Is Rudy money hungry and starved for fame so much that he could be working for the other side?

I mean, it doesn't seem like he's provided much help in the legal sense to Trump. In the public domain, maybe so, but public opinion will not be what decides Trump's guilt or innocence.

Well, I could envision many cases where it would be, and many where it would not. But yeah, sometimes it's easier on the person to not know they way things are.

The irony here is that all the defenses that are being bandied about are conspiracy theories. That being said, why does it seem so hard for Trump supporters to acknowledge the evidence which points more and more to an actual conspiracy?

Collusion isn't a crime for the president or the campaign. That's a legal term in the arena of price/wage fixing. Conspiracy against the United States most certainly is. The press jumped on the term "collusion" early on, and have never really corrected it. May be better if they don't.

Indict them both if they are both guilty.

Or it could seem like an argument... no trick at all.

Point taken. Good one at that.

:wink:

Much ambiguity in the language of "influencing an election"...

Steele was no longer an agent? I thought the law was against receiving something of value from some specified foreign entity. If Steele needed to be a British agent at the time, and he was not, then she's in the clear, but if it applies to any foreign agent whether current or not...

Cause and effect does not necessarily negate one's ability to choose what sorts of influence one wants.

If anything monogamy is unnatural. If being moral equate to being natural, then... That would have a lot of unacceptable consequences.

Didn't Clinton hire a foreign national?

:yikes:

Attempting to find out what would be a bit more congenial to your taste's creativesoul --

I think awareness through time is doing most of the work in making the concept of lying to oneself coherent, for me. Just as I can flip my awareness in a moment from the thoughts I am having to my fingers, to my memories, to my feelings it seems to me that a flip in awareness could happen from two halves of myself. So where I do agree with you is that the part of myself that is lying could not misrepresent their own thoughts and trick themselves -- there is a need for some kind of a division for trickery to be successful on this model, because you have to be aware of the trick if you're setting out to trick someone. Like a three card monte player knows how to replace a card without someone observing, they couldn't do so to themselves.

So I'm tracking with you on that. For me the flip in awareness is what's important -- so at one point we are aware of the trick, and at the other point we are not. For something like three card monte, where we have concrete points of reference in our literal hands this would be pretty extreme, though maybe possible. But for something a bit more abstract, like knowledge of myself, it doesn't seem so extreme to me because we aren't perfectly transparent to ourselves.

Since we aren't perfectly transparent to ourselves it actually becomes rather easy to lie to ourselves because the trick lies in what is actually a very plausible belief: "I am not transparent to myself" -- so if I come across something that I'd term inconvenient for myself, all I need do is remind myself that I am not transparent to myself and suddenly what was inconvenient becomes questionable.


That's why it makes sense for me, at least. Where in this line of reasoning does something just balk as unnacceptable to you? My guess is you'd just say this is not lying. But if I both believe P and ~P -- because I did, after all, come across something inconvenient -- then that seems to fit perfectly with the notion of lying, or tricking myself. In fact it seems like in order for me to intentional trick myself I would have to believe both, since to be intentional about the lie I'd have to believe P and want myself to believe ~P, then convince myself of ~P -- without changing the original belief.

Whereas to be mistaken would just be to believe something that is false, or to believe something that is true but for bad reasons. — Moliere

It seems that this hinges upon the notion of being transparent to ourselves.

On my view, one always knows whether or not they believe what they say. That is, one always know whether they believe it, do not believe it, or are uncertain.

Seems to me that you've offered an account of one developing contradictory beliefs.

Your argument appears to be:
1: Self-deception only makes sense if it makes sense for one person A to act deceitfully towards a person B, where A and B are the same person.
2: It does not make sense for one person A to act deceitfully towards person B, where A and B are the same person.
3: Therefore, modus tollens, self-deception does not make sense.

To support (2), the model of A being deceitful towards B regarding some proposition P, goes along the following lines
a) A knowingly believes that not-P.
b) B's own interests are best served by knowingly believing that not-P.
c) A knowingly believes that his (A's) intentions/wishes are best served by having B knowingly believe that P.
c) A acts intentionally in order that B should knowingly believe that P.

So we end up, if the deceitful behaviour is successful, with A knowingly believing that not-P and B knowingly believing that P at one and the same time. This is not possible where A and B are one and the same person.
(Note that we are talking about A being deceitful to B, not A merely deceiving B.)

That seems right, and so (2) is a true premise.
But this leaves conditional (1) undefended and Srap Tasmaner and I have been suggesting that self-deception should not be modelled on one person being deceitful to another. That part of the argument you have not yet established. As far as I recall, it came down to intuitions about what you/I/Srap would or would not call cases of self-deception. — jkg20

That's close, but not quite the argument...

Lying to another is deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief to another. Lying to oneself would be deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief to oneself. One always knows if s/he believes something, doesn't believe something, or are uncertain whether or not s/he believes something. Thus, one cannot deliberately misrepresent one's own thought and belief to oneself.

