At “Permanent Risk”: Reasoning and Self‐Knowledge in Self‐Deception

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.”