: 153–166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tulving, Endel. (1983), Elements of Episodic Memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ungerleider, Leslie G. and Mishkin, Mortimer (1982), “Two Cortical Visual Systems”, in Ingle, D. J., Goodale, Melvin A., and Mansfield, R. J. W. (eds.), Analysis of Visual Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 549–586.Google Scholar