Strictly speaking, I shouldn't say 'nonsense' if I mean incoherent, unintelligible, or self-contradictory. Whether or not something is sensible(in this context) isn't determined by being coherent. It's determined by common use. The notion of self-deception and lying to oneself is often used in common talk.

Her argumentative 'style' is akin to my own... criterion... criterion... criterion...

To me it seems less that she is interested in interiority as much as she is interested in the legal protections afforded to personal claims on identity. It's a question of political philosophy more than it is a question of mind or metaphysics or epistemology. yes? — Moliere

The possible political consequences to her are negative. She says early on that that is the reason she's arguing against this particular notion of gender identity, and she argues for the problematic consequences at the end...

Being wrong is not equivalent to lying. Being wrong about oneself is not equivalent to lying to oneself.

The notion of 'self'-deception is nonsense. I've already adequately argued for that without subsequent valid criticism.

Because you can intentionally tell yourself a lie, and then become unaware of said action. I'd say I agree with unenlightened's examples above -- we can have an image we want to conform to, realize we are not like the image, and then tell ourselves "But really, deep down inside, I am like that image" and then have our awareness flip such that we are no longer aware that we intentionally deceived ourselves. — Moliere

This is presupposing exactly what needs argued for. Care to address the arguments I've given for how and why one cannot deceive oneself and one cannot lie to oneself? I think I've directly addressed all you've said here. I certainly intended to.

Which is an example of conforming to an image. Is it impossible to convince oneself that one likes football, or gurls, or shaving, or fighting, because one more desperately wants to conform than to be 'true to oneself'? Surely, it happens all the time? — unenlightened

Surely. I'm confident that neither 'self-deception' nor 'lying to oneself' is the best way to describe these situations though. I mentioned one earlier... the homosexual. We all adopt our initial worldview, and that includes much, if not most, of our own original 'self' image.

Here we see the inherent problem with the notion of self. I'm certain we all agree here. The self is largely delineated by others.

One's beliefs change over time. This can certainly result in having contradictory beliefs that weren't there before. We don't think about all our beliefs at the same time. It(maintaining coherency) takes a lot of work when one begins to look at the world differently...

That's normal. If one holds contradictory belief, they usually do not face one another in one's thought. That usually takes an other. Always actually, but that would get into how thinking about thought and belief requires language.

Why call this lying to oneself if it shares nothing with lying to another? If you're going with my notion of what counts as lying, it just doesn't work...

But if we can be in self-contradiction, then we can also be in self-contradiction about our beliefs. So we might just ignore it, which is something like what I believe jkg20 is saying. But we can also form a further belief, a belief that the two are not in self-contradiction. So we can believe that "A and B do not contradict" as well as believe that "A and B do contradict" -- since we can believe contradictory things. — Moliere

We can believe contradictory things. We cannot acknowledge that they are and believe that they are not in the same breath.

I feel that's irritating.

"I feel that's irritating" is true. But is the feeling of irritation true? No. But it is a part of the mind. So if the entire mind is belief, then surely there are non-cognitive beliefs. — Moliere

All thought and belief consist of correlations drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself. The 'feeling' of irritation is no different. The statement sets out the connection to oneself(the irritation) and the 'object'(that).

So if we can have or hold conflicting beliefs -- ignore cognitive dissonance, as you put it -- then we can both know that two beliefs are in conflict, and believe they are not in conflict. Because both of those beliefs, too, are in conflict, yet we can hold conflicting beliefs, so.... what's the problem?

It goes against common sense. But here it seems you're admitting that common sense is wrong? — Moliere

Ignoring the self-contradiction is not believing there is none. It's neglecting to address it, or believing it's unimportant.

What is it like to be a woman/man?

Do all women feel the same way about themselves? Men? Do they all share the same beliefs?

Looks like the entire enterprise is based upon gross overgeneralization.

If more than one answer is acceptable, then...

It does not follow from the fact that we've been wrong about some things that we've been wrong about everything. Your argument here demands that to be the case. Assumes it, actually.

If it was foul it was not a home run. If it was a home run it was not foul. Not interestes in gamesmanship. I've shown you the error in your thinking.

I am committed to some belief. I come to believe something that is in conflict with this other belief. Here I can be honest with myself, realize that these two beliefs are not compatible, and try and think through that conflict and resolve it in some way. Or I can be dishonest with myself, act out of fear, and tell myself that the beliefs are not in conflict. — Moliere

If you know that they are in conflict, then you cannot believe that they are not.

However I might accomplish this -- it seems that this dishonesty is really what lying to yourself is all about. You aren't coming to terms with a conflict in beliefs, but rather accepting both beliefs in spite of having the niggling realization that they are in conflict. So you misrepresent your beliefs -- or meta-beliefs? -- by saying they can get along fine. Your commitment and your new belief that said commitment is somehow erroneous (not necessarily false) and your belief that they are not in conflict are all somehow simultaneously preserved. It seems a mental feat which would result in conflict of the self, and indeed I'd say that this is the case -- which really only makes sense if different parts of the self can actually be in conflict, which is easily understood if the mind is divided.

