A lack of hard evidence for an extermination order by Hitler has contributed to a controversy that divides Holocaust historians into "intentionalists" and "functionalists." ❋ Unknown (2008)
According to strong representationalists (in Klein's terminology, intentionalists), this content is purely descriptive. ❋ Aydede, Murat (2009)
Another strategy employed by intentionalists is the division of the self into psychological parts that play the role of the deceiver and deceived respectively. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Some intentionalists reject the requirement that self-deceivers hold contradictory beliefs (Talbott 1995; Bermúdez 2000). ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Non-intentionalists are impressed by the static and dynamic paradoxes allegedly involved in modeling self-deception on intentional interpersonal deception and, in their view, the equally puzzling psychological models used by intentionalists to avoid these paradoxes, such as semi-autonomous subsystems, unconscious beliefs and intentions and the like. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Non-intentionalists respond that what distinguishes wishful thinking from self-deception is that self-deceivers recognize evidence against their self-deceptive belief whereas wishful thinkers do not (Bach 1981; Johnston 1988), or merely possess, without recognizing, greater counterevidence than wishful thinkers. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
In general, intentionalists hold that self-deceivers are responsible, since they intend to acquire the self-deceptive belief, usually recognizing the evidence to the contrary. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Why is it, such intentionalists ask, that we are not rendered bias in favor of the belief that p in many cases where we have a very strong desire that p (or anxiety or some other motivation related to p)? ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Some non-intentionalists suppose that self-deceivers recognize at some level that their self-deceptive belief p is false, contending that self-deception essentially involves an ongoing effort to resist the thought of this unwelcome truth or is driven by anxiety prompted by this recognition (Bach 1981; Johnston 1988). ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Some non-intentionalists take this to be a hint that the process by which self-deception is accomplished is subintentional (Johnston 1988). ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Accordingly, non-intentionalists suggest the intentional model be jettisoned in favor of one that takes ˜to be deceived™ to be nothing more than to believe falsely or be mistaken in believing ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Non-intentionalists may respond by claiming that self-deceivers often are aware of the potentially biasing effects their desires and emotions might have and can exercise control over them. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
On this point, there appears to be consensus even among intentionalists that self-deception can and should be accounted for without invoking divisions not already used to explain non-self-deceptive behavior, what Talbott (1995) calls ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Insofar as even the bare intention to acquire the belief that p for reasons not having to do with one's evidence for p seems unlikely to succeed if directly known, most intentionalists introduce temporal or psychological divisions that serve to insulate self-deceivers from the awareness of their deceptive strategy. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
Another objection raised by intentionalists is that deflationary accounts cannot explain the selective nature of self-deception, termed the ˜selectivity problem™ by Bermúdez (1997, 2000). ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
We are but misleading intentionalists, we promise not to eat any more dialectical convolution paste and tell massive fibs. ❋ Unknown (2006)
Other non-intentionalists take self-deceivers to be responsible for certain epistemic vices such as cowardice in the face of fear or anxiety and lack of self-control with respect the biasing influences of desire and emotion. ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
These non-intentionalists allow that phenomena answering to the various intentionalist models available may be possible, but everyday or ❋ Deweese-Boyd, Ian (2008)
I can't speak for other textualists, and some of them will probably disagree with this, but I think that the principle difference between purposivists/intentionalists and formalists/textualists/originalists, whatever definitional word you prefer, is that the textualist is interested in what the text meant to a reasonable person, while an intentionalist is trying to conduct a seance-like reconstruction of how a reasonable legislator might have written a law to achieve their purpose. ❋ Ann Althouse (2006)
Gestationalists, intentionalists, and causalists, on the other hand, may regard cloning as uninteresting from the standpoint of parenthood as such. ❋ Bayne, Tim (2006)