The mind is divided. However, it is still one mind. It is divided in terms of having/holding conflicting beliefs. Your example is one of cognitive dissonance being ignored. Very common practice hereabouts and everywhere I've ever been.

Lying is dishonest/insincerity. Being insincere is precisely what one is doing when being dishonest(when lying). Both point towards what's going on when one is deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief. So, there's no difference on my view between 'being dishonest with oneself' and 'lying to oneself'. Both are poor uses of language stemming from misconceptions. They hamper understanding.

So let's just stick with unenlightened's notion of commitment. — Moliere

I've already argued for why commitment alone is inadequate.

I am fine with your notion of lying. So lying, rather than merely being mistaken, is when you deliberately misrepresent your own belief to yourself. Merely being mistaken is holding a false belief. Since falsity isn't in the notion of lying the two don't even have to relate. — Moliere

This is incorrect. Truth/falsity is in the notion of lying. It's just that the lie(what's being said as opposed/compared to what's believed) can be either. On the face of it even it's more than obvious that being mistaken and lying are related. They both require belief.

We may deliberately misrepresent some true or false belief to ourselves, just depending upon what we believe.

That's what I'm rejecting, and have argued for without subsequent refutation. On my view, just saying it isn't enough. Can you argue for this?

By removing truth, in fact, there is a lot more wiggle room here -- the beliefs need not even have a factual component (EDIT: Or even be truth-apt). They merely need to be misrepresented to ourselves.

Removing truth from the notion of thought and belief? Cannot be done. All thought and belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line. The notion of being "truth-apt" is misleading at best. All thought and belief can be either. It's only as a result of their being inadequately represented in speech that makes it seem like some are not.

Thought I'd make it easier...

One cannot be tricked into believing something if they know both how they're being tricked, and that they're being tricked.

One who is performing the trickery knows both how and that they're doing it.

One cannot know how and that one is tricking him/herself and not know how and that one is tricking oneself(how and that it's being done).

The same applies to deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief to oneself. It's just plain common sense. It's not at all difficult to grasp.

I'm not sure why it is impossible to deliberately misrepresent one's own belief to oneself. — Moliere

It's been explained and argued for several times over. I'm sure if you really want to know why I hold that view, you'll go back and see for yourself.

All thought and belief is meaningful and presupposes truth. Mind consists in part at least(entirely on my view) of thought and belief(mental correlations). That's how truth and meaning belong here as well.

There's something to be gleaned, I think, by looking at the list of top Trump folk who have not been interviewed. Trump, Jr, Erik, Bianca, Kushner, etc. The lack of interview could indicate being targeted.

Devon Nunez is the chair of the House oversight committee. He took evidence from the campaign investigation to the candidate whose campaign was being investigated during the investigation. His committee didn't ask any relevant questions into the investigation, and/ refused to allow others(lower ranking members) to ask such questions and/or follow-ups. The witnesses were permitted to not answer questions without subsequent action.

What counts as obstruction? Has he been interviewed by the Mueller team?

Taking another stab in a different vein...

So, there's two basic notions to consider with self-deception. The first is what is the or a 'self'. The second is what counts as deception.

There is no self without others. What one comes to think about oneself comes largely via language acquisition. We learn how to talk and thus think about the world and/or ourselves through language use. We adopt our first world-view in this way. However, it can be the case that one's innate personality/character is different in remarkable ways than what s/he has learned is acceptable within and to their immediate familial and/or social surroundings.

For example, one may be attracted to the same sex while being raised in a social setting where such a thing is condemned. All humans are interdependent social creatures by our very nature, and the need to feel accepted and/or fit into a larger peer group is evidently a strong one. If one's social group does not accept homosexuality, then one who is attracted to members of the same sex has to suppress any and all behaviours that may cause others to view them in a negative way.

Here, if the self is determined by others' moral values/beliefs about how things ought be, then one who would otherwise be prone to engage in homosexual behaviours and thoughts must alter the way they act and talk in order to conform and be accepted.

But is that who they are or who others think that they should be?

If one within such a situation were to intentionally suppress any and all homosexual thought as a means of self-discipline with the goal of fitting in, then their notion of self would be in conflict with who they would otherwise have been.

I suppose it's possible that one continue offering the same lie about themselves to others so often that they themselves begin to believe the lie. Unintentionally. Deception requires intent. Being wrong is accidental. Being wrong about oneself is accidental.

Gettier gets believing a disjunction wrong. That's all his second case amounts to, nothing more. His first case is an example of his changing the truth conditions of Smith's belief when he invokes "the man with ten coins in his pocket"... unacceptable change.

Anyway, the OP here seems a bit lost.

On the nature of abetting...

Yeah, pretty good.

That's a great piece! Brilliantly worded analogy.

Yeah, I'm all good for leaving politics out of the particular points raised. I just found it interesting... your word choice, I mean.